Where I live the land was once covered in forests of large conifers. I like big trees. We used to go looking for them when I was a teen and the way we measured them for size was to see how many of us it took to touch fingers while surrounding the trunk. So, loosely that is what I was thinking of when I started on this Big Tree painting. For artistic purposes, the people are facing away and aren’t particular to be right on the bark as we were.
The painting hangs in my kitchen unfinished. The final coat is being planned. It occurred to me that the latest version – one I ought not to have spent the time to do – was not documented so when I saw sunlight streaming through my window this morning, I grabbed the big camera and the painting and went outside and got a picture. Full sun is the best light I’ve found to photograph art.
The preliminary sketch was pretty rough. I didn’t use models. Wardrobe design was poor so it looked like a costume party and just didn’t work. So I took pictures of Lindsay, Leah, and Jaime to help sort this out.
The idea was to depict the immensity of a grand old fir. At first I patterned it after the straight shaft monoliths that I found in the Olympic National Forest, but I ended up leaning more toward a mix of big redwood grandeur and Douglas Fir.
This was an improvement but still wasn’t right.
Painting out the people was surprisingly easy.
I painted in a deer and fawn to make it more of a pure nature landscape
Waiting for the finish. Jan 2018
After painting in the girls and having all sorts of design problems I was dialing in the concept but noticed that this painting got no reaction from anyone. People who saw it said nothing and could not even be coaxed to comment. On line responses were similar – nothing. Except for one anonymous comment, “very strange”.
I still liked the painting. But I decided to convert it to a purely conventional landscape. I still like the original idea and look forward to doing it again with a fresh start on another canvas. For now, this one is half over worked and half under worked and awaits its concluding sessions.
The Kitchen sure looks bare without this on the wall!
