Going to Sedona Arts Center
I did about 95% of this painting while whooping it up with Ed Buonvecchio and Laura Martinez-Bianco in the Oak Creek Valley north of Slide Rock State Park. It was the last day of Sedona Arts Center’s 19th Annual Sedona Plein Air Festival. Ed wisely focused on the rocks rather than the trees. Laura and I waded into the foliage, looking for the abstraction that would define the place.
The scene has a flat meadow of dry grasses that cut straight across the base of the trees. Although the color was exquisite, I could find no way to include the grass without making a compositional blunder. Furthermore, black poplars are leggy and ungainly trees, although they were a magnificent golden color on that autumn day.
Claude Monet repeatedly visited poplars in a series of now-famous paintings. Nominally, these are about the trees, but their real subject is the interplay of light and pattern.
What I found so compelling (and difficult) about the scene was the repetition of the strong vertical motif in the trees and the rock spires behind them. I emphasized this by making the far-left tree bleed into the vertical chasm above it.
Sometimes we take risky decisions. Inevitably someone will come along and tell us how to correct our ‘mistakes’. I could have avoided the confluence of tree and rock, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as interesting to paint. Monsieur Monet never took the safe path; why should I?
Poplars is going with me to the 20th Annual Sedona Plein Air Festival later this month. I’m always happy to go to the Sedona Arts Center; not only do I get to see lots of my friends, but it’s a great organization.
Floof!
This is going to a private collection out west. Its owner wanted a coastal Maine painting (who doesn’t?) so she’s getting this tiny confection of surf and rock, with a bit of pine in the top left corner. That’s pretty much what this state is all about, after all.
I am not sure why I called it Floof, except I kept saying that to myself as I churned the water up. As for the rocks themselves, they’re along the Bagaduce River in the town of Penobscot, ME.
A reminder
Student show
Richards Hill Gallery
394 Commercial Street
Rockport, ME 04856
4-6 PM
Friday, October 11, 2024
Just love love love the abstract qualities of both of these. I appreciate your description of thought on both. As with most abstract paintings I like to see what rings true for me first and then appreciate what the artist says. Have a great trip!!!!
Hi Carol,
I feel the same way about the three trees behind the Sedona Arts center. Always draws my eye, but for some reason not so interesting as a painting. At least one i do yet!!
And the other one…which I can not remember where in Sedona- possibly where you did yours, but up the canyon, where the trees and stunning rock wall directly a few feet ahead I failed to paint well, though now knowing more about perspective I will try again. 🙂 The first time I thought this won’t come out so well, but hell I’ll give it a try anyway instead of a safe and easy foliage one. I was right about how it came out…but still glad I risked trying, as I remembered it when learning from you about perspective!