Back To Spring

After yesterday's snowstorm, I decided to go back to spring.  A couple days ago, I did a gouache version of this view, looking down Blair Road in Williamstown, MA.  Here's a larger oil version. 18x24 inches, oil on linen canvas.

A Spring View

During a snowstorm one thinks of spring. Here's a spring view of Blair Road in Williamstown, MA. 8x10 inches, gouache on mixed media paper.

Stratton Blair

At the top of Stratton Road where it meets Blair Road in Williamstown, MA.  The tree is now gone, but I think the painting needs it to be there. 12x16 inches, oil on canvas panel.

Looking West

Yesterday it was sunny, cloudy, and windy, over and over again.  So I went on a walk with my sketchpad.  This is a view down Blair Road in Williamstown, MA. looking west towards the Taconic Mountains in New York State. 9x12 inches, charcoal on paper.  

Hidden Concantenations

A drawing I did the other day while walking: I stood in a field looking west towards the Taconic Mountains, down Blair Road in Williamstown, MA.  The painter Bernard Dunstan wrote about how we link things together on a flat surface that we don't ordinarily see when looking at something in front of us.   For example, that criss-cross of the field edge/grass top edge with the road and the base of the grass.  Or the repetition of the diagonals.  9x12 pencil on paper.

Follow Up

The on site drawing, which I posted yesterday, of the irregular rows of round hay bales,  I followed up with a plein air painting of the same subject.    The site is at the top of Stratton and Blair Roads in Williamstown, MA.  9x12 oil on panel.

Late Day Drawing

All I have for the moment is a late day drawing from walking to the hay fields yesterday.

Tip of The Bales

The haphazardly lined up hay bales at the edge of the large field at the top of Stratton and Blair Roads in Williamstown, MA were the subjects of my painting this morning.  This place is the juncture of two dirt roads.  I was amazed how much traffic goes by.  8x10 oil on panel.

A Perfect Place

This is one of my favorite views in Williamstown, MA, a look down Blair Road from the top of Stratton Road.  The mountains in the background are the Taconics in New York State.  At this junction both roads are dirt and often rutted, a perfect place for the mud season. This painting is a 12x16 oil on panel.

Sketchbook Page

The painting that I'm working on is not ready, so here's another roadside tree from my sketchbook.  It shows a view down Blair Road from Stratton Road in Williamstown, MA.

No Clouds

This 10x10 oil on panel painting I did last Friday morning.  When I arrived at the high meadow the sky was cloudless, everything illuminated equally, and quite flat in appearance.  So I decided to paint anyway.  I felt it was like chiseling out a pattern in low relief.

Springing Ahead

This morning is bright and sunny, but extremely cold with snow still on the ground.  Spring is slow in arriving.  So I've decided to paint my own spring.  This 12x12 oil on canvas painting depicts the large barn on Blair Road on a warmer spring day.

Two Landscapes

The top painting is  9x12 oil on panel done this afternoon from a slightly different location near the top of Stratton Road.  That's Blair Road, with which Stratton intersects, in the middle ground, and the Taconics in the background.   The bottom image is an 8x10 pastel of a field not far from Stratton Road but much further downhill.  The view is looking north with the same mountains you have seen before.

Two Stix and a Painting

The 9x12 painting I did this afternoon on the same ridge above Stratton, but looking down an almost perpendicular driveway that makes the meeting of Blair and Stratton Roads actually a three-way intersection.   The 8x10 art stix drawing I did this morning to scout out the view, hence the shadowing is different.  The other stix drawing is the prep I did earlier for yesterday's painting.

Today I learned that I still approach outdoor painting trying to do it in stages, as in a studio.  But I only have an hour or so, so I must forget the stages and immediately get the right color and value, and put it on.  Any finessing can be done at the last minute.  Easily said.  I do like doing the art stix preparatory drawings, which set my compositions up, only leaving the painting to be done!

Pain Air

This morning I did the colored stix drawing on a rise overlooking Stratton and Blair, and in the afternoon returned to do the oil painting.  It can be shocking when a painting done outdoors is seen indoors.  What you thought was bright and light turns out to be dark and heavy.  Also one loses track of time, but if you spend more than an hour on a small painting, then that extra effort usually goes into destroying the painting.  I have another related view lined up for tomorrow, and will try it again.

Catching Up

A day to catch up:  the first drawing was done this morning at the top of Stratton again.  This time I was standing on the edge of Stratton looking down Blair Road.  The trees are recognizable but from a different angle.  I was not able to get back there to make a painting.  I'll do that in a week or so.  The next two drawings were done last week.  The pine tree is located on the pasture loop behind the Clark, while the other tree is on Stratton Road.  It holds the birdhouse.  Finally, the 8x10 painting I did in June  at Field Farm.  It's a view of Greylock.

Still on Stratton

Again, this morning I went up to the top of Stratton Road and walked into the field but this time looked north, and did the drawing above.   I returned later in the afternoon and first reworked yesterday's painting a bit.  It is the view looking south with the Taconic mountains visible on the horizon.  I wanted to simplify things.  When I got around to today's painting, simplification was still the goal.  In the north view you can see the mountain known as "The Dome."  The panel I used was pre-toned, which I think helped.

Blair at Stratton

This morning I went up to the top of Stratton Road, walked into the field, and made the 9x12 charcoal drawing of trees and bushes that reside on the edge of Blair Road, which abuts with the top of Stratton. Then it occurred to me: why are you overlooking this most obvious place to paint.  You can park easily, you have multiple views, and the neighbors are friendly.  So I came back in the afternoon and did the above 9x12 oil on panel painting.  As I looked around, I realized that just in this spot alone, I could make a dozen paintings.

Top of the Hill and Why Photography Matters

An 8x 10 1/2 pastel of abstracted view where Stratton and Blair meet at the top of the hill.

I just finished reading Why Photography Matters by Jerry L. Thompson.  It matters because photography or the camera will capture more of reality than the artist wants or expects, but accepting and using this chancy outcome as part of a dialectic for development, the artist will grow and have a deeper understanding of the world.  He opposes mathema to pathema, Greek terms, to illustrate the dialectic.  Mathema is concerned with preconceptions and models of understanding while pathema is more passive and open to the unexpected (like the camera!).  He quotes Henry Adams on the danger of mathema: great artworks are mirrors, and will only show what one brings to them.  Pathema, related to the word pathos, can enable transcendence beyond the accepted or expected. The book's cover shows a photograph by Walker Evans of the Burroughs home fireplace.  There may be a known story behind the photograph, but the photograph offers much more than Evans probably ever conceived when he first made the image in 1936.

Top of Blair Road

A dear friend was driving to visit us, and got a late start.  When she finally arrived, she told me she had driven over a dirt road just before finding our place.  That's when I realized that she had gone up and over Blair Road in the dark, not the preferred route.  Fortunately the road is not rutted yet.  Nor did it  have the late afternoon sun to illuminate it as seen from the 9x12 oil from a couple days ago.