Yep, These Are Paintings. Trees On A Line by Trey Friedman.

Trey Friedman's most recent series of paintings, Trees On A Line, was inspired by a particular tree lined road in rural Connecticut which he isolated to 170 trees he routinely returned to render and observe.

Aerial photo of the trees:


The straight half mile stretch of farmland consisted mostly of of Sugar Maple trees, which the property owner estimates average an age of 150 years with some as old as 250 years.

Numbered photos of the trees:


Beginning in 2004, he began to paint the trees in oil, one by one. Inspired by William Beckman and Chuck Close, he co-opted dead-center compositions and in his words " exchanged the egocentrism of human self-portraiture for the ego centrism of arboreal portraiture."



From life, drawings, oil sketches and photos, Trey transferred an initial drawing, using a grid as a guide, laying in paint square by square with a tiny brush on smooth primed canvas or cradled woodboard panels.

Grid Sketches:

and next to the final art (shown larger later in the post):


Charcoal Drawings and studies:


Averaging 24 x 32 inches, the paintings are rendered in a photographically realist manner. After three months of drying, Trey applied one to five layers of color glazes (with two weeks time between each glaze) to get the light and texture just right.

It's hard to believe the following are paintings and not photographs:













Trey Friedman is represented by Gallery Henoch.

77 Of The Coolest Backpacks You'll Ever See. Eastpak's Artist Designed Bags For Charity.

above and below: the unique artist designed Easpak bags range from goth and edgy to playful.


I once thought Eastpak was just a bunch of utilitarian nylon backpacks and bags, but boy was I wrong. I had not been aware of their numerous collaborations with artists or their huge selection of uniquely designed and patterned bags.

But most interesting is their Eastpak Artist's Studio in which 77 of the most creative personalities from eight different countries (one continent) were selected to produce original creations from a number of limited edition 'blank' EASTPAK bags. The bags were available to bid upon with the proceeds from each donated to various charities.

The artists were selected from different backgrounds and include painters, sculptors and poets as well as musicians, graffiti artists and television personalities. Below I have shown all of the bags and called out some of my personal favorites from each country.

Spain:






Belgium:




Netherlands:




Germany:




Greece:






Italy:




UK:



Hong Kong:






EASTPAK is proud to support this select group of artists and the communities that feed their inspiration. All proceeds of sales of these one-of-a-kind creations were be donated to a local charity organisation in each participating country.

Other Eastpak Designer Collaborations:
In addition to the Artist's Studio project, they have also had collaborations with prominent designers as Raf Simons, Quinze and Milan, Christopher Shannon, Eley Kishimoto Ed Banger and Gaspard Yurkievich and Antoine Peters.

For availability please check eastpak.com.