Description
Shipley Backyard Re-Imagined
A Contemporary Mixed Media Landscape About Renewal, Discovery, and Light
Some paintings quietly change the direction of an artist’s life.
Shipley Backyard Re-Imagined was the first painting that revealed the possibilities of what would eventually become my Re-Imagined Landscapes series. While rooted in a plein-air painting created during a SOCALPAPA paint-out at the Shipley Nature Center in Huntington Beach, California, the finished work evolved into something far beyond a traditional landscape.
Returning to Shipley after the loss of my wife in 2021 made the experience deeply personal. The familiar paths and gardens carried memories that were both painful and restorative. Rather than illustrating grief, the painting records the experience of moving through it; finding light again while accepting that shadow remains part of the journey.
From Observation to Discovery
Like every painting in the Re-Imagined Landscapes series, the work began with direct observation on location before evolving through multiple stages of drawing, monoprinting, acrylic painting, pastel, and stencil mark-making on archival Arches watercolor paper.
Each layer became another conversation with the landscape rather than simply another technique. Earlier decisions remain visible beneath later ones, allowing the painting to preserve its own history of discovery.
The result is not a reconstruction of nature but a record of seeing, questioning, and responding over time.
A New Contemporary Language for Landscape Painting
This painting became the turning point that convinced me this process could become more than a single experiment.
The stencil marks function as another form of expressive mark-making alongside brushwork, drawing, and monoprint textures. They are not decorative additions but active participants in creating rhythm, movement, atmosphere, and depth.
Areas of luminous color emerge from passages of deep shadow, allowing the landscape to feel simultaneously familiar and imagined. The vegetation remains rooted in careful observation, while the layered surface creates an almost ethereal sense of space that could not have been achieved through any one medium alone.
Light Emerging Through the Landscape
The composition balances brilliance against darkness.
Sunlight moves across the undergrowth while cool violet and blue shadows surround it. Bright passages of yellow-green foliage appear almost to glow from within, suggesting not simply changing light but the quiet resilience found in natural growth.
Rather than presenting a specific place, the painting invites viewers into an emotional landscape where memory, observation, and imagination coexist.
Museum-Quality Original Artwork
- Original mixed media painting
- Acrylic, monoprint, pastel, and stencil mark-making
- Archival Arches watercolor paper
- Archivally mounted
- One-of-a-kind original artwork
- Ships unframed
- Framing available upon request (please contact the artist before ordering)
View more works in my Re-Imagined Landscape Series through our Mixed Media Gallery.
Keep up with my latest work on Instagram @ronreekers.
Watch detail art ‘do it yourself” video I’ve produced at YouTube.com/@rreekers
You can also explore my thoughts regarding the relationship between Fine Art, Aerospace Engineering, and lifelong creative practice through my LinkedIn profile.
For additional studio insights, behind-the-scenes artwork development, and ongoing creative projects, visit my Patreon page.
