Contemporary is for Squares

I spent yesterday contemplating what was bothering me about Summer Shade. All day long I paced in front of it hoping the answer would just pop into my head. It did not. The problem nagged at me. I should have removed myself from the studio and read a book.

Instead, I went back to the original photograph. It was a rectangular photo of a clump of trees--a landscape. It was a traditional, rectangular landscape that I chose to paint on a contemporary square canvas and had done so too traditionally, too timidly to boot.

When I look out at my woods, all I see are dots, dashes, short broken lines, and solid forms that have been slashed apart by color/light, (they're one of the same, you know. You can't see color without light). Summer Shade needs more slashes, dashes, dots and the illusion of lines. I started in with it again this morning. The bottom portion hasn't been touched and is still too solid and dark. The left side isn't airy enough yet either. As much as I would have liked this painting to have been history in March, it's still in the works and not ready to leave the nest.