Turning

Autumn in Park Lafontaine, watercolor on Arches cold-press, 12" x 10".


We were in Vermont from Thursday through Sunday, visiting family and old friends, and attending a memorial service for an elderly friend. And now we're back in Montreal, where autumn is really moving ahead now. The trees in the Green Mountains were almost at their peak -- it was really beautiful high in the mountains.

Yesterday afternoon I went home early and did this watercolor in the park near our house. I think I could do one every day for a week and they'd all be different -- that might be a good exercise, actually. The light changes almost minute by minute as it filters through the leaves; first the reds predominate, then they're in shadow and it's chartreuse that catches the light, or then a bright clear yellow. I could sit and watch the color show for hours.

The challenge of expressive paintings like this, for me, is not so much the color but finding the forms, or creating a visual "path" for the eye to take. When I thought about what my own eye was doing, I realized it was following the lines of the trunks and branches, so I tried to reflect that in the painting. But another day, you could choose to emphasize the shapes of the trees themselves, or the negative spaces between them...it's all an exploration and a learning process, which is part of why so many artists paint the same scene over and over.

On the personal front, like the party balloons that are slowly shrinking in our bedroom, I've been feeling a bit deflated, a bit unsure about what's next, after all the flurry of birthday activity (J.'s was last week too) and travel. I think that's simply to be expected, and I know it will work itself out.