I thoroughly enjoyed this “walk in the woods.” The oil is a puzzle. The plan was to make a painting about reds, but to make it interesting, a lot of moves are made to support the reds and make something engaging.

This is a more abstract depiction than I have done in the past and it afforded me more leeway in combining a large array of colors. There is very little here that represents a stand of trees in an accurate way, but the tree trunks and the light coming through are all that is needed for us to recognize those familiar forest patterns.

The colors are not that believable and that’s the point. The difficult part is to make all of those colors come together in an agreeable way and yet, still allow for a challenging piece of art. Perhaps this oil is like a long work of music with separate movements, each having a different effect on the mind. There is the calm and simple, the bold and louder where each is held together within a theme. This painting has the visual flow of warm colors mixing and repeating much like musical chords.

Now that the painting is finished I reflect on these things a bit more, but during the creation of this oil my concern was the purposeful application of hundreds of brushstrokes in order to bring the work to a satisfying conclusion.

It is enjoyable to see this work and to even have it hang in my home for a time, but I do miss working on this oil day after day and having that dialogue with a colorful friend. For that reason, I’ll do more in this series. This oil is the first and I’m looking forward to continuing the conversation.