January Sycamore – Oil

Description

January Sycamore, 28″ x 22″ Oil on Canvas. “Sycamore, you are sun-bleached white,” begins a published poem I have written to the sycamore tree. Nothing intrigues me more than sycamores clothed in white bark, crisp, curling paper bits showing, its form shadowed against a drenched blue sky. In this painting the couple, joined at the roots, climbs skyward into an enhanced perspective of infinity.
I often under-paint my canvases, and this one I underpainted red. One late afternoon I was painting the upper branches white, while outside my southlit studio, the sun was setting. I left to do something, and when I returned the upper branches were gleaming red, but I knew I had painted them white. The branches I had overpainted were illuminated from the sun behind so the white became transparent and they shone red. It was so beautiful, I immediately re-painted the red into the upper branches, impregnating them with the lingering sunset, hopefully, capturing the magic of the moment forever in my painting.
My poem was published in Crucible, a literary journal of Atlantic Christian College in Wilson, NC, which comes attached to the painting for the new collector.

Unframed: