Autumn Spirit

Last week while I was working on a couple of autumn themed paintings I had the idea that I wanted to do something in a more abstracted way. Something that captured the spirit of autumn. Inspired by the colors of autumn I began with only that idea, and the thought that I wanted to capture the brilliant blue sky using my flying bird shaped stencil.  As well as the pattern of crimson leaves, gold and russet grasses, the crunch underfoot and the birds gathering in flocks overhead. 

My color inspiration resulted from the glorious week of fall color we experienced here in our mountains, and this photo of a neighborhood road only hints at how rich the colors were everywhere.

I made this painting on a 12 x 16 inch 300 lb block of Kilimanjaro cold pressed paper. With no real plan except that I allowed for the possibility of cropping the final painting, perhaps into two or more smaller compositions. Here is how it might appear as two 8 x 12 inch paintings.

And here it is cropped to fit into an 11 x 14 inch mat. As I look at these possibilities I can't decide which I most prefer. I almost like the top image best, which shows the full 12 x 16 inch painting, raw edges and all. So as I mull that over a while I have more ideas brewing for continuing to work in this somewhat abstracted way, if for no other reason that I am curious where it will take me.