I have always been fascinated by trees.

Not only the structure and texture of the tree barks, leaves, their changing colours but also their meaning in stories and tales from long ago.

Trees are significant in many of the world's mythologies, and have been given deep and sacred meanings throughout the ages.

Human beings, observing the growth and death of trees, and the annual death and revival of their foliage, have often seen them as powerful symbols of growth, death and rebirth.

Evergreen trees, which largely stay green throughout these cycles, are sometimes considered symbols of the eternal, immortality or fertility.

The image of the Tree of life or world tree occurs in many mythologies.

This graphic study of the bark of a tree is in A4 and black ink.