Larry Groff

oil painting

boulders and rock formations

Mt. Woodson Boulder Group #9

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Mt. Woodson Boulders

Mt. Woodson Boulder Group #9 8″ x 10″ oil on panel 2/11/09

One of my favorites so far. Looking west where you see the glare of the midday sun on the ocean and a sliver of the San Diego skyline. These boulders continually astound me but the real point is for these paintings start to give that same level of amazement. Will that come from even closer observation of the scene and even more faithful response to nature or does it more come from how you construct the painting, how you organize your vision, and how you use the language of painting to convince others how awesome this place is.

Mt. Woodson Boulder Group #8

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Mt. Woodson Boulders

Mt. Woodson Boulder Group #8 8″ x 10″ oil on panel 2/09/2009
Snow on Mt. Laguna peaks in the distance. Need a better photo of this one – color seems a tad off and some glare.

Mt. Woodson Boulders paintings #7

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Mt. Woodson Boulders

Mt. Woodson Boulder Group #7 8″ x 10″ oil on panel 2/04/2009

This is actually only the sixth but I mistakenly scratched in 7 on the title – too late to change it now, so my next one will be #6, not that anyone cares. I am getting more excited about these little studies. They are starting to feed on each other a little in my head. I am toying with the idea that I want to make a series of these little 8″ x 10″ paintings of at least 50. I will then make a few larger versions on site (anywhere from 12″ x 18″ to 24″ x 30″ (I probably won’t make anything larger than that on site)
I will then do at least one much larger painting, closer to 40″ x 60″, based on these studies, drawings and photos. I have no idea where this will all lead. I do know that I want to include the radio towers at the top of the mountain at some point in the paintings as well as incorporate the distant vistas of the ocean and other mountains in some of these little studies.

This one I decided to pick a view that was much further away than this view would indicate. I enlarged it about 3 times sight-size. Sometimes the best configurations and viewpoints are far off in the distance, working this way can also helps me to find invent solutions to compensate the loss of closer information might offer. Giorgio Morandi used binoculars on some of his little landscapes I’ve heard that might be another way to go. Some of these rock formations on Mt Woodson make me think of Morandi’s still lifes of bottles, boxes and jars.

These boulder’s appeal are not just abstract arrangements of form, space and light but also signs of inner life – an invitation to study their personalities and gestures. You can almost hear the boulders whispering to each other glacial secrets, their disapproval of our hasty, modern ways.