Painting is a dance between intention and impression. Although I have a notion of what I’m trying create before hand, I often change course midstream and end up painting something quite different. Sometimes I like the result, sometimes I don’t.
For the first version of this painting, I worked from a photo I had taken while walking by Kirkjufell (literally “church mountain”) near Grundarfjörður, Iceland. I didn’t like how it turned out, but I thought it might grow on me. So I let the painting sit for days, then weeks, then months. It was definitely NOT growing on me. Finally, I sanded it down to paint another version (the one shown here), using a different approach. I worked from a sketch I had made while boating past the mountain, which allowed me to focus more on the geologic features (the rock layers) and freed me up to be more fanciful with the color.
“Kirkjufell”, 2025, 12 x 9 inch, acrylic on wood.
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