Home
Available from Denman Studios
Available from Astoria Fine Art
Available at Special Events
Available from Greenwich Workshop
Limited Edition Reproductions
Archive of Previous Work
About the Artist
Contact
Galleries
Purchasing Information
Commission Policy
News & Events
Newsletter & Mailing List
Facebook
Links
|
<Back to Thumbnails
|
|
"Late Spring Lyric"
24 x 13"
Acrylic on Board, 2009
Western Bluebird on Thistle
$4,700
How to buy
|
|
We had a late Spring in Northern California in 2009. The weather was certainly mild, but with little rain, the landscape remained very dry, so I had the unusual experience of seeing birds in their new spring plumage against a backdrop of brown and gold rather than the usual green. In the case of “Late Spring Lyric” I was having a picnic with a friend at Las Trampas Open Space, a lovely hiking and outdoor recreational area not far from my home, when I encountered this bluebird. It let me get uncommonly close with my camera before flying off, an occurrence which usually feels an awful lot like fate whispering in my ear…”You’re supposed to paint this…” so I did. In this particular piece, the most obvious focus is the orange-blue complimentary color contrast, but it was the beauty, intricacy, and delicacy of the thistles, with their positively delicious texture, that were my primary preoccupation. As is typical of my style, most of the background is painted rather loosely, transitioning gradually into sharper and sharper detail until we reach the primary subject, the bird and the immediately adjacent thistles, which are all painted with hyper-realistic clarity.
|
|