from the red forest series, (or did the red forest series lateralize from the dogwood sunset pieces)..

The red forest series grew out of losing myself in the woods a while back … and…which i just did again wandering thru a patch of forest that was not in the map in my head. retracing my path led me to more of where i had not been and it was time to follow the sun out of this canopied confusion. i remembered what had happened some time ago when i was equally as lost and how the forest calmed me down. 

standing still, looking around for newly made memorable markers, not losing my directions, as much as not recognizing anything well not really, but really becoming so one with the forest so that nothing else mattered. and no, I am not crazy.  kind of a zone thing where i can lose my edges,  be deep in the woods and come upon a realization, a moment, when it didn’t matter which direction I went next, north south east west;  didn’t matter, I did not know where I was, exactly. I just stood there, and felt the whole weight of the forest surround me. It was amazing. It was breathing and I was breathing along in time with it. Part of it, I could feel the trees out there way beyond those I could see. amazing and out of control again yet not lost. 

i was gong to paint this idea with a minimum of colours.

Conscious of the forces involved, driven by ideas I could only grasp bit by bit as it grew with the painting, and looking for totally unexpected results, yet free to control my thoughts and change my perceptions of how to translate this into paint / into the point of new beginnings / to an aura of  ‘coming upon’. The red forest series was sketched out ‘in’ the forest interior, and to convey that sense of ‘oneness of the forest’ I felt, I simplified down the number of colours I would use. 

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dogwood sunset 5    / from the saugeen river lowlands e of mt forest

    <click on image to enlarge >

22″ x 30″

watercolour on arches paper