I recently finished this new painting, Road To Lake Ouachita. This painting is from a new series, I am now painting, called Adventures in North America (ANA). In the ANA series, I plan to document my experiences – places I see, things I notice – through paintings. My hope is to create a visual record of some of the things I find out on the traveling trail. My hope is to put together a body of work to show and sell to clients by appointment or through Matt McLeod Fine Art.
As I was planning to put this series together, I realized three things: 1. People like to know more about my process. 2. I actually have a lot of resource material to draw from to put together an intriguing body of work. 3. Collectors might actually like to know more about how I find subjects for this series and why I paint them. With this realization in mind, I will share a little about my process and specifically how I found and created Road To Lake Ouachita.
When I paint, I am not trying for photo realistic accuracy. I find photo realism technically interesting, but emotionally cold. Instead, I like to take a scene, disassemble it, then reassemble it with a big scoop of my own human emotional interpretation added in. I am trying to use my creativity, my humanity, my feeling about the scene as the glue that binds all the visual pieces back together.
When I travel, I spend a considerable portion of my time slowing down to just stop and look creatively. This sounds simple, right? But, it amazes me how much life gets in the way. It’s hard to keep your brain in creative mode – to see, think and feel, when all of life’s responsibilities are constantly popping up on the cell phone.
Calls and texts demand my attention all day long. My contractor wants to talk to me about remodeling my house. My vet wants to make an appointment for my dog, Willy. My siblings want to talk about what to do with my elderly father. These issues are important. But, I can’t think about creating a painting and solving a personal problem at the same time.
My solution is to plan a getaway. I try to travel to places I’ve never been. If I can’t afford an expensive trip, I try to go camping, or even go on a nearby hiking or biking trip. Whenever I go someplace, I try to bring my camera and a drawing journal with me. Just getting out with a camera, makes me really look for subjects. A small drawing journal helps me do a quick sketch and make some notes about how I felt about the scene and what the key visual elements are.
If I am out walking or riding my bike and I see something interesting, the voice in my head tells me to stop and record the moment. I’ll shoot the scene with my cell phone camera. When I get back to the studio, I go back through my photos and drawings to see if the imagery is still compelling enough to paint.
I was camping last October, when I found the scene for Road To Lake Ouachita quite by accident. I was trying out a new roof top tent I have mounted on the back of my pickup. I went camping out in Lake Ouachita State Park, near Hot Springs, Arkansas. My original plan was to try to capture a beautiful sunset for my 365 Sunsets series and to practice some plein air painting. I photographed the sunset that evening. It was pretty. But, I wasn’t terribly intrigued by the images I captured.
The next morning, I set up my field easel by the lake and painted a scene of the water. It was nice. Good practice. A fun experience.
It was after I struck camp and was driving out of the park, that I saw the scene I wanted to paint. I was in a hurry to get home. I needed to pick up my dog and get back to my responsibilities. But, I heard that voice inside my head that said, “Stop! This is it.”
I pulled the truck over and shot a series of photos of the road leading in and out of the park. I began composing right then, arranging visual elements within the viewfinder of my camera. It was late in the afternoon. The light was just right. The afternoon sun was filtering through the trees on the right and illuminating the fall trees on the left. The roadway became a path leading the eye back into the distance before turning right. Shadows were cast from the trees growing right up to the edge of the road on the right hand side. The whole scene became patches of light and shadow. An amazing assembly of shapes, values and colors.
If you’ve ever taken a fall drive through Arkansas, you know this scene. There are days here, in October that are just magic. The fall colors are just right and the light is perfect. This was one of those moments. Most of the time we see this moment and say “Isn’t that pretty!” Then we drive on. We gotta get home. We have responsibilities.
I’m glad I stopped to capture the moment.