Summer Forest

On the way home through the mountains near Sisters last summer, we stopped to walk through an area of forest where the pine trees were completely bare.  They looked like bleached driftwood standing among
bright grasses and other distant living trees on a sunny day.  We learned that bark beetles had eaten the bark, which kills the trees as they stand and also makes them more vulnerable to fire.  But the trees seemed beautiful to me, like deciduous trees in winter.  At first I painted the scene in all grays, thinking it a suitable subject for the Gamblin Paints Torrit gray competition.  But all in gray, it just looked dreary.  It needed the addition of color to contrast with the pale gray trees.  "Forest Bones" is 11" x 14"