Early Morning

8 x 10 Oil on Panel

In the previous post I noted my dislike of "capturing a moment in time." In freezing time, even to relish the moment, one takes the chance of forgetting the past or losing sight of what is to come. When I went out to paint Early Morning it was misty, very misty, foggy. There was no view to paint. I could barely see what was 50 yards in front of me, but I love mist and fog and atmosphere and mystery so I proceeded to paint a clump of trees on a nearby hillside shrouded in a thick cloud. It was marvelous. Large arboreal ghosts appearing and disappearing, making silent entrances and exits. Then within minutes the sun burned off the fog and revealed the identities of the actors. Now the play was over, my subject changed and a new play had begun. I could save my little misty masterpiece and start a new painting or change what I was working on and make it into a sunny morning sketch. I was not happy with either option. The misty version seemed unresolved and the sunny option too stark. I needed something in between, those few moments when the sun was burning off the fog. Leaving some of the fog reminds us of how the morning started and picking up some of the sunlight points to the day ahead. The painting is not a snapshot of a moment but tells a story with a past and a future. The future however is not fully revealed, the story is not finished, and we can delight in the anticipation of what is to come.....