New Work: Aglow in Purple, oil on canvas 40 x 40 inches

Aglow in Purple, oil on canvas 40 x 40 inches
Arden's Gallery, Houston, TX

For a couple of years I had a canvas in the corner of the studio with a start that never went anywhere. There were trees on the left and right, but it just wasn’t working and the composition needed a fresher start.

So, I declared that today was the day, as I put the canvas on the easel. and after some study, I made a simple plan. The idea was to use a lot of greens and make something interesting from that poor start. Different compositions were tried but nothing clicked until I added the purples to the center of the scene. It was an experiment, but once that color made contact with the canvas, everything else just fell into place. Soon I was tuning the other colors to accommodate that far purple. All was going well.

Not really.

After putting the oil away for a couple of days and bringing it into the studio again, it was lacking something. Again, just to see what would happen, I put in a few bright lime notes up in the trees and then the birds sang.

I really enjoy going for the unexpected result. Big thrills await!