Initiator: Ruth Stanton – Beauty Ranch

Initiator Artist: Ruth Stanton
Artwork Title: Beauty Ranch
Size: 24 x 24″
Medium: Acrylic on canvas
Price: $979

Responder Author: Bill Carmel
Writing Title: Chartreuse
Price:

---

A day of plein air in the countryside,
A feast of sensory pleasure.
A pure delight to those with senses alive.

A stroll through this Ranch sometimes reveals the unseen things:
How they collect, fold, combine the elements into life;
How they cycle back to where life begins.
Just like the hike that begins and ends at the same place.

The canvas is a window that records
Every sensation, Every thought, Every emotion,
A symphony of the brush-baton and palette orchestra.

Respond to the wind in the trees and the tall grass.
Respond to the insects, Respond to the birds,
Respond to the wildflowers, Respond to the riot of sensations that pour in.

Short walk up a small hill to the promise of a view.
Looking back quiets the mind.
This is a time when the senses compose a place
Where the light is just right, The colors just right,
The harmony of forms and colors just right.

Set up the easel under the Oak.
Deal with the mild gusts with cord and stakes.
Great geometry hidden in the stable, trees, walls, and hills behind.

Begin with the pencil outlines, soft and free.
Then the underpaint.
Find the complement and lay it down.
Thin and smooth. Quick and pale.
Drying in the sun.

Load the brush and paint.
Forms. Depth of field. Contrast.
Slippery, wet on wet. Liquid motion.
Chartreuse fields alive in sunlight.

Brushes into water.
Look away from what is painted.
Siesta.
New dreams in the midst of day.

Awake! To chattering squirrels and new points of view.
Stable walls and border walls of Italian stone.
Elongating shadows, deepening mysteries.

Chartreuse fields so bright it hurts.
Tempered in Sienna, Blue, White, and Umber.
Orange poppies.
Move paint around the canvas,
Deliberate adjustments before the calm.
Plenty of time to pack it in.

There is beauty all around the ranch.
Our senses know true beauty.
In the sky, on the land, every plant and animal.
Beautiful.
Dream.

© 2023 Bill Carmel