Let's take a look at this today

Let's take a look at Carolee Clarke's

Daily Painting Going Green contemporary tree in Oregon

I'm still hanging tough examining the details of things.

Notice the position of the main object.

The trunk is off center straddling right at the two thirds mark. Things are always more interesting when they are off kilter. This arrangement allows an provocative arrangement of branches to the right and left as well as a beautiful space in the middle where there are no branches. I love the weight of the right hand set of branches, notice how this was enforced by the darker and brighter colour choices.

The browns, yellows, green, blue greens and oranges used in this work are very interesting and harmonious. There is a restfulness of dulls in the background, the changes from green to blue green and to almost white in some of the negative spaces delights me.

The shadows and the far branch colours are making me thrilled. I 'm enjoying roving my eye over the branches looking for orange or red and finding dull turquoise too. None of this would be nearly so attractive without the subtle yellows.

Look at the edges.... sometime very hard, indicated by the black lines, and sometimes very, very soft indicated by colour that is extremely close to the background.

Of course you might want to note the hard edges are on the branches that are closer to us in perspective.

Look at the lines used, their kinks and weight reveal to us a realistic tree. There is very little fine line work , even though we know a tree would have many fine branches. To speak tree to our viewer though we must leave those minutiae off.

I'm always looking for my old adage, the one thing I find most important with artistic endeavours;

something is going to happen, something is happening, something just happened.

It doesn't appear here but I still feel satisfied because of the wonderful colour play.

Would a tiny nest lend intrigue? Or a a remaining leaf? Or a caught shopping bag?

Each of these ideas provokes an entirely different feeling doesn't it?

What do you notice or imagine could be?

All there is to thinking is seeing something noticeable, which makes you see something you weren't noticing, which makes you see something that isn't even visible.
Leo Strauss