Texas Summer Sunset

Texas Summer Sunset
9" x 12"
oil on linen board

This is the view from the middle of the field next to my mom's house. Just over the hill is the Kerrville Highway and some motels I forget the name of. The view hasn't changed much since I was a teenager. I'm glad.

I love this painting! Not just because I am in the painting-loving-mood, I am just really excited about this one. I love that pole with all the lines and boxes and streetlights sprouting out in every direction, and the colors that just explode out of nowhere at that most magical time of the day: The Golden Hour. Rightly named. King Midas had his way with the sky and the field, and every little weed became a thing of beauty.

The first day I worked on this one was kind of a mini disaster. I didn't get everything down that I wanted and my tripod was falling apart. Yes, my lovely, new, super-fantastic tripod that I adore so very much because it shrinks down to the size of a pixie cane and weighs just a bit more than a pencil... Anyway! The next day was better, and I was thankful for the previous day's work because I was able to concentrate on what I liked best about the scene- the contrast in colors. I am wishing now that I had taken a picture of the first day's work so you could see the changes. There were changes! Not huge, luckily the infrastructure was pretty sound. Just minor things like a shadow placement here and there, but even the small changes made a big difference.

I like it so much I am going to hang on to it for consideration into the Whistle Pik show in December.

I think this is another one of those transitional paintings for me. While working on it, I felt more in control of what I was doing than I ever have been. I even scraped away some of the paint in the sky on a whim and ended up with some much needed subtle variation. I didn't freak out when some of the blue-ish green from the trees blended into the sky... I just let it be what it would be, and I like the result.

I would like to say thank you to my friend Oscar Arroyo for sparking my interest with his utterly luscious paintings of electricity poles. I love it when artists take the mundane and make it beautiful.

Oh! and this painting is on linen, not my regular canvas. I totally see why people never go back. I'm hooked. I plan on working through the last of my canvases and changing over for good. The paint behaves differently on linen. Subtle maybe, but definitely different. It just feels good.

Little update: This might be the last post I make for the next three weeks. We'll see how things go. I'm in the process of moving back to Texas, and you know how that goes...

Pip pip, cheerio- I'll be back soon!



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