Out of all the pieces in the North Carolina museum of Art, there was one that popped out at me the most. I have always been fascinated by how artists manage to take a simple medium and transform it on a canvas into something that looks life like, almost as if you could walk straight into it. In John Beerman's painting (oil on linen) Three Trees, Two Clouds, he did just that. It is hard to tell if it is a painting or a printed photograph. For my project that I titled Trees in Winter, I used the realistic trees to inspire a series of many trees, each done in different mediums. I tried to make all the trees different in style and shape. The series includes a Christmas tree with snow on it done in acrylic paint, a bare tree in the snow during the winter done in water colors, another bare tree with snow on the branches done in oil pastel, and a palm tree in the sand done in colored pencils. The more I drew/painted these trees, the less it became about making them look realistic and the more it became about focusing on one realistic detail of the tree and making that the most believable part of the project. On the palm tree, it was the fade from the highlight to shadow on the huge leaves. On the Christmas tree, it was the snow that was being held on some of the branches, left over from a previous snow storm. Although the trees, each as a whole, aren't completely realistic or convincing, the one main detail draws in your eye and that is all I wanted.