Frontenac Rock Face With Rock Tripe (oil on canvas, 8 x 16 in.) Sold
![Image](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh36aPAFkFWICzY1yvoGV1toIXTQoFu_tVaLB9C8o0HZQ1eKgqXr7DnwlCTB0Xg_DtC9jXYhJa9359jBfe8vIbR5oqptY6JZ38C38YcLXscTIZLFddI7jBIELJ-H5bF0vvB3nzCcbYsNJdM/s640/30y2013frontenacrockface300.jpg)
14 October finds me painting a lichened rock face in the woods along the Fishing Lake Road in the Frontenac Axis north of Battersea, Ontario. "Don't say That's a nice view to paint," I tell myself. "Say, This is compelling! Should it be 11 x 14 horizontal to show the ferns and rock tripe below the forest - or portrait shape? The mosses and lichens are flowing down the face of the rock, following the crevice like a waterfall, so it must be a narrow vertical. THAT is compelling!" The touselled patch of Rock Tripe curls like hand-size scraps of wet canvas painted dull olive green, showing their black velvet undersides where the edges turn up. Some kind of woodsy Goldenrod leans toward the left from a patch of Polypody near the centre of the scene, and I decide to include it for its energy - though it is just a thread of stem with narrow leaves, punctuated toward its tip by a strung out constellation of fluffy spent flowers. Compared with the st