Those of you who live in the mountains are seeing green cones ripening on the pine trees and the needles are beginning to turn a warm, golden shade. My favorite, for cones, is the Sugar Pine tree (Pinus lambertiana) which has cones from 10 to 26 inches long, the longest cones of any American conifer, perhaps in the world. The tree grows 175 to 200 feet tall and 3 to 5 feet in diameter, the tallest American pine, and can be found in the Sierra Nevada and Cascade mountain ranges from western Oregon to Baja California Norte, mostly between 4000-9000 feet in elevation. The sap contains a sugary substance which coats the green cones so thickly that it actually drips down off the tip of the cone while the cones hang like large, glistening ornaments from the branches. Unbelievably spectacular!

I have painted many of these cones over the years with watercolor and acrylic. The single cone pictured is a watercolor of a Sugar Pine Cone and available in giclee print, 16" x 12". The other was painted as a companion piece, Two Jeffrey Cones, and is also available in giclee.

Village Interiors in Christmas Tree Village, Incline Village, Nevada currently has two of my acrylic paintings of cones in their showroom. If you are in the area, stop by to see them.