Driftwood #4 - "Illumination"

"Illumination" - Driftwood #4

40" x 30" - Acrylic on Canvas

SOLD

This was the painting that I started in the post below and has been completed for a few weeks now, but I did not want to post it in the blog until after the opening of the Federation of Canadian Artist's Spring Show.  Jurying for the show was on Monday and it is always a tense time.  There are so many excellent and talented artists that enter work.  I see the work that comes in and I am always excited to hear that my piece has been accepted because, honestly one just never knows!  As well as being accepted in the show, "Illumination" was awarded 2nd prize so I am beyond thrilled.

I enjoy painting the pieces in the Driftwood Series very, very much.  It is a meditative process, tracing the lines and the movement of the grain.  I love all of the various textures that are found in the pieces of wood; bleached to almost white by the water and sun; orange, red and umber where the wood is still wet; smoothed by the pounding of the waves, exposing the whorls and swirls of the grain; sharp jagged edges where it has been chopped with an axe and soft feathery edges where the grain has been shredded by the sea.  All of it can be found in the same piece of driftwood.   Along with the textures of the wood itself is the joy of hunting out the inevitable pebbles and stones that the pounding waves have lodged into the crevices and cracks; some of them large and some of them very tiny, but almost always there!  And of course there is the light.  Always the light!