New painting for upcoming one man show

Into The Light
oil/linen, 16X20

Close-up view of brushwork

Closeup view of brushwork

Hi Everyone,
As I've mentioned in passing in some of my other blogs, I'm getting ready for my first one person show, coming up at the Bosque Art Center, July 21-August 8, 2009. I'm thrilled to be given this opportunity to have my first solo show at the venue that essentially launched my professional career. I'm sure you can imagine that I've been painting furiously to have the number of paintings I'll need to fill the space. In fact, I've probably more than enough now, but I'm always trying to do better and larger pieces, so that it's not a show of 6X8, 8X10, or 9X12 paintings. I'm just about done with the "King of the Hill Country" 30X40 painting which is to be the centerpiece of my show. You may remember the King of the Hill, study, that I posted a while back. That's the study that I did before I tackled the more ambitious piece. I'll post the large one when I'm done, which will be soon....I hope.

This painting is all about light. It really doesn't matter where this country road is. It could be anywhere. It just happens to be in Clifton, Texas, the site of my upcoming summer show. I'm pretty sure, even the folks there would have a hard time identifying it's location. But like all backlit scenes, I love the play of warms and cools, lights and darks. Everything has to be in correct proportion to everything else for these lighting effects to read properly. There isn't much room to fudge. It's one of the reasons I like painting them so much. It's like painting people. You can't fool the eye with incorrect values or color temps. They have to be right. It keeps my eye sharp. The focal point of where the road bends behind the shadowed trees is the area of greatest contrast and interest. Everything else had to be painted to be subordinate to that. I separated the shadowed tree from the trees behind it by cooling the background and lightening the value.

Thanks for visiting, Steve