I went out painting with a friend in early spring along Spruce Creek near Colrain Furnace. We clamored around, dragging easels and boxes of pastels over logs and along steep hillsides, trying not to fall into the creek. I was starting to think that we were wasting effort and might not find an inspiring spot to paint, until we turned around and saw a striking light. And then my focus suddenly shifted from wandering to a hurry-up challenge of capturing the scene before the light changed.
I was most interested in the bright light and radiant colors on the far right bank. The shadow areas and dark trees on the left were important in setting up this 'glow' of the sunlit area as contrast to it. The triangular shapes of color also interested me in how different sections interacted with each other- for instance, the red grassy bank on the right abuts a green triangle of reflected color in the water, and as complementary (opposite on the color wheel) colors, they energize one another. The cool blue interacts similarly with the pale yellow.
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| Sketch from on-location |
I remember feeling somewhat at a loss on location. Even though I was seeing all of these interesting things, I felt that I hadn't managed to get them down on paper. Repeating the scrambling trek back to the car, I felt discouraged like I wasn't bringing anything of value back home.
After putting the plein air start out of sight for a few days, I pulled it out and was surprised that I liked it. The overview of colors and shapes and their interactions were more apparent to me, and I felt they only needed to be more fully integrated. Cropping the image to an upper square took out the distracting detail and unrelated shapes which were in the foreground, and left the dynamic interactions which had first drawn me to this scene. You can see below that I cropped quite a bit out from the original plein air start (in the photo below, you can see the tape that defines a cropped section. Also notice the pastel marks on the bottom tape- I often test colors on the tape border before using them on the painting itself).
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| Cropping to improve the composition |
Now that the overall shape motifs and colors had emerged, I worked to finish the painting with a satisfying sense of wholeness, not just a literal copy of the scene. I darkened the pine tree on the left, and stroked in a triangle of orange directly under it just because it felt like it needed to be there as a counterpoint to the other colors in the image. The dark mass of the tree makes the light areas on the top right seem even brighter by contrast, thereby emphasizing the main aspect of the scene which had really spoken to me.
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| 'Spruce Creek - Plein Air' by Alice Kelsey - finished |
I feel satisfied looking at the final piece, and am pleased that it went on to be juried into a national show, and was recently purchased. Looking back on the evolution of this painting, I'm surprised that I could have left the scene that day feeling like I'd failed to do justice to what I was seeing. Reflecting further, I realize that I often feel this uncertainty in the early stages of my works. I'm coming to realize that this uncertainty is a necessary part of the creating process for me.... the work evolves one stepping stone at a time, following leads about where it needs to go.
