I WORK EN PLEIN AIR, OUT IN THE COUNTRYSIDE… Welcome. I am back to painting again after a sabbatical that included a few pieces done for charitable fund raisers. I am continuing to make small, 6" x 8", landscape oils, but not every day. I am also working on larger pieces. Every time I finish a painting, I will place it here on my website. If you see something you'd like to purchase, email me. Thank you for enjoying my work and keeping me creating new pieces. Your interest stimulates and inspires me and has made me a better painter. Sign up for my emails and I will send you an image of each new painting. I love to paint and am happy to share my painting experience with you. Most of my work is impressionistic landscape oils, inspired by the beauty of the Island of Martha's Vineyard where I live.
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“Day Lily Dancer”, this is a Small painting, 6″x 8″, oil on canvas panel. $750.00 USD
The day lilies are out in full force right now. Some flower beds are impossibly alive with many different varieties and riots of color. The best part for the painter is that a lot of the flowering is right in your face at eye level. No leaning over or sitting down to capture the best view…
“A Panoply of Sky”, this is a Small painting, 6″x 8″, oil on canvas panel. $750.00 USD
After poking around at a few different painting locations, I settled on this open sky spot. I was ever hopeful the sun would find an entry point in the clouds as it started to set. It got better than this, but then so did the mosquitoes and I hate using repellant…
“Rising Tide, Fog”, this is a Small painting, 6″x 8″, oil on canvas panel. This painting has SOLD.
I went to the beach to swim and paint in the hot, early afternoon. After the swim and getting set up under an umbrella to paint, the fog started to come in. It was actually great, because it toned down the brilliant scene in front of me and kept me from getting too much sun. I still had to work on this piece back in the studio. The combined, water, sky and sand reflective light bouncing around in my eyes had my pupils shut down quite a bit while choosing colors and values. I was desperately trying to overcompensate for this effect while on the beach, but there is only so much you can do and still make it seem natural. Its when you bring it in and put the painting under the studio lights that the disparities stick out. And, after all, most paintings are viewed for the rest of their lives under unnatural/indoor lighting conditions…
“Dusk, Getting Clear”, this is a Small painting, 6″x 8″, oil on canvas panel. This painting has SOLD.
Just as the weather may clear and you know that tomorrow will be a grand new day, so, sometimes, does life clear with the same intuitive future sense. And to be able to paint it and feel it on both levels at once makes for a truly wondrous experience. Such was mine on this sultry evening…
“Harbor Entranced”, this is a Small painting, 6″x 8″, oil on canvas panel. $750.00 USD
The sky these last two evenings has been so seductive for me. Vaguely blue cloud banks up against subtle yellow/orange back drops before, during and especially after the sun has left the horizon. The blue of the silhouetted clouds becomes an ungodly shade against the yellow/orange glow coalescing from the entire sky sphere above. And the etherealness of it all is so fleeting, almost uncatchable, bewitching me to no end…
“The Opening”, this is a Small painting, 6″x 8″, oil on canvas panel. $750.00 USD
Today was a beautiful fluffy cloud day until I loaded up the van to go paint. Clouds came in, wind picked up and I drove 20 miles for naught. Coming back home, I took a chance on this place. It was in the lee of the wind with a beautiful opening under the cloud cover. However, with my back to the darker clouds and my mind on my subject, they soon started spitting at me. I took it on the chin and worked until I was done, very quickly…
“Pond Pram”, this is a Small painting, 6″x 8″, oil on canvas panel. This painting has SOLD.
I seem to be stuck on boats, or at least the colors of boats. This one appeared where there hadn’t been one last week. The sun had set by the time I found this and I painted extra fast because a cloud of moquitoes found me and then the sand flies. But I liked painting this in the subdued after light…
“Dune Light”, this is a Small painting, 6″x 8″, oil on canvas panel. This painting has SOLD.
An hour before the sunset of a most rainy day, the clouds parted on the western horizon and the sun came out. It lasted long enough for me to find this dune and paint the yellow light on the sand before it went down behind a heavy cloud bank and finally set. Considering how wet the day had been, this was my gift to paint…
“Whiting Moonshine”, this is a Small painting, 6″x 8″, oil on canvas panel. $750.00 USD
I told everyone at the gallery opening I attended last night that I wouldn’t post any painting today as I planned to work on a larger piece. When I left, there was a crack in the cloud cover along the horizon and the sun popped through. It was my kind of sky drama, but I had left my easel in the studio. Racing home, I grabbed my gear and drove to a back road by the farm and set up shop next to the bee hives with this unobstructed view. It was 20 minutes to sunset and the foggy murk off the ocean had come in and obscured my sunset before I returned. But I am a painting junky and I started to work frantically to lock in the scene, just in case. Sure enough, the murk partially gave way to a warm orange glow as sun slid down to set. The bird were fluffing their feathers in the roost behind me in an old pine. A young skunk ambled by my bags as I worked. An owl glided by as low as the posts in the painting right in front of me. But I just worked on, and that’s when I saw the moon. It was my treat for hanging onto my vision. You just never know unless you are there….
“Storm Strike”, this is a Small painting, 6″x 8″, oil on canvas panel. $750.00 USD
The weather went from bad to worse, better and finally the darkest it could get without rain. Sunddenly the sky blew a hole in itself. This great lighting on the tops of the thunderheads shown forth and it started to send out thunder bolts. I was able to get it all in as it passed right beside me and it never rained….