8.5x11 Acrylic on panel, © 2011
Private Collection
One thing I like about painting—observation. Once you start the process of painting, your heightened awareness kicks in, and you see things differently. This doesn't just happen when you have a brush in your hand, but before and after. Subtle color changes and the value shifts used to create depth become beautiful in and of themselves. Marge and I struck out to find beauty on a late autumn day. We came across a back road—dirt, of course. Who knows where, but there it was—beauty of place. The moment is memorable as you see the beauty of color, value, line, and stroke. I can never go back to that place except in the painting. Photographs never seem to capture what is really there. Sure they are good for details of shape, but not color, value nor finding it again. Maybe a camera with a GPS would be good, but I don't know why; I have a painting.