TM8441 Quarry Pool 16×16 oil on panel

New year, new beginnings, and the recovery of a lost painting. Let me back up. The studio is an intensive place – ideas floating in the air, cluttering up the margins of the floor, stacked behind earlier ideas – you get the picture. Last week I was moving some panels and found this little painting leaning against the wall, half-finished, begging for attention and a tender loving completion. Never one to resist such a generous invitation, I spent a fruitful afternoon remembering a visit to one of my many quarry ponds, and finally finished a painting I had started last summer. Enjoy.

Technical painting notes: This painting was begun with  a range of monotype techniques – oil paint rolled on with a soft rubber brayer then manipulated with rags and solvents, allowed to dry, then glazed and allowed to dry again. When I started using brushes and more glazes to define the granite, water,  and trees I discovered that not much was needed. I made an effort to restrain my impulse to render every last breath out of the painting, letting the fir trees remain almost a silhouette and keeping just hints of reflection in the water.