Glowing tufts of dry flowers, red-glazed stems, savagely bright afternoon sky, and the exuberance of it all against the encroaching dark.
Raspberry Stems, Late Light, 12 x 10", oil on artboard
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Every time I pick up painting again after a break, I need to relearn a few things. Yesterday I remembered to wait.
Despite perusing pond, woods, and field for nearly an hour, I hadn’t felt moved to paint by much of anything. I get to a point sometimes where I'm just wandering for wandering's sake, telling myself there’s some worth in just being outside, pondering composition. “Maybe I'll learn something,” I think, “even if it’s only about what doesn’t work.”
Then I got stopped by a section of field where a few pine trees cast an indigo shadow across the gold grasses. Some dry goldenrods lit by the late sunlight stood in bright silhouette against the streak of dark. No surprise - it turned out to be nearly the same scene I'd painted on a similarly sunny November day last year. The moment grabbed me with the same emotional pull, and I had to laugh. There’s no denying it. The emotional power a composition has for you is there or it’s not, and you know it when you feel it.
It’s a relief, in a way, because it's good to know you can’t fool yourself. When you’re desperately trying to compose a subject out of meager nothingness, you should let go and keep searching.
I ended up behind a row of trees painting raspberry stems red-glazed by the lowering sun. (I had to break another rule I’m relearning: “Don’t paint facing the western sky late in the day.” Too hard on the eyes.) The brilliant tufts of dry flowers, the glowing stems, the savagely bright afternoon sky - and the exuberance of it all against the encroaching dark - was a sight worth stopping for.
