Morning Journal ©Kesler Woodward 2019 Acrylic on canvas 36" x 24"
Much of the time I'm painting images that are out-of-season. In summer I often long for the hush of winter, and I paint snow scenes. And as much as I love the winter, after being enveloped in whiteness for six months I find myself dreaming of the brighter colors of spring. But the fall, which turns the boreal forest from green to gold in a few short weeks, captures me every year. Two new paintings are personal responses to that glorious blaze.
Like a Fire ©Kesler Woodward 2019 Acrylic on canvas 20" x 16"
The smaller painting Like a Fire addresses that notion directly. It's a scene from early September, just a stone's throw from my studio. Our bright fall leaves are mostly yellow, but a handful of aspens turn orange and red on occasion, and a few weeks ago I was struck by how much the rampaging transition to fall, with whole sections of trees still green and other boughs blazing yellow, orange, and red, looked like sudden flame engulfing the forest.
Dooryard Birch ©Kesler Woodward 2019 Pen and ink on BFK Rives paper 15" x 10"
Since finishing these bright fall paintings, I've heeded the note to myself I posted some time ago in my studio, saying "Draw more!" In Dooryard Birch I revisited my current favorite tree, just steps from my studio door. I made a drawing of it several months ago with bold strokes of pen and ink. In that summer drawing, I tried to capture some of what I saw as that birch's remarkable vitality and strength
So what would it look like, I wondered, if I tackled drawing the same tree with a thinner pen, and searched for different parts of its personality? The new Dooryard Birch is the same section of the same tree, drawn from the same angle, at the same size, but in it I've tried to capture a little of that still young-and-growing tree's delicacy, its vulnerability, and a different element of its sensuality. I honestly don't know how much of those qualities come through in the finished drawing, but this is the way I think about my work.
Unfurling ©Kesler Woodward 2019 Pen and ink on BFK Rives paper 15" x 10"
As usual for me, one painting or drawing leads to another, and another, so for now I'm still drawing portraits of some of my favorite trees in our own yard. I just go to my studio every day and go to work, so I'll simply continue until another image calls.
Rubenesque ©Kesler Woodward 2019 Pen and ink on BFK Rives paper 15" x 10"
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