February 8th, 2014
Cox Reservation, Essex MA
Oil on canvasboard, 16 x 20 in
(sold)
This was taken from a distance, obviously. Your eyes get tired quickly from staring at snow a long time, even if you carefully chose a predominantly shady vista. There was so much reflected light bouncing around towards the end of my time there I really couldn’t see the painting clearly. I think I’ll revisit it tomorrow, when I can see better, and when I have restored my fine motor skills, which the cold had overwhelmed. NB – Revisited it today. All I did was tidy up some lines I couldn’t control in the field and incorporate the afternoon light which was a little more lively than the even morning light
January 25th, 2014
Cox Reservation Essex Greenbelt, Essex MA
Oil on Canvas, 12 x 16 in
I’m pretty sure I did roughly this exact same view around this same time last year. The reason is not that I am captivated by the scene particularly, so much as that there is a nice wooden bench there, out of the wind. Sitting on a wooden bench is much warmer than standing on ice or a freezing rock for hours at a time. It was cold and there were a lot of branches and there was a lot of wind. If the term “tone poem” weren’t so repugnant, I might suggest this is more in the nature of one of those than an attempt to get all the linear details exactly right. I riffed on the colors and lines, and while I could still walk I called it a day. I’ve changed a little bit since (this photo was taken before last revision) but on the whole, this is what it is.
This was just a sketch I did this week. I had Robert Frost’s “Come In” running through my head, and also a parable a friend’s mother once told me. I may type out the parable later, but the poem is this:
As I came to the edge of the woods,
Thrush music — hark-
Now if it was dusk outside,
Inside it was dark.
Too dark in the woods for a bird
By sleight of wing
To better its perch for the night,
Though it still could sing.
The last of the light of the sun
That faded in the west
Still lived for one song more
In a thrush’s breast.
Far along the pillared dark
Thrush music went —
Almost like a call to come in
To the dark and lament.
But no, I was out for stars;
I would not come in.
I meant not even if asked;
And I hadn’t been.
January 20th, 2014
Cox Reservation, Essex Greenbelt, Essex, MA
Oil on Canvasboard, 16 x 20 in
(sold)
I was fortunate to be able to join up with ‘The Posse’ and paint today. The earlier part of the day (when I did the ice) the sun was much brighter so there was a lot more contrast. As you can see, the atmosphere moved in and make my foreground seem darker than the foreground it’s supposed to resemble. I stopped simply because I was too damn cold. I was standing for a few hours on ice, in a stiff cold wind. I’ll examine my results tomorrow and either fix it or take a proper picture of it and move on. (NB- Jan 21 – have taken a better picture, though still consider it unfinished.)
Saturday there was too much snow falling to paint, and Sunday I had to run all the errands I couldn’t get to because I was shut in on Saturday. Hope to paint early this week. (Photo is from a lovely dog walk on Saturday.)
January 13th, 2014
Cox Reservation, Essex Greenbelt
Essex MA
Oil on Canvas, 16 x 20 in
(sold)
It was a bright, mild day (though not as mild as I had dressed for – just because it’s above freezing does not necessarily mean you can go without a jacket.) David had been to the Sargent exhibit at the MFA, and noted that only rarely did Sargent paint sky. I was thinking of all the paintings of his I’ve seen, where you know what kind of day it was by the reflections of the sky you see on the leaves, buildings and clothing of people in the painting. The snow is kind of a “painting without sky for dummies” tool – because wherever the yellow light of the sun is cut off by a lump of snow, there lies a nearly perfect reflection of the sky color directly above it. You can achieve balance by including the reflections throughout the piece, which do in fact occur, if less perfectly, in shadows on stone and branches.
I decided not to change much from what I had in the first picture. Was painted with a lot of gusto – decided to keep the energetic feel of it rather than strain to make every detail perfect.
January 11th, 2014
Cox Reservation, Essex Greenbelt
Essex, MA
Oil on Canvasboard, 16 x 20 in
It was a mild but wet day, so much “heavy mist” (or “rain” as most people refer to it) that my paint, liberally imbued with “mist” (i.e., water) would not stick to the board, because the board too was wet and oil and water make a career out of not mixing.
Plus when I got there, the overall impression the fields and marsh gave me was “ick.” All but the filthiest layer of snow had melted, all there was to see was dirty wet snow, dead grass and melting ice.
However, once I started trying to paint it, I started to see so much beauty in all of it – no doubt thanks to the stark contrast between it and the sludgefest that was puking it’s way into being on my canvas. This was clearly going to be one of those paintings where I just have to slog and slog through ugly, trusting in the unlikely possibility that in due course I would come out on the other side (beauty.) I stopped here, due to being cold and wet, when the colors were matched but no details (grasses, birdhouse) or highlights had been laid in. I’ll try to finish it off, one way or another, this afternoon.
p.s: If you look closely, you’ll see my easel is actively, literally falling apart! My teacher has had the same easel for 30 years, I’m lucky if mine last a year. I have a replacement that will hopefully work, I just have to build a shelf into it for my palette before I can use it.
