Hill Country Morning

Hill Country Morning
6" x 8"
oil on canvas board

So, I have a confession to make... I did not paint this today. I painted it Monday. In fact the next post is from last week as well. Call me a slacker.

I had the chance to meet up with my girlfriends (whom I have not seen in 13 years!) from high school, this weekend. So I have been rationing out some of last weeks paintings in my posts.

The Monday paint out was wonderful- I honestly thought I was the only person that showed because I was all alone at the top of the hill (the locals call it a mountain) with the fabulous views and the lovely breeze that occasionally morphed into hurricane winds and threatened to blow me away. Experience. Now I know why I was the only one at the top. Still, it was beautiful up there- well worth the possible threat of being blown away.

I have been processing Calvin Liang's sky paintings in my mind, and am so looking forward to capturing that luminosity and subtle, but diverse range of cool and warm colors in the clouds. Subtlety. It can be tricky.

Funny thing, sometimes people can get their point across a lot better by not saying as much, but using body language and a few carefully chosen statements, rather than blatantly announcing their intentions. I think painting is the same. When a painting is created with as few brushstrokes as possible, with carefully chosen colors and deliberate execution, the finished piece can sing its own praises without an explosion of color or extreme contrast.

THAT, my dear friends, is the lesson that has been forming in my mind for some time now... I love how the non-art world can give me answers to questions I have been asking about my work. Human behavior is so amazing. Art is just an extension of our nature.