Blades, oil on canvas, 26×40

The low late light of summer evenings can reveal a lot of vibrant, abstract patterns. It’s the type of light that seems to hug the ground and heighten the color of everything it illuminates, even casting wonderful color into the shadows and dark areas.

Blades is essentially a study of green. There are light and dark parts, vivid and muted parts, with some coming forward visually and some receding. The so-called Demon’s Tongue (Crocosmia Lucifer) has long sharp edge blades. When the wind catches them, they seem to shimmer and reflect a multitude of greens, yellows, blues and many other colors.

What interested me in this scene was how different leaves would turn and make interesting, hard-edged light and dark patterns. I was looking straight into the bright sunlight, which gave it maximum contrast with the far edge of a darkening background. The leaves were both outlined and backlighted, and that challenged me to get the light and bright colors as vivid as possible.