Maple (Acer rubrum)

My drawing is of a maple tree, one of two I planted in 2009 alongside a rock wall I had built at the same time at my house in Deer Isle, Maine. The trees came from a nearby nursery; the rocks from an old, dead well which, when dug out, had been lined with granite boulders. The trees are deciduous, different in form and color from the evergreens that fill the woodlands of the island. The rocks, a natural outcrop of an all granite island.

The two maples provide shade, cast out in a large swath. At the height of summer—like the shingled roof over the house—their leaves create shadows over the grass, the wall, and the lawn.