My Favorite Beech Tree is a heartfelt plein air impressionistic acrylic painting that celebrates the magnificent old beech tree standing sentinel on Don Yaun’s 11½-acre wooded homestead in Buford, Georgia. This 12″ × 16″ work captures the tree’s massive trunk—measuring 11’4″ in circumference just 4 feet up from the base—and its broad, spreading form rising into the canopy. Estimated to have begun life around 1776, the tree is a living witness to over 250 years of history, and Don looks forward to marking its “birthday” this year.
When Don and his wife first moved to the property in the early 1980s and began building their home, they dreamed of creating a pond in the natural depression between hills. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers surveyed the site and recommended a dam location that would have required removing this very beech. Unable to bear the thought of cutting down such a majestic, ancient tree, they quickly abandoned the pond idea. The beech remains, thriving and now appearing in several pieces throughout Don’s Homestead Series of paintings.
Among many beech trees on the property, this one stands out as the largest and most cherished. In 1983, when his son Jeffrey was born, Don carved Jeffrey’s name into its trunk—a quiet family mark that has endured.
This painting, created en plein air in 2024, honors the tree’s wisdom, resilience, and irreplaceable place in the family’s history.