Field at Mineral Point

It looks a lot better in person. Sometimes you get a nice image from the camera, but I just don't think this is the best one. That said, the painting is done and since it is 36" X 48" it is impressive for size alone. It took about a month to complete: plenty of time to paint it, but also plenty of time to carry an image through one's thinking. By that I mean that a painter is thinking of the next step and (shall I call it meditating?) how it will be painted; does what I painted look alright to me now and next morning. Sometimes there are more hours thinking after the day's work is done -- thinking while watching tv or eating dinner. I remember when I was working on other jobs not art related and thinking/wishing that I was painting. So all of you painters working at non-art related work, you can still carry out your art in your thought life.

Old Sawmill

This is the old sawmill which is no longer in use at the John C. Campbell Folk School at Brasstown, North Carolina. It was the tin roof all rusted and colorful that attracted me to painting this. I took away a utility pole and converted it into a tree and added a tree where there wasn't one. If you look at the second picture you can see that I painted this on a picec of canvas taped to a piece of cardboard rather than put on stretcher bars. I thought I would try something new (to me), something I have seen other artists do. I found it to have a nice feel and it allowed me to just do the painting without worrying about fitting it onto a certain size stretched canvas. When it's dry I will take it off and stretch it to 10" X 16" stretchers and have to have a custom made frame. After working on a 36" X 48" canvas over the last month it was a relief to finish one in about two days.