Thursday, August 30, 2012

California Dreaming, Again


California Dreaming
24" x 18"
Acrylic on Canvas

Like a repetitive dream, the back roads of California have an ancient familiarity to me. It’s as if I’ve known these rolling hills strewn with dark oaks for hundreds of years. Maybe I sat on the back of a wagon and watched this landscape roll by in another lifetime. All I know is when I come across places like the one in this painting; it feels like my most comfortable pair of shoes. It’s home. Maybe not the home I will always have, but the deep comfort of something that is a part of you.

The colors of this painting are very different from what you might typically see from me. There are no pines, no mountains, and no expanse of desert. So, it was an interesting challenge to capture the burnt dry grasses of the hills and the deep shadows cast by dense oaks. I think I got it‑‑though the shadows were surely elusive. As elusive as the remnants of that dream you know you’ve had so many times before that you just can’t quite recall.

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