Morning Woods, 2006
oil on linen
private collection
I started this painting by sketching in broad color areas first and then drawing the image with an oil stick. It is somewhat like using an oil pastel but it is paint and can be worked over.
Next I began figuring out the light and where it would move, how it would fall and what it would effect. I used white paint to scratch it around knowing it would be covered in the next few stages.
I worked on filling in the woods with different greens much like I create a deep layer of color for my oil pastels. These colors come through the later layers of paint and I knew I wanted some intense green to remain there.
I worked with dark colors for a long time, with different areas being lit and darkened, with colors coming through the paint layers and creating a flow to the ground. I wanted to have a middle area in light also, giving the viewer some place to go.
I kept working, making small changes and adding highlights here and there. I started developing the bright beams of light coming through the trees again. This was an amazing spot in some Northern Michigan woods my sister took me to and I wanted to get the piece to that point of the way I felt when I saw this magical spot.
This final image of the painting has very little different in it, a few shadows created to direct the viewer and a few strokes of color and light to emphasize things I wanted to highlight. Just getting a painting to the point where you want it to go can be an enormous struggle taking days, weeks or even months, but in the end it almost always surprises me when it is suddenly "done."
