Against The Sky Revamped

Against The Sky

20 x 16"

acrylic on canvas

© Nicki Ault, 2012(revised)
sold

An older painting I tweaked before the Open Studio last November. Deepening the blue at the top made the fluttering, sunlit leaves more intense and also quieted the pine branch coming in on the top right. I think I glazed over some of the mid-tone greens to darken them up a bit as well. Below is the original state of this piece.

© Nicki Ault, 2010

Thoughts?

I painted this up at The Emma Lake Kenderdine Campus using a photo I took while walking around the campus looking up at the trees. I then used the small image on the digital camera screen to paint from. I started with a very dark ground on the canvas and used the lighter colours to carve out the positive shapes like the silhouette of the little tree on the right. Much of the darkest colour you see is the original ground showing through. It was a bit of a brain workout painting from negative to positive space.

In another battle with this never-ending month of January, I recently got hit with a bug that knocked me out for a few days. I am feeling better today, just in time to enjoy the -42 degree Celsius temperature (with wind chill). I am ready to turn the page of the calendar to February. On a positive note, the sun is now coming up before 9:00 a.m.!