Three Trees - We See Ourselves

This is the finished oil study on paper. It was back to what I love to do and that is be adventurous with the subject. I love the surreal look of this piece and it's darkness. The trees have a lot of paint and I just kept adding paint with marks and dabs and strokes until I saw something that I was attracted to. It's a method of trying to capture and attitude or a particular suggestion of a look in a face or figure. The english painter, Frank Auerbach painted over and over a piece for sometimes weeks or eighty hours until he was happy with the look of a piece. He had the model sit the whole time too, and yet, the painting looked like it was done in five minutes on the surface. Under the surface, the layers of paint are staggering in thickness. But still all done for an attitude to the work.