A hiking trail

In this post I take a look back at one of my most ambitious paintings from 2024, a sunburnt hiking trail inspired by a trip to Bear Mountain, NY. At 40 x 30 inches, this was one of the larger landscapes I did during my time in the Hoboken studio.

I’d been sitting on many photos from this hike, waiting for the right moment to pull the trigger. During one of my paint & sip classes, I had a couple come in who introduced themselves as art collectors. During our session we had a great conversation about their collection and their upcoming nuptials. I spoke to them about this trail inspired idea I had and they showed interest in buying it. We exchanged information and I proceeded to plan this piece excitedly.

I tend to be attracted to busy scenes, scenes with so much information the eye is challenged in trying to process all of it, but hopefully not in an unpleasant way, but in the kind of way that brings you in, encourages you to linger and process the image, as if it were loading in front of your very eyes. This piece qualifies.

For this piece I had been curious about painting on a violently orange base. I had done hot pink, purple and teal already, while using complementary colors for the painting itself. I was curious if painting a primarily green scene on a hot orange canvas would communicate the heat from that day, when the orange would peek through the cracks in the details.

I started with a fast and loose sketch of the scene using thinned out oil paint, trying to capture the expressiveness I am always chasing. Then I slowly built it up layer by layer with thick dots of color, alla prima (wet on wet), a technique where you paint with thick brush strokes of wet on wet oil paint, but in this case I try not to pick up the color underneath. It was exciting seeing the painting come to life, filling up sections of the canvas fully formed.

Unfortunately the potential collector ghosted me and I have not yet sold the piece. It is still available for sale here. Regardless, I really enjoyed painting it.