Blog

There is so much joy in the act of painting. It thrills me to see it in the eyes of the people who take the acrylic painting class I teach for the Farmington Hills Special Services Department when something in their painting works out beautifully for them. I enjoy seeing posts of new work on social media by my many artist friends. You can feel their joy when they write their posts about the piece they share online.

Some of the things that bring me great joy are autumn colors in Michigan and painting with a knife. I recently combined both experiences with a new painting. Although, it's the middle of winter, we haven't had any snow to paint for a while. In fact, the one time we did I almost got bad frostbite trying to do a plein air painting. The scenes outside haven't been very inspiring. The sky's are overcast and gloomy, and it's still pretty cold. There are no leaves on the trees and very little life to paint.

But paint I must! So I found myself going through my photos to find a scene to inspire a painting. And it was indeed photos taken last fall at the beautiful Innovation Park and the Paint Creek Trail in Rochester Hills, MI. That was a warm day and my wife, Tammie, and I did some fun hiking with a nice stop at the Paint Creek Cider Mill.

Going through my photos, I came across this one and remembered that moment immediately. I loved the curve of the trail along the river and how the trees partially obscured whatever we might come upon. It made me wonder what was around the curve. So far the sights with the fall colors were spectacular. Could the next thing I see show something different or even more beautiful? That was the feeling I wanted to convey with my next painting.

I loved the large "S" created by the path going upward and continued with the sky on top and knew I had to use that as a design element to lead the eye through my composition. I also wanted to make sure I didn't get fussy with details at first and kept a strong design right from the start.

To help keep me in line, I painted solely with a 4-inch putty knife for all of the block in and a lot of the beginning painting. Immediately, I loved the results I got from that simple tool. I was constantly surprised by some of the beautiful marbleized and textured marks it helped me create. Part of me thinks I shouldn't have worried about the details and stuck with this wonderful instrument for the whole process. But I knew I wouldn't be able to render the fallen leaves well with it, and the carpet of dead leaves on the trail were important for the scene.

By the time I finished it, I still could see the "S" in the composition, but I don't think it's too glaring obvious. I wanted the focal point to be the base of the multi-limbed tree on the top center, but I also wanted the viewer to note the dark "tunnel" behind it. That's the area I wanted to intrigue the viewer with. What's inside there?

If you'd like to see the painting in its progress stages, I've uploaded this slideshow to YouTube showing the painting's progress from start to finish.

Because I wanted the viewer to know that the purpose of the painting was to show a scene that wants you to follow the trail to see what's beyond, I titled it "It Beckons You." This is a 24" x 24" oil on canvas painted with my 4-inch putty knife and a few of my painting knives.