This drawing depicts the Compton Oak in Williamsburg, Virginia, its immense canopy spreading outward in a dense architecture of limbs, branches, and leaves. A naturally occurring hybrid oak, the tree was discovered near Boush Creek in southeastern Virginia and transplanted to Williamsburg in 1938, where it now stands in Market Square as one of Colonial Williamsburg’s most prominent trees. Rendered in graphite, the drawing lingers over the tree’s complexity—the weight of its great limbs, the irregular rhythms of its branching, and the shifting patterns of light and shadow held within its canopy.
