Waves of Gold

I am wainting for the Aspen trees to change color. We drove to this Aspen grove on Saturday expecting to see waves of gold everywhere, and found only a few trees that have started to turn.

I painted outside or Plein Air. Below is an excerpt from a letter by Van Gogh to his protege. I think this is a great example of an artist mind, and how she would describe the artist mind at work. He describes things by color, tint, and brush strokes, amazing!

I follow no system of brushwork at all, I hit the canvas with irregular strokes, which I leave as they are, impastos, uncovered spots of canvas--corners hear and there left inevitably unfinished--reworking, roughnesses....

Here's a sketch, by the way, the entrance to a Provencal orchard with its yellow reed fences, with its shelter (agains the mistral), black cypresses, with it typical vegetables of various greens, yellow lettuces, onions and garlic and emerald leeks.

While always working directly on the spot, I try to capture the essence in the drawing--then I fill the spaces demarcated by the outlines (expressed or not) but felt in every case, likewise with the simplified tints, in the sense that everything that will be earth will share the same purplish tint, that the whole sky will have a blue tonality, that the greenery will either be blue greens or yellow greens, deliberately exaggerating the yellow or blue values in that case.....

--handshake in thought, your friend Vincent.