Exhibiting: Dominique Boisjoli Fine Art, Santa Fe, New Mexico
$5250 framed
 
About this oil:
This oil began as a class demonstration some months earlier with the Beatrice Art Guild in Nebraska. The demo went great and the resulting painting was really interesting. Once I had it back in the studio, I began to add a few things to make it juuuuust a bit better.
 
It was a bit like eating from a bowl of candy – just one here, and then a little something else and then… I overindulged and the painting lost its original charm.
 
Now the painting became the demo and I became the student, trying out different approaches and compositions and waiting for the painting’s approval. There is that phrase, “Listen and painting will tell you what it needs,” and that was the strategy I was following. It was a long conversation and I wondered if a good solution would ever be found.
 
Making an abrupt change, I shifted into a softer light and things began to come together nicely but something was still missing. Still listening, I added the blue-green foliage to the trees on the right along with the softly glowing green grass at the bottom and the opposite bank of the creek. Now there is a softly diffused light that creates more movement and interest than the original version – a satisfying conclusion!
 
During that Nebraska oil painting demonstration, I requested a color from the class to add to my painting in progress. They agreed on pink and I placed it at the upper right portion of the work at the time. In the the subsequent versions of this painting that pink did a lot of traveling, finally ending up on the left-hand side of this finished oil. It is absolutely integral to this final color harmony and it honors the wonderful people I had the pleasure to meet there.