When you grow up in the same county as the Sequoia Gigantea, you tend to call these guys “big trees”.

That is sort of a Duh thing, but maybe we are a little duh-ish in Tulare County.

As a graduate of Redwood High School, you’d think I’d call them “Redwoods”. But Noooo, I still call them “Big Trees”. (Grow up, already, California Artist.)

Big Tree III, 6×18″, commissioned oil painting

Sometimes I think I am a fake California artist because I am not painting the beach or palm trees, or eucalyptus trees like those California plein air guys from the early (or was it mid?) 1900s.

Then I think – WAIT A DOGGONE MINUTE! Why am I treating Central California as if it is fly-over country, a place unworthy of mention?

Tulare County has the highest point in the contiguous United States, the largest trees by volume in the world, the oldest oaks in the world (I think that is right), and we feed the world!

Take that, you beach bums. I am a California artist, so there. (Hmmm, a small amount of insecurity, perhaps?)