Spring, almost

Catkins and light in the treeline

The sky was so very blue around noon yesterday, and the sunlight was mixing amid some of the high tree branches.  The treelines have not budded out into leafs or flowers yet.  Still, the dusty red catkins on some of the trees are fuzzy and full.  So the treelines are showing quite a lot of action.

I did a quick pencil sketch and then back in my studio I worked up layers of color into this small painting.  The painting wasn't lively enough last night at 5:30, when I had to stop and get ready for calligraphy class.  So this morning I worked on it some more.  Though the painting is dense with color and abstracted, it recalls--it echoes--for me the sense and sight of an almost fully emergent Spring treeline.  By the way, you can see some ruff and rib of the wonderful cotton rag paper which holds the color here.