I can’t speak for people who live in the rest of the country, but in the northeast, March is ill-tempered. “Comes in like a lion and out like a lamb?” Hah. March comes in like a psychopath and goes out like a moody teenager, and only dreaming of spring green helps us endure it.
This week, we’ve been getting four seasons per day-snow, blustery winds, just enough warm sun to fool us into shedding our winter coats, then whipping rain and more wind.
It blew so hard yesterday morning that our windows creaked with the stress. And starting tonight, we’ll get more snow. In fact, if you look at the map below, you’ll see that the whole northern tier of the country is having tempestuous weather.
We all need a dollop of spring green, and fast.
Painters are naturally attracted to towering spruces, mountains, rivers, and other iconic structures; for one thing, they make composition easy. However, most days in most places aren’t like that. The abstraction of the everyday makes for fascinating paintings, because the artist has to let go of the crutch of those classic symbols. That forces us to focus on colors, shapes and brushwork.
I hope this painting evokes the smell of warming earth, green shoots sticking up through old grass, and black willows opening along a tree line. To me, that’s a perfect day. The simplicity of this painting is misleading; you’ll be looking at it a lot longer than a painting with a more obvious subject.
My 2024 workshops:
- Painting in Paradise: Rockport, ME, July 8-12, 2024.
- Sea & Sky at Schoodic, August 4-9, 2024.
- Find your authentic voice in plein air: Berkshires, August 12-16, 2024.
- Art and Adventure at Sea: Paint Aboard Schooner American Eagle, September 15-19, 2024.
- Immersive In-Person Workshop: Rockport, ME, October 7-11, 2024.
Lookin for that painting 🙂 Guess I’ll have to paint it!