The tree that took a team, a thread, … and some questionable drawings

When Anne first contacted Nero, she made a request for a tree made for her dog, Sherlock, who wasn’t well. The tree would sit next to an orb containing his ashes.

That alone made it clear this wasn’t going to be a casual project. What became clear even faster was that this tree was not going to be simple.

The message thread then started. Anne liked how the rocks framed the orb. Good. A solid foundation. But she also really liked the idea of the orb resting in a bed of moss, with the roots or trunk wrapped around it a bit. Not aggressively. Not dramatically. Just enough to feel intentional.

Was that still the plan?

It was now very much the plan.

Quite early on, another requirement appeared: the tree couldn’t just be any tree. It needed to resemble the forests back in Canada, the ones Sherlock loved. This immediately ruled out anything too ornamental, too neat, or too polite. The tree had to feel like it belonged outdoors, slightly wild, like it had opinions about weather.

Then came the questions that sounded small but absolutely were not.

“That shape,” Anne asked, “for the leaves or the trunk?”

A single sentence that launched several rounds of clarification about which part of the tree was being referenced at any given moment.

Anne liked how the trunk interacted with the rock. Not sitting next to it. Not hovering politely nearby. Actually interacting. The tree needed to look like it had grown there naturally, negotiating space with the rock in the same way the whole project was being negotiated through messages.

Then came the leaves.

Two reference photos. One green. One red.

The green tree felt closer to the forests Sherlock loved in Canada – familiar, grounded, recognisable. The red tree, on the other hand, had better flow. More movement. More of that “this feels right but I can’t explain why” energy.

What Anne wanted was, of course, a mix.

The familiarity of the Canadian forest feel from the green tree. The flow and natural feeling of the red one. None of the parts that made either of them not quite right.

Did that make sense?

Somehow, yes.

By this point, the conversation had turned into a steady exchange of messages. Photos were sent. Screenshots were marked up. Arrows appeared. Circles appeared. And then there were the drawings.

Anne sent sketches to help explain what she meant. They were sincere. They were brave. They were also exactly what you’d expect if a five-year-old was asked to draw roots, rocks, moss, and emotional nuance with full confidence.

But… they helped anyway.

Piece by piece, the tree came together. The rocks framed the orb. The moss cradled it. The trunk wrapped just enough. The leaves flowed without losing that slightly wild, Canadian-forest grounding. All the negotiated details finally clicked into place.

As Nero was finishing the piece – final touches, final balance, final adjustments – a message came through.

Sherlock had passed.

The timing was perfect in the most heart-breaking way possible.

This tree, which had been carefully shaped through dozens of small decisions and message exchanges, was no longer for a future moment. It was for now.

Nothing about it was rushed. Nothing felt reactive. It was simply finished exactly when it needed to be.

Sad timing. Right timing.

Nero didn’t set out to make something profound. The aim was accuracy – getting the details right, the feeling right, the balance right.

And in the end, they did.

For Sherlock.