Image of the Week: Blackhead Mountains
Over the past week, I drove north twice to the Blackhead Mountains, forty-five minutes from my home, to do some landscape painting. The three named peaks in this northernmost range of the Catskills – Thomas Cole, Black Dome, and Blackhead – are the among the five highest mountains in the Catskills, all reaching over 3,900 feet above sea level at a distance of about three hours from the Atlantic coast. These are rugged mountains, with wind-tolerant red spruce and fragrant balsam fir on top, both of which give a dark color to the summits. The three peaks sit in a row, overlooking Colgate Lake to the south and the town of Windham to the north.
Early autumn is a wonderful time for landscape painting. My choice of medium was gouache – a water-based paint much like watercolor but thicker, with a natural feel to the pigment. Gouache is perfect for quick, small studies, which is all I had time for. I brought a small spiral-bound watercolor pad, just 12"x6". The painting above of Thomas Cole Mountain was done yesterday – a week later than the other two, on a cloudy day.
This second painting – Black Dome Mountain (which is dome-shaped from a different angle) – was nearly destroyed by a friendly puppy that came bounding over to me while I was working in my lap, and smeared the wet paint with his two big front paws. I couldn't stay mad at such an adorable creature for more than two seconds, and spend the next twenty minutes trying to repair my work.
The third peak – Blackhead Mountain – receded further into the distance, and was harder to see, but had the most lovely shape. I've climbed Black Dome and Blackhead in years past, and as always, loved the pristine, rarefied environment of the summits. This is what I focused on in these studies, rather than shrinking the mountain to fit on my paper. By zooming in and showing only a portion of the mountain, I was able to emphasize its subtle curves – for isn't this what makes a mountain distinct?
Painting the forested surface of the Catskills is all about receding textures. The trees cover the mountains like a bear rug, and must be suggested as much as articulated – and the scale of the texture must get smaller as it recedes, a practice that requires careful attention as well as the right paintbrush.
Every landscape painting begins with the question of where to start. In two of these paintings, I started with the predominant color, green, and then added the rusty browns, pinks, and ochres of autumn as accents. In the third one, I did the opposite, beginning with the accented colors and then painting around them with the predominant one, just to see if working in a different order would change the result. I think it did, slightly.
If you put these mountains together in one painting, you'd see something like this – a panoramic view of all three which I painted several years ago:
In this view, I backed up enough to see just the edge of Colgate Lake. Thomas Cole Mountain is cut off on the left. I like the view of the whole range, but after working on these three studies, I want to focus more on the summits, maybe zoom in even more on those soaring heights so patiently sculpted by the long passage of time.
I'd also love to do a winter painting of this scene – but I'd probably have to work from a photograph. Even yesterday, I had to paint with gloves on – my thinnest pair, for now. Winter will be closing in on the Catskills soon.
A good week to all!