Painting wild places...

I recently spent a week as the "local artist" guide for the 100 or so artists who attended the Publisher's Invitational "Paint the Adirondacks" week. We had near perfect weather and a fun schedule traveling around the northern Adirondacks from the Bog River Falls to Rockwell Kent's Asgaard Farm, the Wilmington Flume, High Falls on the Chateaugay River and Heaven Hill Farm outside of Lake Placid. I stared 12 paintings! A couple were pretty much finished on the spot, but the rest will require return trips or work in the studio. It was invigorating and wonderful to spend 7 days painting, and I was exhausted when it ended.

One thought that seemed to be continuously passing through my brain was the disorder of nature and how artists often render it with order. To the left is a 10x10 painting of the lean-to at Black Pond. The 4 trees on the left side of the painting were randomly arranged by nature. Some broad, mature trunks, some leaning, some smaller, younger trees. As I observed the scene and began the composition, I was very consciously aware of the variety shown in the trees - yet as I painted them, they began to turn out similar and regular in form. I had to exert intentional effort to try and make them as unique as they were because that is really how nature broadcasts her wildness. Things are irregular. Rocks along a stream are not identical in size and shape. Trees in a wild forest at not all the same age, size, or have the same kind of bark. 

So I made it my goal to work as hard as possible to keep my brain from putting things in order and to focus instead on what was different, disorderly, and irregular. It's not easy! 

I also had the challenge of revisiting places I'd painted every year for the past 11 years or more. I wanted to find different angles, different compositions, so the paintings I produced would be fresh and new - not just repeats of those done before. That is one important thing about plein air painting: it's always different. The time of day, season of the year, weather and all the things that can vary in a specific location deserve to be rendered effectively. Those unique qualities are what makes places and the paintings of them unique. 

So both the images with this post are unfinished, and I have 10 more that need work, but I invite you to come back to my website over the next few weeks as I finish up and add the new paintings. I will also be taking part in the Keeseville Plein Air event on July 19-25, the Outside Art Affair in Malone, with a show Aug 6-7, and the Adirondack Plein Air Festival Aug 15-20 in Saranac Lake.