My feelings about winter...

Imagined Sunset(8x10,oil $100)I did this in about 25 minutes. It was my view of the wintertime, a cold and sadly downcast time of year. It could be worse, it could be snowing. So I painted my "feeling" very quickly from imagination...and it worked out.

My Theory on Dinosaurs...

While watching paint dry, here's a couple of more dino sketches from my sketch book. I have a theory about many dinosaurs and it goes like this: they are thin at one end, thick in the middle, and thin at the other end! Very simple, really. The BRONTOSAURUS(oh, sorry, "Apatosaur") you see at top is going to be in a larger piece that came to be partly inspired by King Kong and partly by The Land That Time Forgot. I cannot stress enough that drawing is the basis of all things. I love drawing and good drawing will stand the test of time no matter what medium you do-traditional or digital.

OH! Fun interview/article with me at Genre Traveler, Feb Issue:

http://www.thegenretraveler.com

Borrowing Bierstadt....

Seal Rock-After Bierstadt(9x12, oil)(SOLD!)I got an invite to be in a show in Newport called "Fabulous Fakes, Frauds and Forgeries" at the Springbull Gallery. This was my chance to basically rip a Bierstadt-who I long have admired as a favorite artist-one which I had always liked. Plagerism you say? Nope. Artists do this all the time with the masters, just if anything to learn something of the way their heroes painted. I certainly did, as I got to kind of try and emulate the color palette and overall brushwork. So long as it is signed "After Bierstadt" then it legitimizes the piece. I enjoyed doing it, however, if only just to learn something of the way he painted. Did this in about two hours.

Back to paintings...

Big Sur Sunset(8x10 inches, oil,$SOLD) Nice little piece, really fires on all cylinders.I look at sunsets alot. Once when I was in Hawaii, the sun set and, people applauded. I love the sunset colors of anywhere, California has the benefit of seeing sunsets over the ocean. The thing that always gives me a cosmic chill is the idea that the sun really isn't "setting" or, moving, but the earth is. Our point of view is moving away from the sun. And the sun itself is never in the same place in the galaxy either travelling at thousands of miles per second, bringing the earth with it. And the galaxy itself is travelling at thousands of miles.... man, I get deep sometimes. But it's how I think all the time, a sense of always being in motion...which gets us to art itself evolving...

A page of my sketchbook...

T-Rex(sketchbook page)Been a little hectic. Don't worry, I'll be back to a painting a day soonish. Just putting out a few fires, doing errands and planning some work I am doing. So here's a quick peek into a sketchbook page. I did this while waiting for my car to have an oil change, and as it turned out, it will be encorprated into a larger painting of...a T-Rex! I did this in carbon pencil, brown to be exact. Sketchbooks are wonderful ways for artists to jot down ideas fast or, sketch a scene fast. So enjoy! The paintings will be back soon!

The Elements...

The Elements(Sketch, 10x10 inches NFS)
This is a concept for a private commission I am doing for someone. It has to combine the four elements but in a fantastic and romantic enviroment. Pretty good if I do say so myself! It's going to be a wonderful piece when it's done. As to selling this, I need to finish the commission first but if interested contact me about price and such. I gain some of my confidence back, but, as usual I'm always a step above failure(my view)so that doesn't do too much. I'm also not going to be posting as much, at least daily. It's kind of tiring, but I'll be putting up at least 3 per week.

I'm A Melancholy Man....

The Ruin(9x12,oil, SOLD!)
Taking a line from The Moody Blues. This is the winter doldrums, the very bottom. The world is falling apart, there's very little to be happy about. So in a sense, it's interesting to think about ruins, and crumbled empires and things that could have been. Maybe this was someone's dream(until it burned down, fell over and sank into the swamp). For me, it's an imagined landscape. I like doing these alot. I have to say I channeled J.M.W. Turner in this one, and he answered. Just a dream of a painting to do. They should all be this fun. The paint was applied very thickly. No idea really, just paint worked until it formed something and the rest fell into place. I'm doing more like it. They are romantic and, interpretive of "real" landscapes and somehow look better than the real thing.

