Signed American Original Acrylic Landscape Olive Tree Painting Dalia

GOOD FOOD WAS REQUIRED TO PAINT THIS ORIGINAL AMERICAN ACRYLIC LANDSCAPE PAINTING 

you heard of method acting...how about method painting?

Only Mediterranean food was consumed while painting this commissioned work of a very old olive tree and a 900 year old medieval church built in Byblos.

Med food has long been relished by this painter and writer.  In fact, while very spicy food has been the staple favorite...when feeling a bit peevish and puny...it seems that only non spicy healthy Med cuisine is the favored comforting cure.

A weekly dose of this Med cuisine has long been a delicious habit.  However while painting this for them, I ate only this food...as if to imbue the textures and tonalist palette of hummus yellow and tabbouleh greens onto this landscape.  This by no means was torture...but just pure heavenly! 

It began on one week, when I brought in an announcement of two upcoming fall art shows...one featuring my original oil of a tree titled: Omega Winter to be entered at North Shore Arts Fall Exhibit.

With a big cheerful smile the patron readily accepted and said that she liked my painting as she loved the "arch" of the weeping beech I had painted.  Then she turned her tablet around to show me "her olive tree" growing on the grounds of St John, the medieval church mentioned above.

I squealed like a child with excitement!  For years I have sketched many trees similar to that one...having never seen one like this except in my mind.  Dozens and dozens of similar trees with twisted trunks and limbs have obsessed me!

The Olea europaea - symbol of peace and plenty - has pushed my subconscious pencil and brush for years...never understanding why...  They are known to live up to 6000 years to display graying / tan to dark, unusually pitted trunks (perhaps from the many wars fought there through the centuries)... with exposed roots and growing to massive proportions.  

How I wish to grow one here in frigid New England...alas...in North America, only in Florida and California can one attempt or accomplish such a feat.

We decided that a painting was a must.  Rather than depicting and copying the modern scene, my suggestion was that the scene be "centuries old".  That is to paint the historic building far away in the background and move "her present olive tree" up onto the foreground.  She liked my unusual tree sketches and other oil paintings of mine. 

Her only instruction: no blue sky.  Wow! Because my favorite skies are often a soft buttery yellow with dawn or dusk striations...it was a match!

This was a challenging journey.  To remind my readers...no formal art education nor oil / acrylic workshops have been part of my reality...as I have labored alone for years practicing over and again...destroyiing and discarding many, many works.

Leaving that aside, there were no photographs made available to me for reference...only two glimpses of her tablet...to make a quick sketch of her tree.  A week later the 6X8" study was brought for her palette and composition approval.  One of the tricky trunks was quite twisted with a knobby area just above an old amphora shaped terra-cotta urn.

After three weeks of painting and repainting the small study of sweeping curved limbs while waiting for a reference photo...as none became available...finally with her permission...I took a photo of her screen and made the best of it.

A well equipped electronic expert, I am not...resorting only to primitive yet effective means to "get it done".

It was a delightful demanding expedition!   

 

All images design content concept text are solely owned by Mimi Dee (c) and may not be reproduced in any manner without express consent.  February 18, 2016

 

 

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