:: Local Spring Color ::

Grabbing, once again, from my pile of canvas boards to be recycled, I decided to see if I couldn't capture the beauty & colors of a neighbors Flowering Cherry.  I couldn't ... this year the blossoms were spectacular.

Spring  8" x 6", oil on canvas board,  2015, ©Nancy Van Blaricom

Attempting to take a decent photo of this work, one of the places I took it was outside on the deck rail. I think I like it in the outdoor setting.

:: Tree Study ::

Do you love evergreen trees as much as I do?

One thing I love about living in the Pacific Northwest is our abundance of trees.  I think I always took them for granted until I traveled to where there were very few.  Now I realize how fortunate I am to be surrounded by all this green.

I grabbed a canvas board from my stack of previously used and ready to be recycled canvases and decided to look more closely to these wonderful fir trees. Below a small study of the tippy top (not a technical term) of a local fir tree.

Fir Study, 8" x 6" oil on canvas panel, © Nancy Van Blaricom 

A few facts:

• With Washington's temperate climate, abundant precipitation, and fertile soils, Washington has some of the most productive forests in the world.
• Douglas fir is the worlds best timber producers and yields more timber than any other tree in North America.
• Forestry is a long term business, taking as much as 40 to 60 years to complete a harves and replanting, or forest management cycle.
• Douglas fir is the most important lumber tree in the U.S., also used for plywood, Christmas trees, paper and paper products.

:: What should I have done? ::

I often look at one of my older paintings and ask myself 'what was I thinking', or better yet, 'why didn't I think more about how to achieve what my expectations' were for this painting.

A few days ago I was looking through some old photos of past paintings and came upon this little oil painting of a bunny.   For such a small painting, it is 6" x 6", there is so many things wrong with it that I can learn from.

Looking at it now with fresh eyes I can see there is no sense of depth.

The foreground even though its in shadow, should be warmer than the background ... remember, warm advances, cool recedes.  As the path recedes it should get cooler in color temperature as well as the yellows in the grasses. A cool layer of blue glazed across them would help them to recede more. The color temperature is wrong. Also, there needs to be some color snuck into the path even though its in the shade.

The foreground grasses even though they are in shadow I could have added more value variation so that the tall grasses visually come forward, and maybe exaggerate the texture of the grass in the foreground, reduce the texture in the middle ground and really obscure it in the background.

In the tall grasses forward I could possibly have added some darker values ... almost as dark as the bunny, that way, the bunny would be more anchored to the foreground and the viewer.

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As I continue to paint, I'm happy to say, the more I learn.
I enjoy revisiting these older works and thinking about how I could change them, or how I could paint a similar piece to make it a better painting.

Do you ever go back to see how you could improve a past work and ask yourself 'what should I have done?'

H A P P Y  E A S T E R