The Gallery of C.F. Lawrenson

The idea for this painting came from an old pair of hockey skates that my neighbor had hanging in his shed. I borrowed them and took them on a walk around the edge of a nearby lake, looking for the right setting. This old wooden bridge that stretched across an inlet seemed perfect. We had a fresh dusting of snow the night before, but this morning was fairly clear with the temperature in the 20’s Fahrenheit. Dark eyed Junco’s are abundant in this area in winter because of the many different pioneer plants in the open areas that produce seeds, but I didn’t decide to use one in this painting until a couple of days later, when one that was evidently at our feeder, flew into our patio door and broke his neck. In this picture, the owner of the skates has gone off to find another skating buddy.

One day I came across an old abandoned Church and next to it, as if it had fallen and crashed, was this belfry. It seemed to be telling the story of the demise of so many small American Churches. I felt drawn to paint it and who better to watch over it than a cardinal.

My sister and her husband live on a beautiful piece of property in northern Pennsylvania with a pond, woods and an open field. I love visiting there and every time I do, I’m able to observe many different species of birds. They were probably surprised when I was drawn to this pile of old railroad ties and rocks that my sister kept after her husband to clean up. I was excited by the light and dark patterns in this pile and the surrounding field. I immediately thought of a barred owl for this scene because it’s light and dark patterns seemed to echo the existing patterns in the landscape. The rocks and ties provide perfect cover for a mouse escaping its predator, and a perfect platform for an owl that just missed an opportunity.

This painting was an experiment in color and mood. It started with a walk around the swampy end of a lake. We saw these two herons perched like bookends on a deadfall hanging out into the water. I waded out into the water to take some photos, but when I looked at the pictures later on, I realized that the herons perched on the same log made the scene look like a giant H. I decided that I wanted to create more depth, so I moved one of the herons back in the painting. I also wanted to develop the misty quality and color of an early morning in the spring when the leaves were not yet out, but the water and the red color of the new shoots and buds reflect the colors of the morning sky.

There are probably thousands of small streams in the northern Pennsylvania and southern New York region that eventually flow into the Susquehanna River system and on to the Chesapeake Bay. This painting was inspired by one of these runoffs that my wife and I followed half way up a mountain. We found a place where the water was gently falling over shelves of stone and in and out of pools for a brief rest before continuing the journey. There was incredible tension in the way the trees grew over the stream, seemingly in defiance of the laws of gravity. The water here will join Pine Creek in a matter of minutes and eventually find its way into the Susquehanna River system, which makes this stream, and many like it, the origins of the Chesapeake.

This painting was inspired by a place along Pine Creek known as Rattlesnake Rock. I took liberties with the background by creating the look of an older forest on the other side of the creek to give the viewer a feeling of being able to walk back into it. Also, I wanted the whole painting to echo the ancient quality of the rock formations, which is why I included the blue heron. They have such a prehistoric look to them that the heron was a perfect fit for these rocks which were here long before any of us. The uprooted, sun bleached tree on top of the rocks along with the eroded grooves in the sides are indicators of the many levels of water Pine Creek has seen throughout its history. If left alone by man, this formation will be here long after we are gone, lending credence to the old Indian saying that “only the rocks live forever”.

This is the smallest painting I have done. The idea came to me during many early morning bike rides on a dirt road near our home. The open fields along the road were filled with chicory and wild carrot, sometimes called "Queen Anne's Lace". The bright blue chicory only blooms in the morning and closes up in the afternoon, so that only the early risers get to enjoy their true beauty. In the evening it becomes just another wiry looking scrub weed. I saw several fleeting glimpses of Eastern Bluebirds in this area and their colors fit perfectly with the blue chicory, white lace and the orange in the sunrise.

While touring the shores along the coast of North Carolina near Beaufort, my wife and I found several places where cedar trees had been uprooted or toppled over by storms. The saltwater kills the vegetation quickly but the wood is almost preserved by it and the tree's skeleton can stay intact for many years. While we were there, my son-in-law tied a rubber raft to a wave runner and towed my wife and I out to this island. While walking around the island we happened across this incredible configuration in cedar with a great egret roosting in it. This was one of those rare instances when everything came together for me before I began drawing. The somewhat radial abstract design just jumped out at me and the egret was kind enough to model for over and hour.

