Drive Sentinels, oil on canvas, 11×14

Drive Sentinels, oil on canvas, 11×14

Strong compositional design drew my attention to this view of a tree-lined drive. The trees create a wedge shape that seems to push itself into the surrounding fields. The high contrast of the dark trees dominate the light-colored fields surrounding them. In simple scenes like this one, color and value need to be exact to get my intent across.

I saved the fun part of the painting for last. In this case it was painting the bright edges of the tree in front of the dark under shadow. I wanted it to feel like the branches catching the brightest light were on fire. I used cool blues, green and umber on the shadows to set a nice contrasting edge.