Thursday, March 8, 2012

A Thunderstorm

Kristina Wentzell, a thunderstorm, oil on canvas 20 x 10 inches. ©2012


First piece in my series of poetry inspired paintings. This poem has such wonderful visual imagery. I love that feeling in the air just before a storm hits...everything seems so alive and vibrant and expectant. I used a lot of quick, gestural brushwork and a simple palette of violets and warm greens to achieve that feeling.




A Thunderstorm.

The wind begun to rock the grass
With threatening tunes and low, -
He flung a menace at the earth,
A menace at the sky.

The leaves unhooked themselves from trees
And started all abroad;
The dust did scoop itself like hands
And throw away the road.

The wagons quickened on the streets,
The thunder hurried slow;
The lightning showed a yellow beak,
And then a livid claw.

The birds put up the bars to nests,
The cattle fled to barns;
There came one drop of giant rain,
And then, as if the hands

That held the dams had parted hold,
The waters wrecked the sky,
But overlooked my father's house,
Just quartering a tree.

~Emily Dickinson












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