New National Park Series

Everyone of us have been feeling and using the time of the covid stay-at-home in different ways. I know for many, it is a time to have a little break from the busy life they have been having and relax a bit. Usually this time of the year we are so busy getting ready for shows and hitting the road that that it feels weird to be able to take a walk on weekends. For some, this is a time to put in a lot more work and try to adapt to this changing world - many of my artist friends are in a serious production mode to build up enough inventory for online sales, virtual art fairs and more.

For me, this time has been unreal not just with absence of shows & loss of income but finding myself trying to sell our home & pick up our lives to move to Texas. For those of you who have experienced moves, you understand the stress - things were either dragging or moving too fast to keep up. I couldn't be in either relaxation or production mode. The little time I have in between the move activities, I am seeing as an opportunity for introspection and planning on how I can improve & progress. 

I also managed to take the time to do the work on something that's been on the back burner for way too long. Those of you who know us, know our love for National Parks. Almost all of our vacations involve traveling to one and so far we have been to 38 of the amazing parks in our NP system. I have done a few paintings inspired by our visits in the past and a series has always been on my mind. I am kicking off with the first one of Isle Royale National Park. For our 10th wedding anniversary, S and I did a 4 day kayak tour of the Isle Royale National Park and had a great time. 

For this painting, I used reference images from our trip and combined the memories of those to create the painting. 

I am happy the way the painting turned out to be - there is always a sense that may be I am not doing enough justice to the actual landscape but I hope I have managed to capture the serenity of Isle Royale in my painting. I have used a lot of iridescent colors that the sky changes color from the blues to a purple haze, the water has a slight movement to it, and the clouds have a silver lining based on the angle of light. The name of the park is also spelled in morse code in the rocks.

 I am looking forward to painting the next park in the series from my new studio in Texas next month!