1720 Shoreline Roots

This is the last of the tree motif plein air pieces painted this past winter. I have been working on six 3x4 footers in the studio when the weather was too wintry for my bare outs to be out doing plein air work. These paintings are still way to wet to handle and the sixth is still under construction... and the fifth may still see some major changes too. I will post these major canvases when I can. For now, is here a plein air piece from February 4th, 2016.

I have painted this shoreline of trees before but every day is different. The red cedars and white pines are prominent and always draw me to this scene. This time I focussed on the tree roots that have been exposed through erosion. There are still lots of tree roots binding the soil to the shore but sadly, some soil has been lost. This erosion is an inevitable result of the changing water levels and strong current.

The ice formed when the water levels were very high. Oddly, this is the best of circumstances to avoid spring ice jams and flooding. The cakes of ice are hinged higher on the shoreline as I have painted them. The spring floods have to get to at least this height again before the ice cakes could possibly be unhinged from the shore.

I used a lot of paint on this canvas. From across the room, the stabs and swirls of paint merge into something very much more realistic. Although the sun was out occasionally between the streets of turbulent stratocumulus, the wind chill was still enough to affect my hands.

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