Wet Paint - New Growth, After the Burn

New Growth, After the Burn, oil/panel, 12"x16"

This white pine has been the subject for several paintings. On this day, I came upon a very strange sort of scene. The ground and surrounding areas had been burned off. The charred bark of the tree was most interesting in its subtle and delicate range of dark tones including warm blacks, cool blacks, reds, oranges and even lavender were all represented. Proving that all color is present in neutrals; whites, grays and in this case black.

In this detail, there are a variety of edges from the branch that's coming toward the viewer with its sublte modulation of warm and cool tones to the branches coming off the tree moving back into the picture plane. This affect is achieved with the lightening of value, neutralizing of color and softening of forms.

In this detail, I wanted to show how the the tree is made to merge into the ground by suggesting the dark of the tree beneath the ground cover and softening its form as it moves away from the tree.

I've included this detail to show how really abstract the ground plane with grasses, leaves and twigs can be suggested with a variety of brush strokes -- sharp edges, soft edges and lost edges -- and little flecks of color and value changes to focus the eye.

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