High Refuge

This one is for Philip, my husband's brother.  Although he provided the reference photo, I have also passed this tree several times on the way up to the summit of Mount Lassen, a dormant northern California volcano in the Cascade Range and the namesake of one of our favorite National Parks.  The tree provides a rare spot of deep shade on the exposed, rocky slope of the mountain.  It's probably located at about 9,000 feet above sea level. The trail takes the hiker up 2,000 feet in 2 miles, ending on a treeless, windblown summit at 10,000 feet.

This tree was difficult to render in a painting, which is why I jumped at the challenge. The unusual form defies most mental Platonic forms of "Tree" and makes the image harder to read.  The deep shadows became shapes of their own against a pale background. On top of those considerations, the dominant "real" colors of this landscape are concrete gray and dark brown-green.  So, as a painter, I added my own emotional feeling for this place through the use of color, as well as by playing with the forms a little to create a working composition.  I like how the shade worked out.

I think I have returned to the technical roots of watercolor painting with this latest series (doing washes, starting with light values and adding darker values, etc.). While I love some of my recent, more abstract work, I felt pulled in different directions by different technical approaches and levels of abstraction and surrealism.  What I have kept from all my exploration are two jewels:  pattern and texture. I like to score and scratch and drybrush my paintings, and I like landscapes and other subjects with unusual and intriguing patterns of line, detail, and form. 

Please let me know how you perceive this latest series; I would enjoy your comments and critique.