Underwater Trees
Posted on | June 7, 2012 | 1 Comment
Somehow it has been almost a year since I posted here. I have been busy. Busy with the baby raising. Busy with the cooking. So much cooking! I was also busy knitting a couple of hats during the winter and re-starting, for the third time, a sweater from yarn I bought 5 years ago. Once again, I made very little progress on it. I have also been busy working out. On Tuesday, I deadlifted 135 pounds no problem. And I have been busy catching up on last year’s movies that are now finally coming out on DVD, and just watching television. Girls, Veep, The Killing, and of course Madmen. I have been very busy avoiding painting. I blame the trio of paintings I have been working on (stare at, hate, redo, repeat) since last summer. I just can’t seem to get them to look the way I want. They involve the birch tree that I can see from our kitchen window, and at this point, I’m sort of resigned to the idea that the concept is good, even though those paintings may never be.
I have been spending a LOT of time this past year looking at trees and plants. The kid loves them–looking at them, touching them, pointing at them, smiling at them, and looking for birds and insects in them. We have been taking lots of walks to look at them, and these city-meets-nature-walks were getting pretty tedious from my perspective. Same plants, same trees, more pigeons, you get the idea. But recently, I saddled up with the kid in the backpack as usual to go for a walk and I happened to bring my camera with me. It turned out to be a great way to find some patience with the walk and to notice a bunch of things that I had never seen before. I snapped this picture, and it got me thinking about landscapes in a whole new way.
It looks almost watery! I’m now obsessed (or obsessed as time permits) with the idea of above-water trees and plants that look like they could be part of an underwater seascape. I have started some new paintings inspired by this idea. My progress is slower than it used to be, but I am really hoping they turn out well. I’d love to find a new direction to pursue. I wonder if this will be it.
So happy you found a new perspective–do not surrender just be and paint what you see. Sounds like something the little man can tell you.
Luck!