New Work: Fall Arrayed Oil on canvas 30 x 40

Fall Arrayed
Oil on canvas, 30 x 40 inches

This canvas was started six years ago, perhaps more. I couldn't get the hang of it at the time. It didn't have much going for it and I didn't have any stimulating ideas to move forward with. It was in a stack of potentially OK canvases that I keep close by.

Fortunately, we grow as artists. So from time to time, I would go through that stack of unfinished oils with a more experienced eye. Occasionally I would spot an oil that I could move forward with.

In this case, it was a simple matter of adding more slope. The original version was too flat. There are a lot of trees represented here and they all had the same shape. So I began to round off a number of them and at the same time I was using a variety of colors, making the oranges, golds and green more complex. Other trees became a line of smaller shapes in the far background against the sky.

I kept trying new blues, pinks and purples in the sky - not completely covering each color until I got an interesting, glowing result. Behind the trees I did the same with the blues, making more iridescence in the dark shadows. That really set off the brighter trees in the foreground.

As I was working on the other parts of the canvas, I was using color on color combinations to the foreground as well. At times the ground was brighter, so I took the trees further, etc. I simply kept trying strategies that made the painting more interesting and powerful.

30 x 40 oils are like small sketches to me, but this oil packs a punch. I'm going to consider a much larger versionv