Early in the base painting.
Snow Home
2018 . acrylic on canvas . 36″ x 24″
Private Collection… Not for sale.
My approach from the beginning of this piece was to make a white painting out of a pallet of color. There are many layers of glazes and opaque paint as with all my paintings. Nothing is simple and many trees to show with no leaves. I was told I shouldn’t attempt this one but I seem to want to pick tough subjects and work them out.
My wife and I purchased our property in 1981. We made a trail back to a place on a hill that dropped off on 3 sides and was the perfect spot to build a home. We would camp out on the weekends and clear the smaller trees and shrubs away until we finally had a house built. An area was cleared toward the front of the property, which is depicted in my painting. To the left is a garden that is hidden by grape vine trellises. In the foreground are fruit trees, pear, apple and pecan. The land is 90% hardwoods and we have two wood stoves. We have always heated with wood from our land. You can see a faint glow of smoke around the top of the house.
I hope this painting will be in my family for a long time. It will certainly be the old home place one day. The city is growing out to our home that was once in the country. The traffic on the streets is constant and the noise is more prominent in the background. We enjoy the deer, birds, raccoons, squirrels (well, my wife likes those rodents) and other wildlife. But I don’t know how much longer our beautiful wilderness will survive. So this is a special painting to our family.
