Size does matter: style can transfer to larger formats

"Up in the Sycamores before the Spring Bud" -- $400; if you wish to purchase this 20x24 inch oil on canvas painting, see http://www.avonwaters.com/, contact us or click on the Etsy.com button on the right of this blog.

I've finally figured out a way to convey the style and textural richness that I create with my smaller works into larger sizes. While in Bogota Colombia, I bought some interesting small and oddly shaped palette knives.

Up until now my style has been schizophrenic, my smaller pieces having a heavy impasto and my larger pieces having more broad thin paint. More recently I managed to be able to add interest to the areas that had of broad color by adding brush strokes of a small brush on its side, but this painting is truly a break through because it uses the heavy impasto of the palette knife that I use in the smaller paintings using the pallet knives from South America. They create a brush-like pattern when held one way and can create the familiar tonal smear when used more broadly.

The obvious revealed: exaggerating light

"Dead Pine in the Woods" -- $140; if you wish to purchase this 9x12 inch oil on canvas painting, see http://www.avonwaters.com/, contact us or click on the Etsy.com button on the right of this blog.

This painting is of a dead pine tree I found in the woods at the Mississinewa Lake recreation area in Indiana. Forty years ago, I remember riding in the back of the car into this area as the dam was being built. The houses were abandoned but not yet torn down to make way for the new flood control reservoir.

Had I not made those trips, I would have not been able to recognize the significance of this pine tree and several other pine trees that were in the middle of a thick woods. This is really the reminisce of what used to be someone's home and the pine was part of landscaping around the circular drive. In the woods I came upon a slight clearing. The circular shape told me that this pine was once the landscaping in the center.

The style I picked was once again the use of a palette knife. The challenge was creating contrast. In the deep woods, the light is very subtle and this painting exaggerates the light source to create more contrast and interest.

Using color to create depth perception

"Fence row" -- $140; if you wish to purchase this 9x12 inch oil on canvas painting, see http://www.avonwaters.com/ contact us or click on the Etsy button on the right.

This is an experiment in perception using my love of intersecting plains. Here, a row of trees creates a natural divider or fence row between two small open fields. Behind these horizontal planes is a vertical plane of trees greening in the spring and bathed in light.

The use of the cooler blues with the lavender creates the depth perception I wanted. It looks easy, but in reality it is very difficult to get the fields to recede against the much warmer and more intense greens of the trees. To do this, I have had to play with the color saturation by graying the paints and using small amounts of white. Then there's a yellow green scumbled over the lavenders and pinks.

Shadows and Shape as inspiration

Shadows and shapes inspire
"Barn on curve" -- $165; if you wish to purchase this painting, see http://www.avonwaters.com/ contact us.

This 12x16 oil on canvas is a study I've wanted to start for a while – barns. Indiana and the Midwest are full of barns of all different shapes and sizes. I've been doing woodlands and still am inspired the shapes created by the shadows cast by the tree trunks and the shapes of intersecting planes where the ground meets the woods or the sky meets the tops of trees.

But when I saw the interesting shadow cast by the overhang of the roof on this barn, I had to try and do something. At one point I had ¾ of the barn on the canvas and wiped it off. By zooming my point of view in closer and letting the barn take up the right third of the canvas, I felt the shape of the barn then became a kind of visual anagram to the shadow and the negative space the barn created against the trees and sliver of forground.

I will be in the woods most of the summer but I'm sure I'll revisit structures more this year if I find the shadows that inspire.

Every painting experiments with something

"The greening of spring" -- $165 To purchase this painting, go to http://www.avonwaters.com/ contact us.

This 12x16 oil plein air on canvas was inspired by one of the few warm days on a weekend walk to the local state recreation area and reservoir.

It is my first landscape since returning from Bogotá, Colombia and it was inspired by the contrast of the light and shadows on the bright green grass. Seems like in the spring, the grass has a very unique green. Even the green in the lawns is never the same after the grass has been cut the first time and that is what I wanted to try to capture here.

For me, what keeps me painting are the problems each painting presents and the little experiments I can do in them. This one had more experiments than I normally try. Often, if I experiment too much, and things don't go well, disaster strikes -- I got lucky this time.

I also wanted to continue trying to translate the bright abstract colors that I do in my 20x24 and larger pieces, into the smaller canvases – I think I'm making the transition. Up until now, they have only had hints at the expressionist and abstractness that I seek.

The thick impasto paint is also an attempt to carry through with ideas I have about breaking up broad areas with interesting elements. I find if I focus on the spaces between the objects of interest, the painting is more interesting – it's the negative space that creates the interest for the objects.

Brush work

"Clouds Marching," 22x36 oil on canvas -- $600
This is a little more yellow and orange than the painting really is. This became a study of not only clouds but on how I used my smaller brushes on large paintings. Up until now, I had used small brushes sparingly and concentrated on using large brushes and contrasted the layers of paint so the large strokes showed.

Here, I wanted to try to duplicate to a small extent what I have been doing on smaller canvases using heavy paint and the palette knife. By doing so, I could add more interest in the broad areas of color that until now had been much smoother.

I accomplished this in the clouds by loading a small brush and dragging it almost parallel across the canvas instead of using it as one might use a paintbrush, perpendicular.

Learning curve less each time.

“Yellow Church” 6x8 oil on panel – SOLD

This is a poor image with little color and is too dark. When I return, I´ll replace it with one that better represents the work.

This yellow church in the old colonial part of the city of Bogota made me think of Van Gogh’s yellow house. This is the third and probably the final painting I will get to do while in Colombia.

Compared to the previous two pictures, this one I found myself getting used to the different brushes and tolos than I usually use. Doing cityscapes is also very different than doing the landscapes I am used to doing. I think I want to try this in a larger size and use brighter colors, now that I am used to painting this structure.

When I moved to Indiana from California, I remember how difficult it was to learn to use the new light and colors. Compared to California, Indiana was very green and I had to learn how to deal with all the green. In Colombia, the process is much the same -- now I am having to learn how to handle shapes instead of broad plains of color intersecting on a flat Indiana landscape.

The good thing is, I notice the learning curve this time is less than when I moved from California.