Trees and how to paint them

I DON'T know how it is, but I can't do trees" is a remark an artist frequently hears; and it is too often justified by the poor and crude attempts at tree painting that accompany it. And to the regretful exclamation perhaps something is added about "want of knack" the "right sort of touch" as though, in order to successfully draw or paint a tree (as distinct from the painting of any other object) some extraordinary gift or sleight of hand were necessary, some special cleverness of manipulation that should enable its possessor to accomplish "tree-work" perhaps without effort, and certainly without very much study.

"I'm very fond of out-door sketching, nothing is so nice; and although I love trees, and have tried to paint them many times, somehow or other I can't manage it," continues the disconsolate artist. This idea of natural inability in regard to tree-painting perhaps becomes in him a settled conviction and he goes floundering on for of course he cannot give up his sketching, blotting in his trees with meaningless and inartistic dabs (which by-and-by become his recipe) and from this very hopelessness, making little or no attempt at reproducing the forms, which, as a matter of fact, he sees quite plainly, and is perfectly conscious of.