I love this painting. Not just how it turned out but because of the “method” I used. There was a photograph similar to this in its context in a book I got from the library. It reminded me of being in the Hoh rainforest with its large trees covered in moss – the darkness due to dense foliage, but light streaming through here and there. Recently I had been doing paintings of wildlife on rocks – especially enjoying wolves. So I decided to combine these things into a painting on canvas. I drew out the basic shapes of the trees and then began painting. As I was painting a strange thing happened. I let my mind go of thought and just started painting what felt right – colors would pop into my head and I would reach for whatever brush appeared to be “right” – added water, dabbed paint, whatever I  felt needed to happen. And then when the brush hit the canvas, it was just kind of a feeling of where color needed to be – sometimes I would just “blank out” and not look at the painting as a whole but would just dab here and there, painting by feeling it, not thinking about it. Sometimes it seemed not to make sense to me at the moment , but I just continued and eventually it all came together as this beautiful background for my wolves. The only thing I truly thought about in detail was the wolves. The rest of it just came to be. It was a truly exhilarating experience and now when I struggle with a painting, I often say to myself, “Don’t think. Just paint.” And somehow it works.

05 Feb This entry was published on February 5, 2012 at 4:58 pm. It’s filed under Uncategorized and tagged feeling, forest, Hoh, paint, rainforest, wolf, wolves. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.