Back in Oregon...

Below The Falls(8x10, oil $100)A fun piece, playing with reflections in water from photos taken at Silverton Falls, Oregon. Trying to tell myself "it's okay not to put tons of detail into something" I can't really stress how cool the scenery is there. A note-things may be a little "irregular" this week due to some work commitments, however that said, I'll try to at least get a drawing up here and maybe show the process of that. I did say "Art of The Day" so however that's done... you can see some of my thinking.

A Marsh....

East Bay Marsh(oil, 8x10 $100)Just a quick plein air painting, done in Rhode Island, VERY quickly as it was COLD, of a marsh-nature area-over in Warren, RI, near the home of Nick Jainschigg-who's painted this very place himself. It's not uncommon for painters to do "their" takes on the same places. It's not like we own them. Did this in about half an hour, just wanted to see how few brush strokes I could do it with. The temptation for "detail" can be amazing, as breaking the ol' illustrator habits can be jarring doing this kind of painting. But I keep trying.

Rumbling....

Eruption(9x12, oil, SOLD!)
I love those Hudson River guys. They did imaginative, romantic landscapes. So this is another such imaginative volcano. Somehow they always look better when you paint them how they SHOULD look. I did once fly over a volcano in HAwaii in a helicopter and, it was fairly impressive-just a seething, steaming area of the planet that was renewing itself. Little paintings like these serve to make me want to do larger versions of same. I'm doing a large private commission with a volcano in it, so I'm looking forward to that. I did this in about, I'd say 90 minutes. I usually try to keep these paintings under an hour but this one got the better of me, so what can I say?

Did you ever feel like a mammoth?

Wooly Mammoth(8x10, oil $SOLD!) Sometimes I feel just like this as I get older, shambling off, left out in the cold. I get the feeling, with all the digital out there, no one wants "actual" paintings anymore. I've contemplated going over to digital myself. I do a little of it and I have to admit it's alot of fun. Anyway, I love mammoths...they are alot of fun to look at. This is going to be a much larger painting, when I get the time to do it, but I wanted to capture the feeling of this massive, ancient creature, walking off into extinction...which brings us back to original paintings. Ah, my confidence is shaking again.

What the Hell is this????

Shiny (oil, 5 x7 inches, $SOLD) Okay, so what is this? It's a "Space Pen". Literally, a pen is encased in chrome, and held in a "gravity defying" position by a donut shaped magnet at the base. I had wanted to paint this for awhile, so here it is, I did it on a scrap of board, and it all happened in something like 12 minutes!! I love an excuse to paint metal and shiny stuff. There is a meditative quality in just making all the little abstractions work...give, take,give...and fini!

Primal Force....

The Chasm(8x10,oil SOLD!)Imaginative, little painting that came together *like that*. I'm no slouch in saying I am a fan of Fredric Church and others who painted romantic landscapes. This one piece inspires me to do something bigger. It came out wonderful, I achieved what I set out to do. I'm doing more imagined and romantic 'scapes. The idea is to make the landscape look better than it does. I used really thin oils, lots of Neo Megilp and, all done with a 1" filbert brush! The nice part about working with one size brush is it teaches you to be creative just bits of the edge of the brush and getting the information down as fast as possible. Whether a landscape is here on earth or on another planet...the fundamentals of a good painting still all are in play.

On a roll...

Jamestown Surf(8x11,oils, SOLD)
This really hits it on the head. Most everything I have wanted to do painting, was pretty much achieved in this one. Done in an hour, it's some rough surf down at Jamestown, Rhode Island. I love painting water(ya think?) and, I have taken to using some Neo Megilp, a really slippery painting gel, to achieve that. The rocks in the forground were especially fun to do.

Some blue sky...

