Painting in Progress

I have begun what is hopefully going to be a series of oil paintings around a similar theme. The detail above is about 12" x 9" of a 60" x 20" panorama painting that I will be chronicling here as it is completed. This past summer I rediscovered my fascination with climbing and hiking to high places. Achieving altitude on foot and taking in vista views earned through sweat and toil is an experience that, when I was younger, had a profound influence on my work. This first painting is the view from the cliffs of North Sugarloaf in Deerfield, MA. Although not particularly high, the view is dramatic for it's proximity to the farms, village homes and industrial park areas in the Deerfield Valley.



Rather than stretch a canvas on bars, I stapled this piece to the wall similar to the way I make my murals, leaving enough room to stretch it later. Initially I make a thin wash drawing to layout the composition. I am working from both digital photographs and paintings made on location. It is a new experience to work from a computer screen rather than a printed photo, and one that I am going to repeat.



Here you can see that I have worked the sky and background hills up to a certain level of detail. You probably also see the silhouettes of two birds at either end. The Roaring Brook Nature Center in Canton CT has been kind enough to let me borrow some taxidermy mounts to work from. These are two Hairy Woodpeckers that were pretty dirty and faded when I first got them. I cleaned them up a bit and dyed the feathers back to the original black and red with a mild fabric dye.


It is always preferable to work from life and these two will be painted that way. Be sure to check back for updates, I am working consistently on this first piece and should be updating the blog soon.