Painting Thoughts

Hey there, another day, another blog!

I cannot promise substance every day (though I'll try) but I'm determined to get this thing up in the air so off we go...

Here's a painting I did about a year ago, it is a pretty typical New Zealand view. Several things about this painting are unique. First off it has conical pines in it. I try to avoid conical pines as they present many composition issues. Beautiful as they are I find they often make me feel cornered in my skies.

Another feature of this painting is the dirt road. Many people ask me why I don't paint moire things like fences and houses in my work. The reason is that I prefer the landscape to speak for it self. It seems that any man made feature steals the show focusing the apprehenders attention in ways that I as the paintings creator do not like. The huge exception to this is paths or roads. In my view they fold right in to the landscape as well as direct to eye in pleasant ways.

Speaking of pleasant., I enjoy creating pleasant images that sooth the viewer. I'm certainly not saying that that's the only type of image that anyone should paint, but for me it's the best use of my time and talent. Just for the record I've been employed to create images like this...

I know, hard to believe it's the same artist eh? Anyway just making a point that at this time I feel the world needs soothing reflective art so that is what I enjoy painting. I did enjoy rendering the dino above also but really that's far more of a technical expression. Btw some of you may have seen this dinosaur on a tee shirt if you knew a kid and went shopping at JC pennies or the like about six years ago...