This is an illustration of what I want to play with in July: for me the concept is gravity (in this case—FLOATING.) I will strip it of its protective edging and share this piece next week.
The weight is visual but not gravitational. The dark square reads as enormously heavy — the impasto, the earth pigments, the near-black core — yet it sits mid-canvas without touching ground. That tension is the whole conversation.
Water & Trees — Scaling Up
The small study (Water & Trees II) is on the right. The large canvas — 54 x 45 — is where I've been living this week.
What I wanted to accomplish on the big scale: revisit the sky shape, work out how the tree mass meets it, get the hillside reading correctly, and find the water reflection. In a surprising way, I've come to really appreciate what's happened with the hillside — and the reflection is working.
What I've learned: transferring from a small, charged study to a canvas this size is the source of every extra hour I've put into this piece. On the study, the chaos is authentic because the scale allows it to be. Large tools, fast decisions, residue. On a 54 x 45, the big shapes have to explain themselves. They have to read. That means I couldn't let the first layer suffice — I had to work and rework each shape and transition until it both fit and appeared as if it didn't cost anything. That tension is the whole game at this scale.
Still to do when dry: tree trunks, the bottom edge of the tree mass, and some tying together along the water's edge.
One more day.