A Bevy of Birches

May 31, 2026

Chiaroscuro ©Kesler Woodward 2026 Oil on canvas 40″ x 30″

It’s the end of May. The sun, so wan and low for months, is high in the sky and strong, and the trees in the northern forest suddenly look robust, bursting with life. After nearly seven months of the coldest winter in Fairbanks’ recorded history, their dramatic appearance in this light has captivated me again. In my almost fifty years in the North, I can’t remember being more struck by their sensual beauty than this spring. One day in mid-March when the spring sun was just starting to be strong enough to cast sharp shadows, I was struck by the figured trunk of a young birch tree just off our front steps. I went to my studio and painted Spring Light, the small birch portrait in my last, late-March post.

Two more small canvases rapidly followed, each featuring bark that seemed to be unfurling, gathering that burgeoning light.

Flasher ©Kesler Woodward 2026 and Spring Glory ©Kesler Woodward 2026 acrylic on canvas 20″ x 10″ each

I was by that time telling myself that it was time to paint other things, but in the weeks after, I found myself in the studio working on another, larger trunk portrait, with bark so florid that I named it Baroque Birch.

Sharp eyes might notice in my captions for these images that the newest and largest of these recent paintings, Chiaroscuro, is oil on canvas, while the others are acrylic on canvas. I go back and forth between the two mediums, which feel very different as I paint, but the difference in appearance once dry (the oils take a week or more once finished, while the acrylics–even when painted thickly–are dry in minutes) is very subtle. I never know exactly why I’m called to use one or the other, but the impulse is invariably swift and certain.

I think this bevy of birch portraits may be complete, but I won’t know until I have a new canvas on the wall and am about to begin.