More time has passed between the last entry and this one as I planned, but sometimes sitting at the computer is not as appealing as putting paint on canvas....
These two paintings are a result from a trip in July through the Kickapoo Valley in Wisconsin. A friend told us about that area and on our way back from a visit to friends in Alma we took this scenic route back. Meadows and roadsides were in full bloom, the trees still had very fresh greens in them, not the sometimes tired dark green from late summer and the time of day was a perfect one for the late sunlight. I made quite a few 'photographic' sketches and worked with those and my memory on a series of landscapes over the summer. These are the first two that I consider really DONE, another one looks like done? but I'll have to live with that one for a while longer before I know for sure if it's really done. This is the 'corner of the eye' period in which the painting sits within my view all the time - if it irritates me or if I get bored with it, it moves back to the easel, if not, you'll see it here very soon....
In September we visited this area once more and it looked very different, it had been hit by late August's heavy rainfalls and many areas had been flooded as we could still see. Lots of old trees had come down and there were still mud traces visible. Landscapewise this is a very beautiful area, rolling hills, fresh meadows and trees in the valleys, diverse agriculture, Organic Valley's headquarters are here too so I'm assuming a lot of organic farming goes on here, and we also saw some Amish farmers. The last ones provide the landscape with their wonderful traditional haystacks. I only remember those from my very early childhood when they were called 'hooi oppers' in Dutch. Think of Monet's series of paintings of haystacks at different light settings to visualise the shape of a soft rounded mound of hay.
