Friday, October 28, 2011

View From Keirstead Farm (2011, oil on canvas)

(Private Collection)
I made four or five trips up to the Keirstead's potato farm in Presque Isle back in July, where I roamed around their 1200 acres of fields and woods with my back pack full of pastels, making two or three pastel drawings on each trip. I then spent most of the month of August working on this large painting which is based on three different drawings from the same view, looking south with the twin peaks of Quoggy Jo mountain in the distance, beyond the city of Presque Isle. On the first day that I was up there drawing, there was a big barn over towards the left. In fact, the first drawing that I did was of that barn, from much closer. When I returned for the second time, the barn was gone. Apparently, it got taken down by one of the severe wind storms that we had up here this past summer.