Smoky Sun

A few weeks ago, I had this idea for an oil painting. It required putting a background wash on a good sized canvas-- 31 3/4" x 44". One day I started; but instead of a single color wash as I had intended, I ended up using two other colors.

When I had finished, I looked at what had happened by accident and saw something unrelated to my original idea. Kind of abstracted and with the feel of a river, cliffs and trees with that big sky and a rather abstracted shape running across it.

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For a few weeks, I let it sit as I thought about what to do. Follow through on the original concept? Take the bones of what I now saw and create something new?

What I had reminded me of something I had seen and photographed once when I was in the Lamar Valley while a lot of Montana and Wyoming was on fire. The cliffs were different, but that sky was the same color. So I debated and didn't do much as I had Christmas related projects to finish.

One day before Christmas, I thought I had nothing to lose as I could always scrape off any new paint. I moved up the suggested trees, began to define the cliff, put in that sun I remembered, and took some strokes through the sky. I used three brushes (#10 and #12 sizes) and my favorite palette knife. I absolutely love painting with large brushes like these and this time the palette knife was just an aid, not a primary tool.

It was all happening with only four colors, no complements which is unusual for how I generally work (which is a limited palette but at least one complementary color). Whenever I thought of adding more colors though, it was as though I figuratively slapped my hand.

When I was finished, I liked what the accident had brought me, and I don't plan to do more with it... although I never really know until I have lived with them awhile.


When mentioning this later to my friend, Parapluie, she said she often starts with a wash and sees what will happen especially with something somewhat abstracted like this one. I might see if this approach works again as it became, for me, a minimalist painting with the least number of strokes and suggested shapes. It was also a lot more rewarding than painting often is for me. It all just happened and that felt good.

It combined the scene I had photographed years before, the wash, the final result while I was reading a book on sychronicity which is about lucky accidents, recognizing coincidences when we see them and then finding their meaning. I am not sure about the meaning in this other than this light approach to painting was much more emotionally satisfying to me.