Working with Colour and Mark-Making: Abstract Autumn Landscape

Catching the Shift

Autumn is rarely a season of subtle transitions. It arrives in sudden, heavy shifts of colour—the sudden browning of a canopy, the sharp contrast of damp earth against fallen leaves, and that fleeting, intense light before the grey of winter settles in. When I sat down to work on Abstract Autumn Landscape, my focus was not on documenting a specific woodland path, but rather on capturing the weight and movement of that seasonal shift.

The challenge with a landscape like this lies in balancing structure with abstraction. I began with the broader fields of colour, laying down muted ochres and deep blues on the canvas to establish the ground and sky. The warmth of the oranges and the sudden, almost jarring hit of crimson and acid green in the upper right were added to replicate the way the eye catches pockets of autumn foliage in changing light.

The heavy black line work came later. These marks are deliberate and gestural, applied with a swiftness to suggest the skeletal form of branches and the curve of a path without over-defining them. I wanted the ink-like brushstrokes to break up the fields of colour, creating friction across the canvas texture. By leaving the sky loosely worked, with visible, sweeping brushstrokes, the heavier elements below are given room to breathe.

It is an exercise in restraint as much as expression—knowing when a stroke has said enough, and leaving the rest to the viewer’s own memory of the season.