Seasons

Seasons I: Winter



Stats: 18x24x.5 in. oil on canvas
Playlist: Shostakovich
Beverage: Water

Seasons II: Spring



Stats: 18x24x.5 in. oil on canvas
Playlist: Khachatourian, French music, Jack Johnson's September Sessions
Beverage: Water

After purchasing a digital camera last November I have been steadily compiling images from life over the past few months, with the intention of putting them onto canvas. These two paintings of a series entitled "Seasons" capture Winter and Spring. I painted both of them on identically sized canvases with a transparent iron oxide red wash to make the blue of the sky pop. I wanted to finish one yesterday, and the Winter piece only took about an hour total. So I thought, alright, time to move on to the tree blossoms! That took longer. But it was still worth it. They're relatively simple, almost like sketches, but they depict what I wanted to show.

Speaking of which, here are my original photos from which I painted these two pieces.



Winter was taken outside of the National Cathedral during one of the blizzards we had this February. I snowshoed over to the Cathedral in the middle of the blizzard, climbed onto a snowbank outside of the Cathedral grounds, and took this photo of an icicled lamppost. Yes, I snowshoe.



Spring was taken on one of our nice sunny days in April while walking to a friend's house for lunch. I stood under this blossoming tree in the Rosedale Conservancy, an estate/dog park. As you can imagine, allergy season is upon us in DC. This piece, and the simplicity of the composition, was also inspired by some watercolors of cherry blossoms I had recently seen at the Japanese Festival. I wanted to show contrast between the blue and pink colors, and simplicity of composition rather than depth.

My next two projects are going to be the Cathedral, which turns pink just before sunset every day, and an abstracted version of the Cathedral's flying buttresses (my all time favorite architectural term). After using a brush for the two Seasons paintings I am going to try to depart from that texture and use exclusively palette knives.

I've been painting for my own inventory lately but that doesn't mean I am not taking orders. Please feel free to request pieces. In the meantime I am hoping to have an Open Studio with the ones I'm currently working on some time in May. I'm taking donations of finger foods and bartenders for that event, as well.