New work: Surrounded in Blue, oil on canvas, 48 x 48 in.

Surrounded in Blue, oil on canvas, 48 x 48 inches Exhibiting: Sorelle Gallery, Westport, Connecticut

$9250 framed

About this oil:

From the beginning I was focused on two things, a pattern of tall, spare trees at a creek and as much blue as I could get behind them. The trees are spare, not a lot of foliage and all to allow more of the blue to come through.

There's an elegance to the trees and that's intentional. Have I mentioned blue yet? Everything in this painting is designed to showcase the glowing blue wall in the back.

The group of trees create a peaceful, vertical pattern while the creek and the top blue edge do the same but horizontally. The painting was nearing a finish and that's when I discovered another element worth enhancing.

After some experimentation, I put in a diffuse band of foliage and it did more than I expected. It gave the composition a stronger horizontal flow and it also split the background into two distinct blues that hadn't been visible before.

What had read as a single color was now highlighting two blues and enhancing the depth and variation. One small addition and the whole painting shifted.

There are moments when a painting begins to paint itself as this one did, and I was happy to witness it.