Stairway to Heaven

Acrylic on Canvas

2008

This is my depiction of my first home in Greenwood Lake, New York.  There was a stairway of stones leading up to the front of the house through woods from the street.  These were never actually used as a pathway leading to the house because our driveway went up to the side of it and there was no parking on the street.  These stairs were a magical playground for my sister and I, full of little hiding bushes, a little space to pretend was a house or store, and a different sorts of plants which we used for "medicines"and frozen imprints.  We loved this spot.  All of the brushstrokes can be seen as individual colors, from a distance these colors blend to make browns, greens, cremes and yellows.  I did this because Monet's work has always inspired me to look at color and how they eye perceives it next to another color.  This also enhances the magical feeling my sister and I got playing outside on the stone stairway of our childhood.

My first attempt at this technique of using different colored individual strokes to make up shades of color was in high school, seen below.

 Voodoo

2003

Colored pencil on paper