"Brokeoff Mountain" by Andrew Daniel
16" x 20" oil on canvas $900
Last time I visited John Crater's studio to paint with him, we selected this photo of Brokeoff Mountain near Mount Lassen. I liked it because of the picture within a picture effect. The far mountain is framed by the foreground trees.
My initial approach had been to try and paint everything with one main layer, only allowing a second layer for accents. However, once I got it home the piece felt too simple. There just wasn't enough there to hold my interest. My initial thought was that I needed to enhance color relationships to get more there into my there.
But ultimately, I realized that what I needed to do was slow down, and move through the painting, making each section come alive with detail and a stronger sense of intentionality. This was a long process, of putting down refining layers, but I was determined to paint smart, so instead of killing my painting by overworking it, I endeavored to keep my brushwork spontaneous, looking for solutions to problems that were surprising to me. In the end, I'm happy with the way the image turned out. However, I can't escape the impression when I look at it, that it was a painting that was built by an architect instead of an expressionist painter. Still, the quality of light that plays through it... in a kinda cool way.
