Palenville

I was invited with a group of other painters to paint on the property of my friend Jamie Grossman in Palenville, NY. Palenville is about 3 hours north of me and is in the heart of The Catskills. I will jump at any opportunity to paint in Upstate NY especially during what is the peak of the fall foliage.

Jamie’s beautiful land features a small stream which courses over a couple of small waterfalls and empties into a beaver pond at the edge of the woods. Jamie led us on a short tour of what she felt were the best painting locales and I fully agreed with her assessment. Most people set up at the falls which was motif number one. Not being one to want to paint in traffic I thought I might like to paint the beaver pond but Jamie advised me that the afternoon light was much better down there.

Then, while walking back along the stream, I was suddenly taken by the effect this one old tree had on me. It’ old branches were covered with a copper colored lichen and it was not lit the way it appears in my painting. In fact there were a lot of broken clouds that day so the sun would come out blazing, go in behind the clouds, come out blazing, etc. It was almost like clockwork…every five minutes it would change. It was not until I had my easel set up that the sun first hit my tree and I was even more amazed than I had been initially by the almost defiant last stand that this old fellow presented to the elements. As an aside I am very pleased to say that this painting has been named to the FAV 15% of entries in the October Bold Brush online monthly competition. This is the fifth time this year that one of my paintings has been honored in this way and the sixth time overall. It doesn’t happen too often but I like this painting!

After a bit of lunch and a rest in Jamie’s lovely house it was time to head back out to the beaver pond. Jamie was right…the afternoon light was great but I’m sorry to say that after about fifteen minutes of work the cloud cover thickened up and I lost my light. I rather liked what I had going and felt, as I always do, that the subdued light seems to match the feeling of the onset of autumn. It seems to make the colors more vibrant and real.

Note that all of these small sketches are available for sale directly from me via this website. Simply click on the “Paintings and Prints” tab and then on “Available Paintings”. The price includes shipping costs.