July 9th, 2014 PM
St Peter’s Square, Gloucester MA
Oil on Canvas, 12 x 16 in
(sold)
Already feeling more like myself in this one, though everything is not strictly perfect, I like the way this one turned out.
July 9th, 2014 PM
July 9th, 2014 AM
July 9th, 2014 AM
St. Peter’s Square, Gloucester MA
Oil on Canvas, 12 x 16 in
(sold)
I ought to retake this photo in milder light – this was middday and the shadows from the texture along with the glare do it no favors – but don’t really lie, either. This was the first morning of a three day workshop on Buildings and Boats – and although I desperately wanted to knock each of these out of the park, the truth is, I was still working out the rust & kinks.
Thunderhead, Flooded Boat
July 5th, 2014
Oil on Canvas, 24 x 30 in
Well, at the island a combination of bad weather and flooding high waters kept me from my initial plan of doing tons of painting. Three days drive there and back and all the business that needs attending to when you’ve been away a month have also kept me from my preferred mode of work. So I was anxious to paint, and I figured the Open Studio (which I had heard is pretty dead in the summer) would be a nice long stretch of time I could use for that purpose, even if it meant painting indoors and not out. Tons of pictures from Canada I would love to work from. So I decided to do this giant cloud, and my dock with a boat I pulled onto it and filled up with water, to prevent it from floating away.
I do not have the ability to tune things out, and there were several conversations going on in several studios around me that in spite of my lack of interest therein – oh well I’ll curtail my excuses. Wasn’t very focused, and was working out the rust.
June 9th, 2014
June 9th, 2014
Kenora, Ontario
Oil on Canvasboard, 16 x 20 in
(sold)
When I look at this photo, what I see is the difference in tone in the real clouds and the painted clouds. I can account for it partly by the photo having been taken about 2hrs after the clouds were painted, and by the fact that I was wearing sunglasses. The amount of light bouncing all around me rendered painting without protection for my eyes unfeasible. It was a glorious day to be out and painting. Even my sunglasses can attest to that.
June 8th, 2014
June 8th, 2014
Kenora, Ontario
Oil on Canvasboard, 12 x 9 in
While in my previous post I may have been whining somewhat about all the variables that arise that can occasionally make painting outdoors pretty damn infuriating, I neglected to mention that in reality, I like the chaos. Maybe not as much as I had yesterday and today, but in general, working alongside all these things that are completely out of my control – the wind, the clouds, the light, the blanketing swarms of mosquitos… you have to hit the ground running and never look back. Sometimes you get someplace magical, sometimes you slip, but you are never, never bored. And you are learning ALL-THE-TIME
June 7th, 2014
June 7th, 2014
Kenora, Ontario
Oil on Canvasboard, 16 x 20 in
Conditions were not ideal. The number of times it blew off the canvas, got splashed by a rogue wave, became the final resting place of dozens of unfortunate insects, got scraped by twigs – etc – was excessive and even a less fiery nature than mine would have revolted. There are drops of water in the sky as you can see. Plein Air up here is just a notch or two more intense, and I’d say this is a decent start to what I hope will be a good few weeks of work.
May 26th, 2014
May 26th 2014
Chestnut Tree, Cox Reservation, Essex MA
Oil on Canvasboard, 14 x 18 in
It was overcast and I tried to focus on the blossoms on this chestnut tree. I can’t get a great photo of it as of yet, there’s too much glare. Some days I show up to paint worrying about many non-paint related things. Sometimes I can shut these out and focus outside of my brain in in my eyes, sometimes I can’t. If I can’t resolve my thinking I strain to resolve the painting. On to the next.
May 19th-21st, 2014
May 19th-21st, 2014
Bass Rocks, Gloucester MA
Oil on Canvas, 24 x 30 in
Monday was a beautiful day, the weather was bright and sunny, with squalls of rain and storm passing through. To match my state of mind, I stuck with the squalls. I am still frustrated about what I can’t achieve with the knife in the way of spray and effervescent wave action.
Pocket Sunset
Pocket Sunset
May 13th, 2014
Oil on Canvasboard, 8x 6 in
(sold)
I have never painted anything this small in oils. A company marketing their canvasboard gave me a free one in a paint order, and I was going to give it away when I decided “What the hell” and dove in. Technically, this is not plein air – as I worked from a photo and did so inside, because the hot weekend weather has retreated in embarassment after having gotten too carried away this weekend. I thought I was going to have to paint with a brush, in fact I thought I wanted to – but as usual, the knife just did a better job – or I did a better job with the knife than the brush. There’s glare on the left and I might need to level off the horizon a bit but all in all, a good day’s exercise.
May 8th-12th, 2014
May 8th-12th, 2014
Lake of the Woods, Ontario
24 x 30 in, Oil on Canvas
(sold)
I began this on a Thursday afternoon, getting the sky and treeline in I think – then I was too busy with teaching all day Friday to work. Because it’s been so warm, the paint was drying quickly so I had to bring it with me to Essex and work on it there, or waste the canvas. So I brought it and worked there, but had so many little things go wrong that I was seething mad at everything. When a fellow painter came up to make a kind observation about my work, I growled at him. Literally. This is what comes of spending more time with dogs than people. Anyway – Saturday I labored over the water, got the beach in – I worked all day Sunday and again Monday, several portions I had to scrape off and re paint because they had dried (with the knife, you can’t paint over dry paint – at least, I can’t / won’t.) I worked on it Tuesday too, when finally my shipment of paint arrived and I could scrape off the strange, marshmallow-fluff like new-low-standard white paint from Georgian and replace it with quality. Although I believe this is pleasing to the eye, it is not my favorite. I like my work best when in flows in uninterrupted bursts of energy. This one felt way too labored. Hopefully in a few weeks I’ll be there in person, and have a whole new slew of reasons to kvetch about the state of my painting!