Squeezing in a post for 2021!
As not illustrated on this blog, it was truly a productive year for creating new pieces. In between landscape architecture projects, other paintings, and life woven in a pandemic, I had the pleasure of working on this commission piece.
Late last spring, I was approached to create a piece that was 48x72-inches of Aspens. We narrowed it down to a grove of Aspens in full golden fall color and settled on making this large painting into a triptych. I drew a series of sketches to work out composition and light/shadow values and agreed on what you see here.
What do you reference when a grove of Aspens is not outside your door? I looked up images and read about Populus tremuloides, "Quaking Aspen". I also relied on memories and meditations. One amazing fact about an aspen grove is that it is actually one plant. All the trunks in a grove may be genetically identical rising up from the same root system. Makes "quaking Aspen" sound like a poetic spin on "attack of the clones".