The inspiration for this painting came from an old broken down bench located at the top of a hill overlooking Mansfield State College. I took several black and white pictures of it around 1970 and several years later I did a pen and ink drawing of it. It wasn't until 2003 that I decided to feature the old bench in a painting. The infamous water tower was located behind the viewer and part of the roof of Decker Gymnasium (which was under construction when the photos were taken) was visible from here, where the path goes down the hill. I replaced it with a barn roof off in the distance.

As the campus grew and became known as Mansfield University, it gradually encroached on this "lover's lane" of the mid 20th century. Now, it is all but forgotten.

In the early 1980's I was hiking a familiar trail up a mountain north of Westfield, Pennsylvania. I kept hopping over the same small stream and finally took some time to rest beside it and watch the chipmunks as they scurried around. The closer I got to the ground, the more I realized what a different view of the landscape some of our smaller creatures had. In our thicker forests some of these small life forms virtually never saw sky. Any rain they felt was dripped on them through the canopy above. I decided to do a painting of that spot through the chipmunk's perspective, a rodent's view of the forest floor.

This painting was also inspired by the exposed root system of a large hemlock. The seasonal rise and fall of the water eroded so much soil away over the years that this big evergreen began to sink into the creek until it came to rest precariously on a large rock. Over the years, the bottom of the trunk began to conform to the shape of the rock, like a horseman on a saddle. And, of course, as the tree sunk, more of the root system was pulled up and out of the stream bank. The intricate configuration fascinated me, and in some places, the smaller, sun bleached roots reminded me of the antlers on the white tail buck that roam this area.

Occasionally on my hikes I have encountered trees whose roots were intertwined, but this was the first time I found two trees of such opposite species so permanently connected. One is a hemlock, which is a conifer, an evergreen with a very dark thick and rough bark. The other, a birch tree, which is deciduous and has a very thin, light colored bark. In fact sometimes they are called paper birches because their bark is so thin it can be peeled off like small sheets of paper. The texture of the bark even develops in opposite directions on these two trees, vertically on the hemlock and horizontally on the birch. The roots were intertwined in a way that made them appear to be trying to hold hands.

While I was working on this painting, I found a wounded swallowtail butterfly in the same area. I took it home and placed it on my painting. The colors looked good together and this fragile life form seemed to echo the delicate relationship of a mixed marriage.

During the 1980's, as the streams and wetlands became cleaner due to government regulations put into effect a decade earlier, the Great Blue Heron returned to the Northern Pennsylvania waterways. I was fascinated by the Great Blue's prehistoric like grandeur, but as I would frequently sneak along the waters' edge trying to photograph them or study them through binoculars, I would always manage to spook these ever alert creatures into flight. I decided that this was the moment that I wanted to capture in my painting. This particular type of willow tree grows wild along the water's edge and their shade takes the glare off the water so the heron can see the bottom better, which aids him in his hunt for food. When I saw this scene, I was immediately attracted to the negative space between the leaning trees, which became strong V shapes in the sky and the reflection, that pointed inward. The same V shape can be seen between the wings of the heron as he lifts off. It just seemed to be a perfect fit.

Killdeer are quite plentiful in northern Pennsylvania in the spring. They will often lay their eggs in gravel or open fields. One day I got a call from a friend who had found a clutch of eggs in the stones along the edge of a creek bed. I got to observe the mother's activity around the nest for several days before they hatched. They stones were incredibly varied in color and texture, yet the eggs blended in so well that each day I had a difficult time spotting them, even though I knew where they were.

One Sunday morning when I went, the eggs had hatched and the chicks sat in the exact same position that the eggs were in, each one facing outward. When I approached they scattered and hid under the rocks, blending in so well that I was only able to find one of them.

This painting was published on a bank calendar that was distributed across northern Pennsylvania in the late 1980's.

