Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Winter Tree & Alien Landscape

"Winter Tree"
"Burnscape"








































"Winter Tree"
Pelikan brilliant brown ink on paper, 2011
6" x 8" (15.24cm x 20.32cm)
private collection


"Burnscape #7 (Hills, Path)"
Pelikan brilliant brown ink, Pelikan blk india ink on paper
Monte Blanc blk ink (looks green), 2011
6" x 8" (15.24cm x 20.32cm)
For Sale at Daily Paintworks, CLICK HERE


A single tree in winter. Sometimes a simple object can be seen for its design and that is enough. I love the branches of the tree reaching up for the sky, the purest form of the tree seen only when leafless.
Setting the trunk against a dark background emphasized its graceful, delicate spiral.


This ink drawing/painting is from my Burnscape series. Living in Southern California and seeing so many wildfires it would be easy to focus on the destruction. My attraction for the burned landscape isn’t for its destruction... but instead how it modifies the landscape, turning it into a charcoal terrain... it is rebirth, the stripping away of old layers for a fresh start, the way Mother Nature intended.
It is how She manages her jurisdiction, by controlling dense undergrowth. We usually get in the way.
Man has traditionally prevented fires, the growth becoming so thick that when fire does occur it is devastating. Another topic on the Man vs Nature theme.

This was a result of walking thru a burned area. When areas that are dense with dry brush and chaparral finally burn, the landscape is stripped bare. Its former identity completely lost. Taking on the quality of an alien landscape.
The formally vegetation softened hills become a jagged harsh environment.155,156


Click on images for larger view

4 comments:

  1. both are beautifully portrayed David! i have an affinity to trees and you have given a lovely description of this one also:)

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  2. First the titles of the art works got my attention and then the pieces themselves! Good work on both!

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  3. Thanks Rahina,
    I did not know you had this affinity.
    These inks were fun for a change... from oil painting.
    Much more direct and quick. They dry, so they finish fast.
    Even faster than the way I work in watercolor which also dries fast, but I layer them.

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  4. Thank you Michael,
    I'm glad to hear you read/see the titles. I'm not always sure who does and who only 'looks at the pictures'

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