Landscape (Methods)

I showed the newest landscape to a few people. One comment was that my work had changed, that it was "softer." Well meant, but not the description I'd like to hear. It is softer because of the way that I painted it ~ more free and spontaneous brushstrokes, without the careful build-up of color and form that called for solid, sure brushwork. My previous work had been more angular, edgy, and formal. Composition and form were more important in my previous paintings. I had definite ideas to work out. This painting was from the heart, and without worry about the outcome. Also, I let light and shadow creep back into the scenario. I had not been treating light as a subject, though I had played around with moody atmosphere in a few paintings. I wouldn't mind getting back to studies of light ~ I been heading on that path very early on, in college, and then let that completely be cut off when I changed locales and the environment changed. I did one painting in LaGrange that treated light as part of the subject: an interior, painted in a nice little duplex I lived in back then. That one was partly successful (certainly successful for that era and for my goal at the time); but it was somewhat busy.