I was struck by sunlight streaming through early spring blossoms on a golden elm tree a year ago. I wanted to paint it, but there was so much detail, so much going on. High levels of detail are difficult – I tend to get hung up on them, plus I had no idea how I’d express myself through the scene – it’s such a departure from my usual landscapes. Hence I put the idea on the back-burner and let my subconscious chew on it.
A year later, spring rolled around again and I finally summoned the courage to tackle this painting, which also gave me the opportunity to further explore the fascinating subject that is still water with its depths, ripples and reflections. Originally the background was going to be sky, with the viewer looking up into the branches from the ground below, but once the idea of painting water occurred to me I just had to run with it.
There’s so many layers on that lake surface – I’m experimenting with flow and glaze mediums rather than simple dilution with water, and am quite happy with the results, though I am likely to keep fiddling with it here and there. By comparison, the blossoms themselves hardly took any time at all. I used a purple acrylic ink to dye part of the main branch in order to create the impression of shadow, am quite happy with how that turned out.
This painting is available for $860 from my Bluethumb Store.
