Spring trees in bloom - ACEO

tags:  eastern landscape painting - original pastel painting - for sale - redbud tree - dogwood tree - barns - magnolia - cherry tree

----

More ACEO-sized mini-pastels....for a new series on spring:

Redbud Tree

White Dogwood

Magnolia

Cherry Tree & Red Barn

During the time we lived in CT, my favorite season was, hands-down, the spring.   Around mid to late April, the land transformed from a dreary winter drab to acid greens of new leaf growth and blooming trees set forth to put on their show, and it was always exciting to see everything come to life again.  In our neighborhood, you didn't have to go far to find lots of different trees in festive spring blossoms.

But, they don't last...the magnolia trees are among the first to bloom, but they begin to drop their petals almost immediately, producing a carpet of creamy white below them.  This one was on a huge property right near downtown.  

I'd never seen redbud trees (I believe that is what this tree is) before moving to New England.  This particular tree was short and stocky, almost dwarf-like in its appearance.  I knew back when I took the reference photo last year I had to paint it.  It will likely be the first in a bigger size I do.

Dogwood trees are special to me.  I was born in MD, and although we moved to AZ when I was very young, I still have memories of them, and they are probably my favorite of the east coast trees.  Their graceful, curving branches always remind me of a Japanese painting.  

The cherry tree was situated on the corner of our street and New London Rd.  And, then there is the barn...an old, but well-maintained barn that I became quite fond of.  It is in many of my photos, and I was indeed lucky to get the photo of the tree in bloom with the barn.  The barn is an integral part of this image to me.

So, one or more of these will make it to bigger sizes, possibly in oils.  It's part of a series on spring I want to do.  

-------------

Cats are great to have around for their entertainment value.  Sometimes, Nelson forgets to put his tongue back in his mouth.  And, sometimes, I happen to get my camera before he remembers to.  It never fails to make us laugh.  

Red Barn and Foothills - pastel

Another quick break from the oils....an experiment to try snow and high-key colors on a black surface.  It is a home-made surface of Golden pumice ground and black acrylic paint applied to 4-ply archival matboard.

Unlike the Four Corners Roadtrip series, these paintings aren't done in temporal sequence.  This, in fact, was based on one of the last photos I took before the sun really beat it back behind the horizon and I put the camera away.  The light on the foothills of the Jemez Mountains was incredible, and I tried to capture it in this painting.  I kept a single building in - a western-styled barn, I'm guessing, from my blurry reference photo.  And it had to be red.

Red Barn and Foothills

~11x 7.5 - pastel on black-toned pumice board

Pennsylvania Farm #1 - pastel

Here is the third in a series of paintings from the cross-country drive across the farmland of I-80.   I have no idea how long this series will last (probably a few months, at least - I'll keep painting as long as I'm inspired by the reference material I have), but I'll probably aim to do it sequentially, by state, from east to west.

One ubiquitous feature along the farmland of the northern midwest and high planes are cornfields.  They are everywhere.  If one visiting this country from somewhere far away did not know better, he or she would think that all we eat is corn.  In a sense, this is true; corn and corn derivatives find their way into more of our food than one can possibly imagine.  Having read Michael Pollan's amazing book The Omnivore's Dilemma, I was already well aware of this.  Nonetheless, it's something amazing to behold as you drive across the US.

So, obviously, it will stand to reason that many of the paintings will have cornfields as the subjects.  I found them fascinating.  In some places, they make up perfectly straight, even rows on level land, and perpendicular to the interstate.  Elsewhere, the rows followed the contour of the land, over gently curving slopes, or down a hillside.  Often, a cornfield would be right up against the edge of a stand of trees, making the most use of free land not covered by buildings or trees.

This painting was edited slightly from the reference photo; extra buildings were left out.  I did keep the main barn and two others.  I liked the geometric shapes and bright contrasts of the roofs against the darker trees and curving landscape.  Also ubiquitous to farms are the grain silos, apparently referred to by corn farmers as "bankruptcy tubes".  They come in a variety of shapes, sizes and constructs.  Here, we have a solo silo behind one non-descript building.

"Pennsylvania Farm #1"

11x15" on 140# watercolor paper with Golden pumice ground

I started this with a quick pencil sketch on the untinted paper.  I usually use charcoal, but I was thinking that getting the buildings accurate as to shape, etc, would be better with pencil.  I blocked in the basic shapes and colors of the sky, tree line, and fields, and finger blended them in.  Later, I decided to use an alcohol wash to turn it into a more permanent underpainting.  This surface lends itself well to underpaintings.  

Then, I went back and began working back to front, leaving the buildings for last.  I am trying to avoid putting lots of detail into my landscape paintings, but I felt some was necessary to depict the edges of the cornfields in the foreground.  Not sure sure about the lower left hand area; I may rework it and tone it down.  

I'll probably alternate these with a series of local landscapes, of the trails, forests and mountains where we have been hiking, and probably more skies - they have been tremendous!