Several of my paintings feature the root systems of trees exposed by weathering or erosion. Their abstract sculptural quality fascinates me and I love exploring them in a pencil drawing. This scene of the roots of a white birch caught my eye because of the interesting way that these light colored roots split up the space and contrasted against their background. I chose to include a nuthatch because I have seen so many of them along this stream, crawling head first down the trees and toward the roots which seem to spread out like tentacles in search of food and water.

This painting was inspired by a camping trip to Acadia National Park in Maine. What amazed me most about the park was all of the different environments and ecosystems that were close to each other. The transition from sandy beach to rocky cliffs to pine forest was so immediate that it only took a few minutes to walk from one to another. There were an infinite variety of views available and a myriad of colors in the rocks. I spent a few hours drawing and getting sunburned on Cadillac Mountian, then took a roll of film. I was disappointed when I got the film developed because the color I saw in the rocks was washed out. I was glad, as an artist, I could bring those colors back to life in my painting.

The gulls there were not too difficult to photograph. Later I found a dead immature specimen that was in good enough condition to freeze and study.

To show the expansiveness of the landscape, I decided to do a panoramic scene. The kind of view we would have if we could have a window into Acadia

Spring is my favorite time of the year. There are signs of new life everywhere, but nowhere on a greater scale than in our swamps and wetlands.

For years I have watched the red-winged blackbirds squabble over territorial rights at this time of year. The first version of this painting was done in 1985. It was signed and framed, but I never liked it and I didn't show it much. I had used a frozen specimen as reference and my bird looked like a frozen specimen. Although anatomically correct, it just didn't have the raucous aggressive attitude that a red-winged blackbird displays at this time of the year. So in 2004 I broke out the sandpaper and wiped out a large portion of the painting, redoing the blackbird, much of the surrounding area and the water. I was originally attracted to this idea because the reeds and grasses had a sort of woven involvement that was very abstract, but with the real textures of our environment. The bird and environment now come together in a design that I'm proud to show.

In the summer of 2004, my wife and I spent some time in the mountains of Eastern Tennessee with our oldest daughter, her family, and our youngest daughter who was attending UNC Charlotte. We rented a cabin in the mountains overlooking Watauga Lake. One day we rented a pontoon boat and spent most of the day observing the life around the wilderness shoreline of the lake. We followed this Egret from cove to cove for a while watching him balance, precariously sometimes, on half submerged logs. At one point he provided some comic relief by slipping and falling off the log into the water, but I chose not to embarrass him by using that image for my painting. The title, however, does not refer solely to the Egret. I was also captivated by the balance of sunlight and shadow throughout the scene, especially in the riffles and reflections in the water.

This is a very small painting that was inspired by some hiking that we did on Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina. The trails were very narrow and thick with growth. But every now and then there would be a rock outcropping we could climb on or an opening through the pines that would offer a window to a magnificent vista. Holly got a really nice picture of this Red Breasted Nuthatch there. We were surprised at how much brighter its colors seemed in comparison to the Nuthatches we had observed in Northern Pennsylvania. It was the perfect little gem to feature in this Appalachian Mountain environment.

Early one summer in the mid 1990's we spent a day at a camp near Germania, PA. On a hike near there, we found this huge hemlock on the edge of a field that looked as if it were comprised of two or more trees grown together. Hemlocks are the slowest growing of all the fir trees so we estimated the age of this one to be around 150 years old. What fascinated me was that it appeared to have grown almost out of a burned out stump of a previous hemlock, which could have dated back at least another 100 years, possibly placing it's beginnings around the time of the American Revolution. Hemlock pinecones are very small and tight but the heat of a forest fire will often cause them to open and reseed themselves. There were plenty of deer in the area and the image of this tree and the theme of regeneration haunted me until I did this painting in 2004.

This painting was inspired by a place on top of a mountain near our home. This field was left unused for several years and the old rusty gate seemed to be frozen to the ground in the open position. It is bent and sagging from years of being ridden by farm kids who couldn’t resist swinging on it as they traveled through to do their chores. Red-tailed hawks abound in this area and are frequent hunters in this abandoned field.

