TM8966 Greening Up 36×54 oil on panel

This might be wishful thinking, considering there are still piles of snow on the ground, but spring is just around the corner. Soon, there will be shoots of green emerging, and the trees will be blushing every shade of pale yellow, green, and pink as they announce their buds. Greening Up looks at the first green reflections in the pond, and the growth of wetland grasses. It is a dense painting, full of layered detail and layered paint. The viewpoint is from a narrow path that bisects part of the wetland, near an area where beavers are always patrolling, looking for supplies for their newest engineering projects. Bless them; supplies are bountiful. Details below.

TM8966 Greening Up – detail from bottom edge with reflected tree limbs

TM8966 Greening Up – detail from top center with young grasses emerging through pond reflections

TM8966 Greening Up – detail from center with dense foliage reflections in shallow water

Technical painting notes: I used a soft rubber roller to roll a layer of greenish blue and dark brownish green oil paint onto the panel, then used a silicone scraper to draw out the tree limbs. A spritz of solvent, blotted, added textures. When the base layer was dry, I developed the painting with traditional oil painting techniques, doing limited scraping into the newer wet paint. Multiple glazes added depth to the color. A last layer of  rolled, blue/gray transparent oil paint added a slight sheen to the water