Rough Start

This is not the  post I wrote this morning.  The post I published earlier explained why (quite eloquently) I turned away from women Waiting At The Gate to paint the woods:  The new year stomped in  rough.

 I needed to paint rough:  Plenty of paint,  impasto, free handed, anything goes. The woods behind my home was the ideal subject.  The dense forest cluttered with stumps, fallen branches, wild grasses, decaying leaves represented all the threatening things to come in January, February and possibly into spring? 

Art has always been therapeutic, a way to vent.   It never fails to uplift . How successful or unsuccessful the composition, or how underdone or overdone, or how skilled the touch or how primitive, it doesn't matter. The soothing of the soul comes from the action.  These are small paintings. Sketches really, done daily to alleviate heartache and fear of what's ahead. The fact that are small is a sign of hope.

Fog in Hillpoint Woods, oil on canvas panel 12" x 9"

Winter Lake, oil on canvas panel 12" x 9"

.Wooded Barricade, first pass, oil on canvas panel 12" x 9"

Wooded Barricade, impasto oil on canvas panel 12" x 9"

On my final pass yesterday,  the painting became more realistic than surrealistic. With more scrapping, slathering, incising and graying down, the woods became as they appear: impenetrable..