While traveling one day on a back road near the Pennsylvania – New York border, I noticed a bunch of old rusted barbed wire rolled up next to a fence post in a field. The configuration of it caught my eye and I wandered into the field to take a closer look. The fence line had never been completed and it was obvious that the wire had been left to rust there for many years. I began to contemplate the many reasons why this job had been left unfinished. Ultimately I decided to display a male and female Gold Finch in the painting because, unlike most other birds, they nest in the fall. This means that, in this picture, the Gold Finches, like the farmer, still have unfinished business.

Many of us have discovered special places in our lives that just seem to heal and renew our spirit. For me, it is a place where I have always felt immersed in God’s artistry. It is a place in the mountains of Northern Pennsylvania called “The Asaph”.

We have many wonderful memories of days spent here on picnics and hikes with our children as they were growing up. It seemed like a magical enchanted forest where two mountain streams came together and flowed south through the rocks and trees eventually joining Pine Creek. There are a couple of thousand acres of State Forest Land here and many of my paintings have featured bits and pieces of this beautiful place, such as “Evening Watch”, “Dry Autumn”, and “Tentacles”. However, in this painting, I didn’t try to record anything specific, but instead tried to capture the mood and essence of an “Asaph Morn”.

This painting was inspired by a waterfall in Leonard Harrison State Park, which is the eastern rim of the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon. About half way up the Turkey Path, the water gently falls over a horse shoe shaped wall of rock in a thick moist forest. Climbing from the path down into the stream and looking up, the wall becomes very imposing. You can smell the damp mixture of moss and pine, giving you the impression of being in an ancient rainforest.

One beautiful autumn morning, I decided to hit the dusty trails in the mountains near the town that we live in. I ended up on a road that led to a property owned by some friends of ours, the Oxley family. I got out of the car to wander around a bit and was totally awestruck by the colorful panoramic view before me. While I was breathing in the splendor, a Northern Harrier (sometimes called a marsh hawk) flew past me, low over the field, and circled back several times. I watched him till he left the area, then I continued down the road to the Oxley property, which Alan and his wife Bonnie refer to as “Sugar Wood”. The view on this road was so expansive that to show all of it would have required a board at least 70 inches in length, which would have been too cumbersome for my small studio. So this painting is a composite, just a slice of the beauty found along the road to Sugar Wood.

This painting was inspired by a place down stream from “Northern Rainforest”, near the bottom of the Pennsylvania Grand Canyon. My wife and I have eaten our lunch here many times during bike rides through the canyon. As I do in many of my paintings, I altered the background at the very top of the painting to give the viewer the feeling that they could climb over the rocks and continue their walk in the woods. The rocks are main players in this kinetic design as they slow the decent of the water and force it to separate and seek paths over, under and around them, helping to purify in the process. I tried to show a view that most of the adults, who stay safely on the path, wouldn’t see. However, the kid in me can’t help but climb in among the rocks and look up at the falling water as it makes its last hurdle before being absorbed into Pine Creek.

There are so many places along mountain streams in Northern Pennsylvania, like this scene, where the water has carved out an abstract sculpture from ancient rocks. I have visited the location along Asaph Creek, which inspired this painting, many times over a period of 30 years. In fact, I have pictures of this big rock taken when there wasn’t nearly as much moss on it as there is now; proof that the landscape is silently but continuously changing. This little cove is just one of many beautiful and restful places that I have enjoyed sketching over the years. A place where the only sounds are a few song birds, the water bubbling over and around the rocks, an occasional crow, or a lone woodpecker. This is truly a place for solitude and thinking.

In the fall of 2007, I was walking along the Cowanesque River when I spotted a red fox ahead. He didn’t seem to mind my following him, but as I moved forward so did he, always maintaining the same distance between us. I got to observe him for quite a while, until a dog from a near by house began to bark, and he ran off into this swampy area. A few months later, when portions of the swamp were frozen over, I took a walk down into these wet lands and found fox tracks in the snow. I decided to paint a winter scene depicting the fox trying to do the same thing I was doing, find a way to get around the yet unfrozen bogs. Of course the fox being lighter, smarter, and more athletic than me, will have no trouble getting around the thin ice.

Skating Buddy 22" X 32"

Limited edition of 185 giclee prints 16.5"x24" - $164

Plus an edition of 30 full sized prints 22"x32" - $294