Non nobis domine

Non nobis domine, Non nobis domine

Sed nomine, sed nomine  Tuo da glorium

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13FrLGB_oK8&feature=player_embedded

Mountain Burst

 

There is a particular moment my Father, son, nephew and I shared in Ceder Hollow as the mountain burst into glow of yellow aspen and pine in a spectacular view.    We could not take our eyes off the mountain that day, it was simply overpowering in the golden glow and deep blue pine.   At one moment during the day my Father asked me to paint it.   This is my first draft of that request.   This oil painting is not yet finished, it is painted on stretched canvas 11×14.   I have a few pictures of this work in progress in different light still on my easel.   I really need to get a better camera and lighting because the images of my work are poor shadows of my actual work.   Dear Santa, may I suggest a Christmas Gift?      At this point in the painting, I want to pull out more variations in the aspen light and push in the deep distant hues on the range.   I hope to capture a piece of the awe we felt on that day.   I may feel a study coming on.  That would be fun.

     – please enjoy the painting in progress.

                      ND Pace

Aspenshine Study Finished

I was asked to donate a few small paintings to a local fundraiser to be sold with all proceeds to benefit a community  library.   Partly in response to that request, and partly to finish my Aspenshine Study, last night, I painted two very satisfying pieces as a final step in my aspen study.   They were actually the funnest pieces I have ever painted.  I felt I had a really good idea of what seemed to work and not work.  I was happy with the progress and the increased understanding I have now after focusing on this theme for a few weeks.   I have enjoyed the study and am ready to move on for a while.  I enjoyed playing with the thick applicatioon of oils.   I liked the blend of colors, using zinc and titanium white, medium naples yellow, yellow ochre, raw sienna, burnt sienna, alizarin crimson, and french ultramarine blue in color mixed combinations.    I liked the simplification I did of what to me is an aspen grove experience.   It is not about the sky, or any one individual tree.  It is about the canopy of all encompassing color supported by the mass of trunk columns.   I was most satisfied that the final paintings I painted in this study really captured what I feel about aspen.   

These two oil paintings are 6×6 on stretched canvas.  They are for sale for the benefit of the swann library at a price of $20.00 each.

    -  Please enjoy my paintings.

          -ND Pace

Aspen Autumn on the Equinox

    After a long day of depositions, my son Nate called me and asked if we could go golfing… It was the best day I ever spent with him.   We laughed, talked, admired each other’s nice hits, and groaned with our duffs.  We scored pars, bogeys, trees, and ponds.   We one putted, and four putted.   Best of all, I saw him smile in his eyes, and in his heart.   I love him.

      Later we grabbed a burger and fries and he just talked and talked and talked about what he likes.    I relaxed, smiled and sat, basking in the warmth of my son on the day after the last day of summer.

     In the coolness of the evening after the family had gone to bed, I stayed up late and continued my aspen study.   It is painted in oils on an 11×14 stretched canvas.     Please enjoy my work in progress – Aspen Autumn. 

     – ND Pace

Aspenshine

Aspenshine – oil on stretched canvas – original 8×10 – painted in 2010

When you are in a large stand of aspen there are three things that seem to surround you.  One is a sense of the beauty of the white trunks standing all around you, surrounded by and holding the color overhead with their hands.   Most people think that the quaking leaves are the prettiest part of aspen, but they are wrong, it is the trunks and how they unitedly stand amidst the color.  

      The next thing is the movement of the color in the slightest breeze.   The leaves act in unison like a school of thick fish swimming with one mind.  It is moving color responding to and made more beautiful by its interaction with the wind and the outer world.   In early spring it is a yellow green glow,  in full summer it is a light green dark green shimmer, and in fall it is an overwhelming golden glow I call Aspenshine.

    The final thing you experience in an aspen grove is a connectedness to those you are with.    It binds you.   I believe this is inspired because each aspen is actually a living part of each other aspen in the same grove.  They are all connected by their root system as one,  forming living organisms, covering entire mountain sides, larger than any other living thing.  

     I love aspens.   

 This painting was a study of impasto application. I tried to capture the feel of an aspen grove with the glowing golden canopy overhead supported by the silent columns so thick that your brother can be twenty feet away and you can not see him with only aspen trunks in between.   

Please enjoy my Aspenshine.

- ND Pace

a view at dawn from my door

This is a small scene of an early summer morning looking out from my front porch. I painted this twice, the first time not capturing the just past dawn light the way I wanted to. It just did not have that misty just barely morning feel. Others thought it was fine, but I knew it did not feel right. After looking at it for a few very unhappy days, I painted over it again, right over top of the old painting. It all clicked and the colors just happened right and instantly I knew I had captured the feel of the scene.

Now it makes me laugh because if I ever put it up for sale I could say two for the price of one.

This oil painting is a small 6×8 on stretched canvas.

Please enjoy the painting

- ND Pace

Its not the critic that counts

This is a small 6×8 oil on stretched canvas.  My great front porch is a wonderful sandstone with a sandstone ledge.  In the summer I like to paint there.  Our family gathers there to read together, talk, and pray.   It is a happy place.  One day I was painting and i liked the way the sun shone through a mason jar on the ledge and so I painted it trying to capture the porch and the grass beyond the bottle as part of the whole scene.

    enjoy the painting and one of my favorite poems by Teddy Roosevelt.

       – ND Pace

It’s not the critic that counts.

Not the man who points out where
the strong man stumbled or where
the doer of deeds could have done
them better.
The credit belongs
to the man
marred by the
dust and the sweat
and the blood;
who strives valiantly;
who errs and comes
short again and
again and again…
…who at best knows,
in the end, the triumph
of high achievements
and who, at the worst,
if he fails at least fails
while daring greatly,
so that his place will
never be with those
cold timid souls
who know neither
victory or defeat.
- Theodore Roosevelt