June Valley

The view west from the hill I painted the other day.....I was drawn to the long, low horizon with the little white house peeking out...the certain, healthy greens of June....so optimistic. The sky gave me trouble at different stages. I can't tell now, but I may have stayed too long at the party on this one. The grey in the sky was kept, then totally removed...but it was necessary so I put it back. I use Payne's grey a lot but Payne's did not work in this situation....it needed to be blued in a certain way. By the time I figured out the colour so much time had passed.

Garden Hill

This is a special hill that has been painted many times, in all seasons and all weather conditions. On the day this was made, I made a trip just to this site with the intent of painting this subject. That's not usual for me....usually I have no idea what will happen or what I'm looking for.

My preference is that the process maintain a very easy flow and a good sense of mystery. I don't really want to know too much about what will happen....when I DO end up knowing too much, making the painting can turn out oddly oppressive and less alive. I like pleasing surprises at every stage. Here, the last stroke to the painting was the horizontal bit of white on the top of a cloud mid right sky....it lent solidity to the whole painting.

At a certain point, the painting is about mechanics....how much of this to how much of that? It turns out I am really a painter of blobs....I like making a paint blob and moving it around....whatever else the painting is, it's a pleasing arrangement of blobs.

June 26th

I was walking by the field adjacent to me....a place I don't often walk. It was evening and there was much mist in the air, and the foreground field was a yellow that didn't seem appropriate for this time of year....I don't know what the crop is. Just the relationship of the yellow, grey of the sky and dark of the trees (I wrote black on the diagram) created a sensation. I diagrammed it quickly. It was all blended more than this...intermingling with lots of thick air.

It helps to make these little diagrams. I never know how I will work....perhaps from a photo, perhaps from a more complete and complex sketch, or maybe from a chicken scratch like this....but only if the memory is strong enough to hold the image over a few hours or a night.