Featured Artwork: Forest Bathing

I’ve always loved this ravine just off the Panhandle Trail for the angle of light that enters it, that deep “V” shape creating colorful highlights and rich shadows and always mossy logs with a little sparkle of water that meanders down the center.

And in nearly all seasons I’m intrigued by the soft mysteries in that mist when the woods are damp, filled with muted light.

I took the reference photo for this painting on an unusually warm day in early March 2022, walking barefoot in the woods around the Panhandle Trail between the snows. There was plenty of mist on that day as the warm sun reached the cool damp soil, and as I walked past this ravine on my way to the trail that winds up and up the hill the light was perfect to capture that feeling.

I had my art materials with me, but I hadn’t had a walk in the woods in months and had a lot of area to cover. I decided I’d sketch or start a painting of this if I came back past it later and the conditions were right, but I followed many other trails in the woods that day.

However, I do have a sort of a technique for painting mock en plein air in my studio…

Painting Forest Bathing en plein air in my studio…

I wanted this to be loose, just to catch the feeling of it, but not to include every twig and sprig of moss, much as I would if standing there in the wet soil and the spring afternoon was fading and the light changing each minute.

To mimic as much of the plein air experience as I could I opened the photo on my studio computer’s large screen, put the paper up on my easel, and started painting quickly, without a preliminary sketch of any kind, working from the middle of this scene, blocking off areas and making adjustments as I moved. That way I catch the elements of the scene that are most striking similar to the way I would if the light was actually changing. I had wanted it to be large so I had clipped a full sheet of pastel paper on the drawing board, and the painting would work out to be whatever shape and size carried my visualization.

I know a painting’s time has come when it just flows from my hand and my pastels.

I titled it “Forest Bathing” because that’s what I was doing that day.

Materials

I painted this in various brands of soft (dry) pastels ranging from hard square sticks of Nupastel to soft round and chunky Sennelier, from Alphacolor to Rembrandt, and lots of other brands as I’ve picked up small sets and individual pastels as well as “inherited” some from friends. I go for color, but the relative soft or hard composition is just as important whether I’m making clear lines and edges or I want to blend a little or a lot. I used Clairfontaine Pastelmat pastel paper, a very fine-surfaced sanded pastel paper that grabs and holds the pastel, which means you can layer pastels and draw one color atop another until the surface is full of pastel in an area, but you can still smudge and blend. I love to work on that surface.

The framed original painting as well as prints on paper and canvas are available. Please let me know if you’re interested.

Below is a pretty poor photo of the painting in its frame just to give you an idea of the “look,” and below that is a detail shot of a corner of the frame and mat.

I hope you enjoy my mid-week featured artwork posts where I review one of my (usually favorite) paintings including a discussion of inspiration and place if appropriate, medium, style, preparations and creation, for those who like to read about an individual image and for those who are learning. I usually choose a subject or theme that is more or less seasonal.

I’ll be alternating feline artwork and “other artwork,” and, eventually, new artwork!