September in Sedona

This piece has heavy texture in places. This texture comes from building up heavy layers of paint, which provides a rich history for the piece, not all of which is always visible. The piece is finished with a coat of Liquitex satin varnish and a cold wax rub, both of which help protect the painting over time. The painting has a satin/matte finish. This piece is framed in a white 12"x12" Cardinali Renewal Core Floater Frame that is 3/4" deep. The frame is screwed into small wooden dowels that have been glued to the back of the wood panel. If you want to replace this frame down the road, you can do so by removing the screws from the back and carefully removing the wood panel from the frame. The back of the frame includes a sawtooth hanger and bumpers at the bottom for hanging the piece. A certificate of authenticity is adhered to the back of the piece using archival-quality adhesive.

I keep a large backlog of art project ideas. New ideas come to me almost every evening, and I add them to the ever growing list. One of these ideas was to paint a landscape entirely with a toothbrush. I know that might sound a little funny, but part of the art gig is working out which tools give the best results. I’m growing towards an impressionist style, with soft suggestions and transitions, and a toothbrush does a wonderful job with all of that! For the sky and cliffs in the distance, I dragged paint with the toothbrush, using it like a fat square brush. It can soak up a lot of paint, so it’s good at that. For the bushes in the foreground, I loaded up the brush and tapped it, with the bristles facing downward. This can create some really believable looking trees and bushes. I finished by adding an India yellow acrylic ink glaze across the entire piece to cover it with a golden hue. I then added a super light cad red acrylic ink glaze across the very top of the sky for some variety there. Finally I painted the edges. With canvas, I always wrap the scene around the edges, since there’s enough room to see what’s there. These wood panels have a 1/4” edge; that isn’t enough to see part of the scene, but it needs some finishing, so I painted a red oxide edge on the bushy parts and a yellow ochre edge on the rest.