TM8177 Improvisation on a September Pond 24x24 oil

Improvisation – a word meaning the art or act of composing, singing, fabricating from what is at hand…

When I photographed the pond last September, its environs were all red, rust, and golden yellows. It wasn’t until I cropped out the trees and focused on the water that I saw the magic, the quiet rhythms inherent in the subject, and realized that this was the key to finding the poetic heart of the pond. Dried grasses along the pond edge provide stark and unexpected lights, along with a lone birch reflection.

Technical painting notes – So much of painting is using what is at hand, be it materials or subjects. First one must see what is actually there, then one must decide what to leave out and how to exaggerate what’s left to capture the feel, and poetry, of the place. The decision to focus almost solely on the water served to emphasize the watery rhythms, the “pondness,”  and the mystery of seeing the world upside down lends its own magic, along with the puzzle of guessing what the reflections are from.