Alone in the Sunset – Sunset Tree Portrait – Placerita Canyon, Santa Clarita Plein air painting by Karen Winters

“Alone in the Sunset”
(Placerita Canyon, Santa Clarita Valley, CA)
10 x 8 plein air oil painting

Most of the time when I paint landscapes, the trees are part of a whole scene, rather than dominating it. In this case, the tree is featured as if in a portrait. An individual portrait is to a crowd scene as a tree portrait is to a grove. Some times, it’s fun to just study the branches and structure of a plant and to note its behavior – how it has been bent by the forces of nature. That was my objective in this painting, experimenting with the warms and cools and the way the light plays around the edges of forms at the end of the day.