For several years, I’ve toyed with ideas that visualise a sinewy life model (male or female) in an ancient wood, taking up poses inspired by veteran trees—in particular veteran and ancient hornbeam, which, by their nature, have smooth, sinewy skin. The trunk and limbs bend and twist into unlikely shapes, which I’ve seen life models do and contemporary dancers, too.
My journey began, should I care to go back far enough (I do), climbing trees first at home in Gosforth (our garden was a small fraction of a landscaped garden of 75-100 years previously). This continued as a boy aged 8-13 climbed the trees on the grounds of Mowden Hall School, particularly a vast Pollard beech I visited earlier this year. Climbing into trees of this girth with a handful of thick finger stems was like being nestled into the palm of a giant, a grandfather Goliath rather than the leathery and hairy paws of King Kong.
Not more than three years later, under my artist mother teacher’s tuition, I’m doing an art A-level alongside my three ‘proper’ A-levels, which the school permitted. My mother, always the one who took us to visit art galleries, exhibitions and museums, had me referencing Raphael. He was one of the very few artists I was allowed to copy. She preferred learning from observational drawing, sketching a sculpture in a museum, or a real person: the neighbour’s daughter, plonked in front of the telly, was one candidate; my sister on exam day obliged to sit still for three hours.
Apparently, my ‘B’ grade, according to M, was due to my refusing to submit my best pieces, which I was informed would not be returned. The thought of photographing them in 1979 never struck me as an option. This might mean that I have these drawings and paintings—I don’t. They were submitted; my mum’s pride was hurt that I hadn’t got an ‘A’. Otherwise I’d have them, as my mother’s other sage advise was ‘never throw anything out’. I don’t. I keep all drawings and most of the workings out.
That’s as far as my credentials go, along with regularly getting drawing materials for Christmas growing up and habitually taking a sketchpad, soft pencils, and a putty rubber on holidays. I kept drawing, eventually settling into life drawing at Charleston Farmhouse in 2016 and relief printing at Bip-Art in 2022.
This brings me to the model ‘Dave’, the first life model I drew, and a tree from the ancient woods of Markstakes Common. Rather too boldly, I experimented with male and female life model drawings against a tree backdrop as an early relief print. I tried multiple approaches, non of which proved particularly satisfactory. Experiments were just that – more about doing the technique than producing a worth artwork – that would come later.
Various different executions followed in the garden a couple of summers ago.
Having cut a block, I ran off a load of black and white outlines of ‘model in front of veteran tree’ and then painted them in various ways, seeking a result I could be content with.
Models looking like they’re having a wee on a tree, fornicating with a tree or doing other bizarre things weren’t images favoured to decorate the walls, so I moved on to safe images of trees alone in their own right, ponies, castles and bridges, and then sometimes all these elements together.
I then return to the idea I’ve been aching to express of ‘man carrying the burden of the natural world’ on his shoulders.
Being 2025, I could ask GeniGPT, Adobe and other AI image creation platforms to have a go.
I took to it like any addict or early adopter, and with a variety of progressively precise and detailed prompts. I was armed with a version of print, and I occasionally had results that intrigued and enlightened me.
Here are the prompts I used and the images that were produced:
Atlas Tree
An iconic red Atlas-like sculpture carried the weight of an ancient tree on its back and through its limbs and sinews.
An iconic muscular male life model, outlined in red with his back to us, appears to carry the weight of an ancient white tree on his back against a yellow background.
A male life model, entirely painted red, hands clasped behind his back, bends his sinewed and muscular body forward as if carrying a great weight on his shoulders, mimicking the trunk and boughs of the entirely white ancient Pollard tree in front of him against a yellow background.
From behind, A male life model ballet dancer entirely painted red, hands clasped behind his back, bends his slim, sinewed body forward as if carrying a great weight on his shoulders, mimicking the trunk and boughs of the entirely white ancient Pollard tree in front of him against a yellow background.
From behind and bending forward, his hands clasped, begins his back, a middle-aged male life model stands like a sculpture as if carrying a great weight on his shoulders, his sinewy muscles mimicking the trunk and boughs of the entirely white ancient Pollard tree in front of him against a yellow background.
From behind and bending forward, and painted entirely red, his hands clasped firmly behind his back, a middle-aged male life model stands like a sculpture carrying a great weight on his shoulders his sinewy muscles mimicking the three dimensional ancient trunk and boughs of the entirely white veteran Pollard hornbeam tree in front of him, all against a bright yellow background. Rendered like an early 20th-century three-block relief print.
Closely matching the reference image, show, from behind and bending forward as if he is carrying on his back something large and heavy, and painted entirely red, his hands and fingers clasped firmly behind his back, a middle-aged male life model stands like a sculpture, life-like, his sinewy muscles mimicking the three dimensional ancient trunk and boughs of the entirely white veteran Pollard hornbeam tree in front of him, all against a bright yellow background. Rendered like an early 20th-century three-block relief print.
Closely matching the reference image, show, from behind and bending forward and to his right, as if he is carrying on his back something large and heavy, and painted entirely red, his hands and fingers clasped firmly behind his back, a middle-aged male life model stands like a sculpture, life-like, mimicking the three dimensional ancient trunk and boughs of an entirely white veteran Pollard hornbeam tree in front of him, all against a bright yellow background. Rendered like an early 20th-century Lino three-block relief print on handmade paper.
As above + ‘naked’ – which caused the AI to back off in indignation and prudish incomprehension.
Closely matching the reference image, show, from behind and bending forward and low, and to his right, as if he is carrying on his back something large and heavy, and painted entirely red, his hands and fingers clasped firmly behind his back, a middle-aged male life model stands in a pose, life-like, mimicking the three dimensional ancient trunk and boughs of an entirely white veteran Pollard hornbeam tree in front of him, all against a bright yellow background. Rendered like a Grosvenor School of Modern Art Lino-cut relief print.
Move to GeniGPT.
Then adjust.
Better match the model’s pose, in red, and muscles with the line, lean and bend of the entirely white trunk, stems and branches of the ancient tree in winter. Rendered as a stylised relief print reminiscent of early 20th-century Soviet Posters.
Make the tree and trunk white, the male model entirely red, and the background yellow. Chatter, as if from a bold relief print, is visible. Rendered as a stylised Linocut relief print reminiscent of the Grosvenor School of Printing in the 1930s.
Each iteration got me closer. Some felt theatrical. Others more anatomical. And a few… hit something raw and true. That ache in the shoulders, that weight of the natural world.
A Living Gallery
Over the coming weeks, I’ll be sharing selected outputs from this series—around fifty images in total—tracking how these AI-generated drafts evolve into something carved by hand. Some will be bold and graphic. Others ghostly and gestural. I’ll try collaging them, overlaying chine collé, and eventually cutting again into lino.
This blog will be my studio wall.
Each image will be an invitation: to judge, to question, to remember the trees you’ve known, and the bodies that bore you into them.
What’s Next?
I’ll be annotating images and prints here with brief notes. Sharing side-by-side comparisons of prompts and outputs. Testing overlays using Adobe Express. Blocking out the final version for hand carving.
My aim? To create a three-block relief print—red, yellow and white—bearing both the body and the tree in equal measure.
The working title remains: The Tree Man of the Mother Tree.
Join the Journey
Over the next few weeks, I’ll be adding:
A gallery of image outputs Print tests (inked and proofed) Reflections on tree lore, memory and gesture Updates on the carving and printing process
If you’ve worked with trees, bodies, print, or AI—or all three—I’d love to hear your thoughts. Leave a comment or reach out directly.
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