Catskill Mountain Life

In my series of oil paintings, “Catskill Mountain Life”, I join the two painting approaches, plein air landscape painting and figure sketches to depict a colorful and spirited reflection of place.

From painting outside I have developed a thorough knowledge of this physical place, its vernacular architecture nestled into the old, rounded mountains and along the kills, all touched by the seasons. Many years of observation were required before I also recognized the social pattern I was seeing within the physical place. From my observations and interactions with neighbors and friends I have become attuned to our shared communal life.

On the canvas the application of paint mirrors the undulating lines of the low mountains, rounded and carpeted with vegetation. High key colors are applied with palette knife, often leaving areas of bare canvas. There is often a focus on the figure--these persons could be anyone in the community. Each setting though not realistic, depicts a familiar scene and is obviously set in a mountainous, a Catskill Mountains, terrain.

When the paintings are peopled my emphasis is on the figure, not the face. In fact my figures have few or no facial features, just the front, back or side of a head. The activity speaks for itself, the figure’s reaction is expressed in the attitude it assumes—intense concentration; no smiles, frowns, or tears are needed. It is all there in the lift of the head, the slump of the shoulders, the speed of the feet, the outreaching of the hand.

These paintings in oil on canvas could not have come into being without my plein air work in watercolor and the volumes of figure sketches made over the years. The two bodies of work, plein air watercolors and the ink figure sketches, are joined in “Catskill Life” to depict a fanciful and spirited reflection of place.