Natural Lands

Last week I explored outdoors near my homeland in eastern PA (Chester County), and am so thankful for the work of area land conservation groups. Thanks to the foresight and coordinated effort by these organizations , many large parcels of land, with mixtures of fields, woods, and streams are cared for, and accessible to the public. Last week I visited Sadsbury and Crow's Nest Preserves, maintained by the Natural Lands Trust (See http://www.natlands.org). I'm grateful for these quiet places to roam, and appreciate. They kindle my artist's eye with color and texture, and unite my roots (boots in the soil of my growing-up) with present day enthusiasm (joy of discovery, wonder) to find what lies around the bend or beyond the top of the next hill. As the weather warms a bit, I'm going back with pastels and oils, to immerse in this land and see what images flow forth.

Linen Canvas Prep

In my studio- preparing linen canvas

Here it is! Another linen canvas in-progress! I LOVE the slightly irregular, criss-cross texture of linen for oil painting. It seems to have some 'life' in it, and this helps me get started with an energetic, free underpainting. The photo above shows the second of two large canvases which I've stretched and gessoed this week. I had some travails with some fabric which I couldn't tame (it had sizing on it which was hard to get off, and the fabric itself was too stretchy so the weave kept distorting when stretched despite wetting and pre-stretching.) SO, after two attempts to stretch this stuff, off I went to our fine local art supply store (Uncle Eli's in downtown State College), and bought a yard of Frederix raw linen, and that's what you see above! I like this linen, and am really pleased with the nice, taut, feel after stretching, which gives it a 'bouncy' feeling when the brushes touches the surface when painting. The white stuff on half of the canvas above is acrylic gesso, used as a ground to protect the linen fibers from the oil in oil paint (which would cause it to degrade.) I'll put 3 - 4 coats of gesso on the canvas, and then let loose on a large painting of Big Spring/ Spring Creek in Bellefonte (based on a plein air pastel.) I'm excited about working on this beautiful linen! Thanks for stocking it Uncle Eli's!