Fallen Leaves

Good morning! Today is my first official day back in the studio after a long summer hiatus with the kiddos (who had a tendency to yell out 'MOMMY!!' with the greatest urgency just as I'd get in the zone. So I took a break from painting). I stopped work on this beast and am now picking it back up in hopes to complete it this month.

A bit on how I figure out just what I want to paint. I go through life looking at my surroundings much like a Biblical scholar looks at scripture; contrary to what some pockets of humanity believe, the Bible was not uttered in King James English from the lips of God. It was written in Hebrew, Greek and some Aramaic. All languages with far more subtlety than our crude English allows. Much is lost in the translation and Biblical scholars always are looking at the original language to get the subtle meanings of what a text is saying

Like them, I'm always looking for the the subtle nuances in my surroundings--what makes that color? How many colors are in that shadow? Where would those lines go if they continued beyond that point? What would happen if I made that square/rounded/the opposite color? How does it look when I zoom in and blur my vision a tad? What is the pattern there? I'm always looking, and am always amazed at what I find! I get so much inspiration from just observing everything! It gets even more fun when I go all Holy Spirit--but that's for a different entry.

So the above painting was inspired by the leaves last fall. Seattle is not known for its leaves. We are better known for our giant evergreens, drizzle and most excellent coffee and salmon. I've never really been impressed by the leaves here, coming from a childhood in Upstate NY (THOSE are technicolor leaves). But last year, everything must've aligned right, or God wanted to have fun with me or something, our leaves were BRILLIANT! We have these huge maple leaves--like dinner plate size. And last fall, they were all this neon tangerine orange. I was spellbound most days. I began staring at the ground at the fallen leaves as I walked the kids to and from school, just to make sure I was indeed seeing that shade of leaves in Seattle. And as I did this, I began to trace the shapes with my eyes and study the curves and shadows the leaves made as they fell on top of one another and onto the dark pavement of the walking path. There were points, swoops, dark shadows and undulations in the leaf surfaces that were just so much fun to run over with my eyes! (Don't worry--these types of observations are constant, move rapidly into my brain and happen subconsciously as I carry on conversations. I didn't ignore my kids as I took this all in!).

So I went into my studio and got to painting. I originally did a small painting on a mica board to see if I could get out what I was seeing and feeling; I was in a painting class at that time and that small painting got really good feedback. So I decided to make it larger and play around with the color wheel a bit. Instead of working with tangerine orange and phthalo blue, I pulled out Cadium yellow and mixed a deep purple (opposites on the color wheel work well together for contrast). The structure of the leaves remained the same, but I found an opportunity to play with color and work on my palette skills and blending. It was also an interesting enough subject that I thought I could come up with 4-5 paintings in a similar vein to shop out to galleries at some point. I only had a canvas in a larger size, so I prepped it to get it as smooth as I could and set out painting.

So, that is the story behind today's work. It's leaves. I began to paint in acrylic due to my impatience, and switched to oils halfway through when I found the acrylics didn't have 'open' time enough to blend smoothly, even with additives.

So keep tuned in--I'll post the finished work in a better-quality photo. For works in progress, I'll just take pictures with my phone.