Painting in the Woods – Day One

Enveloping, quiet, vivid, comforting, safe

Wow, one bright yellow green leaf !

Gone

Still

Quivering

Momentary

Restful

Light, gentle

Private

Thoughts on painting in my studio space in the woods.

‘The thingness of the thing.’

1. The feeling tone holds the key to the painting.

2. Content

3. Form, Line, space, color and texture – Do they support the feeling I want?

At the moment of existence, it is what it is.

Feelings ‘predictable. Chances of my feelings at the moment’  Cezanne

Before I left for an invitational painting workshop in Portland, I cut the canvas for vertical trees, but when I stood in the space in the woods my immediate reaction was this is going to be  a square painting. I went with my first thought.  Square – 4 square canvases, which at the end will work as a set of four. At the end of the day, the painting did not look like how I intended it to be, but it did convey my feeling in this space with the sunlight flickering through the trees.

#1 acrylic on canvas 32″ x 32″ unfinished

The next morning the painting looked like it had two eyes looking at me so I painted out one of them. Now the painting is split in half. I’ll continue working on it back in the studio at home.

 An exhibition, Richard Diebenkorn: The Berkeley Years, 1953-1966, is at the de Young Museum. It seems that there is always a prominent vertical line in his paintings, even more so than his horizontal lines. I just noticed that my transitions from picture or blog has verticals, not intentional – just think it is interesting.