The new year is in and with it comes a new start. A clean slate of sorts. I wrote a few days back about the final painting I completed in the last year so obviously there will be a first painting for this new year. This painting shown here is it and very much holds to the theme of new starts. Called New Day, New Start, this is a 10″ by 20″ canvas and was finished yesterday on the first day of 2012.
The hazy sun breaking through the strong colors of the sky sets the tone here. new light bringing in the opportunity of the new day. The landscape has several layers here with the foreground field rows slightly separated from the deeper set fields by trees on either side which act as a sort of stage curtain, a detail I often employ. As usual, I see the field rows as representing our daily labor, our day-to-day responsibilty. The layers behind represent different aspects. I see the orange as symbolizing the joy we find in life and the yellow as representing a placid state of being, of an understanding and acceptance of our place in this world. The distant and dark hills are, for me, the inevitable future. The Red Tree is , of course, the individual here.
As always, I point out that this is simply how I see this, how I translate it for myself. Your interpretation could be very different and no less correct.
Overall, I’m really pleased with this painting as a start for the new year. While it is not a large painting, it has weight and depth, feeling larger than its physical dimensions. I am hoping this serves as omen of things to come, painting-wise. But that is in the future, beyond those blue hills. For now, I will bask in the light of this new day.
Redtree Times 