Vermont October

This one of my favorite fall scenes. As  I   created the wet in wet underpainting, I scraped out some birch trees with a palette knife. It is a small painting but a real gem. The reflection of the orange tree in the water leads the eye into the trees. It all happened in a spontaneous way.   I tell my students to let the water and paint do their own thing and step aside. This is hard to do. Life is a little bit like this. Sometimes letting go and realizing everything will fall into place and take its own course is the best way to live.

Exercising the right side of the brain in a big way!

This is the under-painting with the exception of the rocks. I went over the rocks with additional paint and a palette knife.  As a negative painter, I try to have an idea in my mind, or a photo reference to use as a guide when i loosely lay down the shapes and color. This is what I call my road map.  

The final picture above is above is carefully created by carving out shapes. I think trees and bushes but my shapes are made in an intuitive manner without the support of a drawing.