Grateful notices: At the Pond's Edge, oil on canvas, 48 x 60 inches

At the Pond's Edge, oil on canvas, 48 x 60 inches
Exhibited by: Sorelle Gallery, New Canaan, CT
Video: Ken discusses the making of this oil 

This is a painting that was in progress during three seasons, Fall, Winter and then Spring. Each season was represented here at one time and eventually painted over with the following season. The process was enjoyable and a lot of color work was done but this large oil took up a long studio residence in what seemed like the season of perpetual indecision.

Once Spring appeared in the studio window, green solutions presented themselves. Yes? No? The greens were tried and failed but they did work nicely in the lower portion of the blue trees. Spring with blue trees? In this case yes, and when the blues blended into the greens mentioned earlier, the painting began to come to life.

Add the aqua in the background for more drama and for good measure, the yellow tips catching light at the top of the painting.

In the end, what seemed to make this oil work were the contrasts between the darker trees and the light yellow/greens at the top and bottom. Care was taken to soften the sky and foreground, further increasing the effect of mass in the center trees.

Throughout it all, the oil was telling me what to do and I followed along, not being concerned about the time it was taking.

Grateful Notices: At the Pond's Edge, Emerging Spring, oil on canvas, 48 x 60 inches

At the Pond's Edge, Emerging Spring
Oil on canvas, 48 x 60 Private collection
Exhibited: Sorelle Gallery, New Canaan, CT

I'm drawn to the intersections of sky, land and water and particularly how the trees come into contact with each of those elements. An amazing amount of hours that went into the making of this one. There is a great deal of texture as a result of successive ideas, starts and stops appearing as subsequent layers upon layers. This oil first had an incarnation as an autumn scene but I became enamored with the blues and slowly brought them to prominence, shifting the painting into spring.

This painting is evidence of considerable sessions in the studio with innumerable color experiments and before you know it, a fall painting became spring.

When viewing it close up, it is a painting with literally thousands of lace-like marks with each color uniquely contributing to the whole. Everything is done with restraint and a light touch.  The end result is a line of trees with substantial mass.

Except for the base of the trees, all of the foliage and sky edges are delicate and barely there with the early spring light diffused everywhere.

My thanks to the collector that took this home.