A walk in the woods – destination a beautiful Adirondack pool. You might think of lots of green leaves and green light (or gold and orange in autumn), but so often the woods is full of a rainbow’s worth of gray – stones, cliffs, ledge, tree trunks, lichens. The green is as likely to be moss.  My recent perambulations around Purgatory Chasm State Reservation in central Massachusetts and a trip to the eastern side of New York’s Adirondacks inspired a host of ideas for paintings (stay tuned for those!) and certainly informed my approach to this painting. I wanted to contrast the heaviness of the granite with the mirror- like pond at its base – and explore a palette of neutrals with touches of warmth.

The photo below shows the initial application of a base layer of color. You can see me wiping out the forms, and developing a bit of texture.

Wiping out shapes and major forms from a reddish brown base layer of oil paint.