heaven's brink

oil on canvas, 52ins x 30ins, 1320mm x 760mm.

At the head of a small wooded gorge where water seemed to come out of the sky. No one had been here for years. I used a rope to get down. Branches had rotted away leaving empty tubes of moss. if you reached for one you grasped wet air.

oil studies:

looking down to my painting kiit and up to the fall

The uncomfortableness and privacy of the spot, with soft rain falling all the time, seemed to make fragments of poetry come to mind. When I got back I looked them up - Sermons in stones.*

Why, since each drop of thy quick store Runs thither whence it flow'd before, Should poor souls fear a shade or night, Who came, sure, from a sea of light?

from The Waterfall, Henry Vaughan, 1655.

making the painting :

composition on canvas, triple primed acrylic on fine linen for a smooth glazing surface.

composition adjusted in Photo Shop

underpainting layers. first of many thin glazes

Sweet are the uses of adversity,

Which, like a toad, ugly and venomous,

Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;

And this our life, exempt from human haunt,

Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,

Sermons in stones, and good in everything.

I would not change it.

As You Like It, The Duke, II.i.