This painting is actually an older one from about three years ago. It's based on a dirt road on David's idyllic organic farm in the Snoqualmie Valley of Washington. I plan on doing many more paintings of the farm and am excited to do some plein-air work there this summer.
ShineI'm posting two photos of this painting, since a little bit of glare helps to show the highly-textured background. I decided to push myself out of my comfort zone and experiment with painting the Nike statue sketched in a previous post. I envisioned a setting sun over the sea when I painted the background with a palette knife and decided to paint a transparent and abstracted image of the Nike statue over the background. I wanted to emphasize the color of the sea playing in the shadowy areas of her garments and wings, with the colors in the sky appearing in the highlights of her upper chest and shoulders. Scholars think the statue originally rested upon the prow of a ship that was placed a pool of water; the color and movement of the water reflecting from the bottom of the statue must have been beautiful.
Joni Mitchell's new album inspired the name of the painting.
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This painting came out of my memories of driving around the outskirts of Billings, MT at night, when the sky is so brilliant and clear that it's hard to tell where the fields and the sky even meet. The Rims surround the valley and fit so well into that huge Montana sky.
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Winged Victory I decided to do some sketches of my favorite classical sculpture - the winged Victory of Samothrace, a Hellenistic depiction of Nike (now residing at the Louvre). The sculptor depicted her, garments billowing, just as she touched down on the prow of a ship, and she was placed overlooking the Sanctuary of the Great Gods on Samothrace. I imagine her right arm was originally raised with a wreath for the victor, and her left hand probably held a feather.
I wish I could do her justice - she's so impressive in person. I want to play with the scale and composition a bit and try to translate that "impressiveness" onto canvas.
