roots

My roots have grown but I don't know where they are.

I'm totally in love with The Head and The Heart. This line is from the song "Cats and Dogs." And why should you care? Well, you should care because they're Awesome. with a capital A. Perhaps more importantly relevantly, it keeps running through my head while I'm working on this painting.

I've started this piece in a completely new way. new for me, anyway. I began with this photo I took on a recent hike at the Dunes. This tree is on the ridge at the top of one of the dunes. Lake Michigan is at the bottom of the dune to the right. The roots are easily 18" or more out of the sand.

I started by blocking in some of the structure from this tree. Usually I start with the figure, deconstruct it, and rebuild it as a landscape (for the america pieces). Just to confuse the matter, this is a reclaimed canvas, formerly known as Buried, and I didn't bother to gesso over it. I'm using the old painting as an underpainting. The pink and blue is old, the ocher is new.

And here it is with a little more work. It's about a quarter of the way to completion.