The last time I visited this place it was July and hot as Hades. Today was warmish for November but the sun was already to set behind the bare trees at 2:30 PM. I just had a short time to catch the light in the foreground, the shadow in the woods, and the beckoning light farther down the path.
Today I am thankful that they didn't tear down this skeevy old abandoned Getty station before I had a chance to paint it again. I did a little watercolor sketch back in April and always wanted come back and do a larger oil painting. This what I was able to do in about two hours - the drawing and overall block in.
Today is the birthday of Benoit B Mandelbrot, the pioneering French mathematician who discovered fractals and changed forever the way we think about clouds, coastlines, and screen savers. This vision of self-similar cereal came to me in a dream, from which I awoke LMAO (my hypnopompic brain is easily amused).
Three small plates, of which the bottom two were originally one till I cut it in half, printed together on the new etching press.
They make an enigmatic statement , no?
Just got my new etching press, and pulled a test print using a plate I had started at a workshop last spring. The drawing itself is no great shakes, but the print quality far exceeded my expectations given the number of variables (pressure, paper wetness, ink consistency, etc) any one of which can scuttle the whole operation.
The press is an RLV A3 size (12" x 17") bed, from South Africa. I've been gradually working up to this investment for some time, starting with drypoints on plexiglass printed by rubbing with a spoon or baren and then tiny etchings printed with an Open Press Project press. I need to get or make a few more things to actually etch larger pieces but then I should be turning out prints up to 8" or 9" wide.
I was struck by the bright light on the yellow tree and the cast shadow with hot colors glowing out of it.
I worked on it over two visits to the site in my kayak, Sketchpad*L, with additional touching up at home. I'm calling it done for now - it's at that dangerous stage where I'm tempted to do little tweaks and details that could lead to killing the original feeling. I'll let it marinate for a while and see if there is really anything that needs to be added or subtracted.
Oil on linen panel
6" x 8"
I started this while waiting for a friend and worked on it some more at home. I lost some of the feeling while chasing after the literal details.
