Nature has a way. Sometimes I want to ignore that and believe that “I know better” how things are supposed to look, be and feel. I’m not sure that mindset is filled with too much humility and interestingly enough when I try to push my agenda it usually makes for some chaos.

The thing is, behind all that is a deep sense of fear, of not having my needs met and a variety of other things. What I keep learning is that if I aim to “go with the flow” my needs usually get met and often in a way better than I would have thought.

This plein-air oil painting is somewhat of a metaphor around this concept. It’s another painting inspired from my backyard. I was feeling very unsure about the vista, composition and how it might translate to the paper. And sometimes at the end I’m still not sure but that’s something I keep letting go of as part of the creative process.

What has always drawn me to the potential of painting this view is the red leaf tree. I’m not sure what kind of tree it is but the color of the leaves remind me of a Japanese Maple and I love those! The garden plantings around the tree as well as the fence all took on unique forms that in their abstraction offer up something a little bit different to the landscape of the painting.

Letting nature have it’s way in the process of painting this and every painting helps me stay open to change, new ideas and whatever is supposed to come through on to the canvas or paper (in this case) in that given moment. It’s a very fluid practice and one that certainly can feel risky but I do it anyway.

Categories: Art Covid-19, Landscapes, Nature, plein-airTags: adventures, art, back yards, bold, colorful, contemporary women artists, dramatic, expressionism, fauvism, gardens, healing, home, i love art, landscape paintings, love, original oil paintings, painterly, paintings on paper, prose, rendered impressions, scenic landscapes, tree paintings, unframed, unique, vertical, women artists