Cloud Study(8x10,oil, SOLD)Constable would just paint pictures and studies of clouds. He was quite good at it, frankly. Just clouds. So I did the same thing. Just a study of some imagined clouds. I'm imagining a BREAK in the clouds outside, from all this dreary weather,but I digress. I will be doing more "imagined landscapes" soon. Alot of good work comes from just dreaming something up and I'll elaborate more later. You may notice I skipped a day. No biggie. I was installing a door at my mother's house and time just got away. Besides I did a nice piece that you'll see when it's dry and when it's sunny enough to photograph it.

On the River...

Blackstone River Divide(9x12,oil SOLD) This is a painting done in 2005(been busy the last day or two) on the banks of The Blackstone River, in northern Rhode Island. Very scenic and rather pretty. The leaves were just turning and, it was an organized paint out but, rainy weather kind of killed the enthusiasm with others so few showed up. So I was working in the cold(40's) and the drizzly rain, and in a swampy area. Just when I think I'm totally secluded, this little kid comes up and starts asking me six million questions...and tells me it's "his" river. These situations-onlookers can be the bane of the plein air painter, but some do say some nice things. Anyway, this little 9x12 was done in about an hour or so, it was all I could take, as, despite some intermitten sunshine(which helped with the leaf colors "bursting") it was getting so cold and rainy.But that's the challenge of painting outdoors, seeing what you get done in the enviroment you have. Needless to say, the warm car was a welcome relief afterward.

Falling for water...

Silverton Falls(8x10, $SOLD)
Oregon. This is the scenery paint was made for. This is Silverton Falls in Oregon, part of an incredible national park I went to. The "hike" is down a ravine that leads to this huge, deep bowl shaped water basin. Water cascades from the top. The area has some incredible waterfalls and much of the rock appears to be basaltic or, volcanic in origin so you get to see(such as there) layers of lava one on top of the other. I love painting waterfalls, and I hope to someday return here to see this site again. I like the golden highlight hitting the top rim of the falls. The irony of this great site of nature is that from the top, the stream is a little trickle more or less but over the cliff it becomes this spectacular waterfall. Fun little painting to do...I made it very loose and "painterly".

Sometimes...it sings...

Muir Beach(Sunset)(8x10 oil, $100-SOLD) Sometimes it all comes together. It did here. I based this on a series of photos I took at Muir Beach, near Big Sur in California. The sunsets are amazing as are the rock formations. What pleased me most of this little 8x10 piece was the sky and, the foreground waves and water. Instead of messing with details, I used, once again, a large filbert and forced myself to think in terms of broad areas of color. Water can be painted in two ways-anal retentive detail that, to me, winds up looking frozen, or, in big swashes of color and broad strokes of paint. This was a completely wonderful and pleasing painting. More like it I think!!!

Ugly is only Skin Deep...

Inside The Uglyfruit(8x10, oil $100) So after I painted it, I cut it open as I was curious to see the guts of this weird fruit. It's like an extra thick orange. The difference is it is not as tart or acidy as an orange is. It's a gentle citrus fruit that's easy to eat. Well, I could only sample it because I had to paint it first! I used, again, a real thick style of painting-you can see it, the very rind of it kind of looked like it had to be painted thick. So I did this quickly, and then, washed my hands and ate the fruit.

Ugly tastes good..

Uglyfruit(8x10, oils, $100) Well, I saw the "Uglyfruit" in the produce aisle and knew from the get-go it was a candidate for painting. A really weird citrus fruit, from Jamaica apparently. So I painted this VERY thickly with alot of medium to make the paint buttery, and I textured up the board with modeling paste and gesso. Dying to know what was inside? So was I and then cut it open and ate it. Tommorrow I'll show you what the inside looks like. Til' then...

When paintings go....bad?

Split Boulder This is what happens when you are painting outdoors, and the nice dappled light you had disappears, and you are sitting uncomfortably with pine needles sticking in your butt. Well, is it really that bad? You tell me. I thought it was pretty off the mark, as I tried to do it in half an hour, in Maine, in the woods in back of a friend's house(on their property). Now that I have a Guerilla Paint Box(highly portable), this problem may be not a problem. Anyway, the composition of the boulder having long been split either by the tree that grew between it, or before, with the sun on it, grabbed me. But I didn't grab that lighting fast enough so it kind of all went to Hell. Looking at it on a screen it looks cooly abstract..a little Courbet looking? Ah, there will be another time with me and that scene...

