The one about the health of the eye

Sunset X March 18, 2014 Oil on canvas

"The health of the eye seems to demand a horizon. We are never tired, so long as we can see far enough." Emerson

Another new location
From River Road in the Palisades, I stood across from the Virginia side of the Potomac where the George Washington Parkway follows the upper contour riverside. There are two bridges on either side of the composition and Key Bridge comes in diagonally at the lower right side of the painting. Snow from yesterday helps define the sloping sides of the riverside. The blurred brushstrokes along the bottom of the painting are the tops of trees that are far below the road where I was standing.

I began painting at 6:30 p.m. and the light changed slowly with a blanket of clouds overhead again tonight. No wind, but it was refreshing to feel the distance between me and the horizon again. I wrote the Emerson quote in my sketchbook last week finishing Anne Truitt's Daybook, where she quotes it in reference to her sculptures. She writes, "Artists use landscape as an armature for light, as I use abstract structure." There is a connection that I see between the painting I made with light at it's core and the loosely applied paint suggesting just enough of the location, with or without my description, that I hope a Gestalt occurs from the abstract marks. 

The painting tonight was more ambitious than the others: I attempted to paint more of the landscape - and give as much attention to it - as I have been giving the sunset alone the past nine days. The post yesterday shows how the landscape became areas of color that divided the sky. Tonight, with the long, clear view to the horizon, the sky allowed for even mixtures of color to happen but the landscape became patches and daubs of color this time.

I count myself among those artists "who wish to set the light free, which is what I also wish to do, to make it visible for its own sake." Anne Truitt

Drawing from observation
In drawing class today, my students were charged with drawing the figure from life - drawing from observation - but we used fine tip pens to begin gesture drawing in our sketchbooks.

Sketchbook page from Nova library figures from life

What have your eyes shown you? What are you seeing? #rickyseers