Original artwork description:

“Notice that autumn is more the season of the soul than of nature.”

Friedrich Nietzsche

I have been plein air painting for a number of years now, carting my equipment around seeking to find really striking vistas to paint. That was, of course that I eventually realised that it’s rather difficult if not impossible to find the perfect scenario, ie little farm house nestled in the trees on a sunny day with a path winding invitingly into it. So I started to do what a lot of painters do, ie move things around a bit, put an extra tree or two in to fix up the composition, change the value of the light/shadows etc. This solves several logistic problems, and a lot of time and petrol.

So, I now still love to go out to get the feel of the outdoors and the light, but unless something unusually great is just there, I paint an amalgamation of what I see, and what ever else I think would suit. This one, for example started off as three trees along the side of the road in Autumn (see photo below), but eventually morphed into what you see now, an autumn dusk. So, I have come up with a saying of my own which I am sure I’ve heard before (maybe Richard Schmid)

‘Just because it’s there you don’t have to paint it, and just because it’s not there doesn’t mean you can’t paint it!’ Attributed to dozens of painters, including yours truly. 🙂

In any case, the feel of autumn comes out to me in this one because I was outside painting that particular season, not just here, but at a number of different locations, and eventually came up with this amalgamation of elements. I don’t think that this exercise in this time of year would provide a summer scene on the canvas.

Materials used:

oil paint

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