With teeth...

Ceratosaur Skull(8x10 oil $100) This is a replica of a carnivorous dinosaur skull, a Ceratosaur, that I have in my studio. The animal has a nose adornment that's less about defending itself and more about mating. Again, I worked with a big brush and eschewed detail, going for more lighting. It's awfully tempting to get into those little teeth, and noodle,noodle,noodle....but I resist..

The Mecha-Apple Thing...

The Mecha-Apple(SOLD-$100)We got this as a gift from a friend one time. We had no idea(and she didn't either, she just liked it) what the heck it was other than it was an apple-shaped object and...made of bronze. Well, it sat and gathered dust as these things do, and then batted it's eyelashes at me. Following my friend Nick Jainschigg's advice, I painted this with a 3/4 inch Filbert brush because I felt, I was just getting TOO picky with details otherwise. He also suggested I do it when I was "tired and not in the mood" as a way to kind of force the muse out to show herself. Well,by God, it worked!! I got some great feeling with the bronze shine, and reflections, all in 20 minutes. Oh, upon close examination of the item when setting it up, I figured out it was an incense burner! Incense sets off my allergies usually, so it makes a great item to paint. I will do some more of this "Mecha-Apple" soon.

Walkin' on the Beach...

Mackeral Beach(Sold-$100) It's a warm day and summer thoughts are not far. Again, I'm on a deadline to finish a cover, so right now I'm using my backlog of paintings so you can enjoy. Warning: there may be a day or two break next week, but don't panic. I have alot I'm juggling at the moment. I did this in 2005, on Jamestown which is in the middle of the bay. Plein air and, the painting has been SOLD! The piece was done, on location and, is exactly on the other side of "The Cove"(see December 22nd) with a road inbetween. I sort of edited out a home that was built on the high ground off to the left. Hey painters are allowed those things. Albert Bierstadt "moved" El Capitan in Yosemite because he wanted the painting to look better.

Painting vs Rendering...

The Quinces on The Porch(SOLD!!)These are rotting quinces done on site, on a friend's porch. The fruit was basically inedible anyway but the shapes and brown spots of rot, looked cool. But it was done with luscious brushwork, and in like an hour. When one *really* "paints" I find it is a way of making an image with a minimum of brushwork, rather than alot of "over rendering" . That is, not being picky. This is big difference between alot of "illustration" as opposed to "painting". Painting forces you to think in basic shapes and using a limited palette, making colors out of other colors. I know some painterly illustrators, and they're terrific, but working this way is less about the subject and more about the *how* something is painted. Which is the whole point.

A Strange Tree....

The Bent Tree(8x10, oil $100) This was done in a friend's backyard. The fact this large tree was sort of bent as it was, really caught my eye. Nice little painting, 8x10 inches. I like how the clouds came out which were painted very quickly.

A Summer Place....

Evening at Nauset One of my music inspirations, is Percy Faith's version of the "Theme to A Summer Place". They just don't make music like that anymore which is why it's remembered so wistfully. I often think of that song while doing these kind of paintings. This is one of my backlog of paintings(buying time while some other stuff dries), from Cape Cod, done in about a half-hour, on the beach as hurricane swells rose the tide to spectacular levels. Worked really fast as the light was fading on me, but bringing out these amazing cloud colors, as only evening can.

Happy New Year!!

Abalone Shell(8x10, oil, $100)I, for one, am thrilled to see the end of 2006, a truly awful year.It can be said that a new year is like opening a shell and finding something incredible inside. Abilone shells are indeed amazing inside! Their fractal and fleeting colors, that seem to change on whatever light is being reflected on them, are equally fleeting to capture in paint. This is an attempt at such, 8x10 inches, done in about 40 minutes.