Description
A Landscape Revisited
Stay on Path – Re-Imagined represents another chapter in one of the longest-running explorations of my artistic life. The location lies within the Shipley Nature Center, where I spent an entire year creating monthly plein-air paintings of the same pathway as it changed through the seasons, weather, and light. That sustained experience became the foundation for a body of work that has continued to evolve through oil paintings, charcoal drawings, pastel drawings, and linocuts.
Rather than returning to recreate the landscape, I return to continue the conversation.
Re-Imagining the Landscape
This painting extends that dialogue through a layered mixed media process. It draws upon the earlier body of work, evolving through drawing, monoprinting, acrylic painting, pastel, and stencil mark-making on archival Arches watercolor paper. Each stage demanded new decisions, revealing possibilities that could not have been anticipated at the outset. Rather than covering what came before, each layer remains present, allowing the painting to retain the memory of its own making.
Mark-Making as Discovery
The stencil marks function as another form of mark-making rather than decoration. Like drawing or brushwork, they establish rhythm, movement, and visual energy across the surface. Their interaction with the painted motif creates a landscape that moves beyond direct observation toward artistic memory, emotional exploration, and continual reinterpretation. The painting becomes less a depiction of a place than a record of how that place continues to evolve through the act of making.
An Ongoing Conversation
For me, Stay on Path has become far more than a location. It has become an enduring idea that continues to reveal new possibilities each time I revisit it through a different medium. Every version teaches me something I did not understand before and opens another avenue of exploration. This painting occupies a special place within my life’s work because it embodies the belief that meaningful subjects are never exhausted—they deepen through sustained engagement.
Part of the Re-Imagined Landscapes series, Stay on Path – Re-Imagined explores how a single place can continue to transform through memory, experimentation, and the physical language of drawing, painting, and printmaking.
View more works in my Re-Imagined Landscape Series in 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.
