This is another painting I started some time ago but was never quite right. It is an oil on canvas, 16 x 20 inches. Recently I went back to work on it to give it more color depth and a stronger sense of my swirls. What I am trying to do here is create a sense of nature but avoid realism to, I hope, make the experience as well as the appreciation of nature more intimate. 

The trees in the forground are evergreens but with colors beyond what nature might have chosen. The trees in the distanct center are very much unnatural yet here I am trying to draw the viewer into the patterning of the overall composition more the depict anything one might see while wandering in the woods. 

The objects in the forground to the right are nothing like I have ever seen in nature but I think might give the idea of flowers or tall grasses that are fun to observe. 

Here is maybe the most interesting part. I was stuck with the whole thing at one point. I couldn't see it in my head, and had no idea how to porceed. A good friend of mine reminded me that my work has always seemed to center around beautiful women. She suggested I paint a young lady coming out from behind one of the foreground trees to give the whole composition more meaning to me. I tried it, and almost instantly I could see where to go. I finished the whole painting but then saw that the woman just didn't fit. So, I painted her out. [grin]

I can still see her in my head when I look at it but do think it is better without her there. More my muse just imagined by me.

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