“Lost Creek”
January, 2017
Acrylic on Canvas
20x16 inches

"No Through Road" January 24 - May 31, 2017, First Lutheran Church

I started this painting in August of 2014, the day after I completed “The Stone Bridge" and was hoping to repeat that experience of simply looking at the landscape, and translating it on to the canvas.

My original intention was that this was going to be an easy plein-aire painting - the geometry of the composition was perfect. the creek was lovely - and for whatever reason, I simply could not get the drawing to work.

But I was determined that this was going to be a quick painting, so I painted over the drawing. (Never, ever, paint over a bad drawing. Ever. Just, no.)

About this time was when the tourists showed up to look. (Lost Creek has a toilet. The most popular tourist attractions anywhere are places that have a toilet. This is also one of my most important considerations when choosing a place to paint outdoors, so I tend to connect with tourists more often than not, which is usually a nice experience, really.)

When things are going badly, and you have an audience, your pride gets in the way, and then things just keep getting worse and worse. So at the end of the second day, I realized the painting was going nowhere, so I took photos of the creek, and then left. I dabbled at it over a weekend last July, but then I got it out over the Christmas holiday this year, got out the photos and lined them up, and then - it came together in exactly the way I’d been hoping for the first time around.

Funny how things go.