Sarah on a Boat

This painting is of Sarah on a boat. It was just starting to rain so we only had twenty or thirty minutes to get down the general idea.

Impressionistic Model on Beach

This is a painting that I made in the impressionistic style of the Egeli's (or at least I attempted to). I did not have the colors that I would have liked to use under bright sunlight. I had french ultramarine, windsor red and lemon yellow. I was also given a little rose madder but I would have been much better off with cadmium red and yellow. She looks pretty off-color but it still gives the affect that she is outside in bright sunshine and it captures her look so I am happy with it.

Painting in P-town

Here I am with my friends on the beach painting a model. We lucked out with the weather in the morning but by afternoon we were painting in the rain.

Tracey Takes Me to Federal Hill June 25th

We celebrate my birthday at a Mexican Restaurant a day early! Tracey and I are unrelated "twins" and I am posting this because this is my reason (excuse) for not having a painting to blog!

Calla Lilly

Oil on canvas

6" x 5"

This flower is from our garden. James picked these out years ago and they have been coming back ever since. I don't think that I have ever painted a flower before. I am attracted to painting people and scenes. To try something simple is never simple. There is so much sublte variation in the lighting of the flower. The colors change as the petal wraps around itself. It would be easy to get lost in all of the shifts but I set a time limit. This rough sketch took me about half an hour. See, Tracey, I know you left a bit later than planned but I still managed to squeeze one in!

Weeping Fig on Mantle

Oil on panel

5" x 7"

Again it rained all day and so I was forced to paint indoors. I came home from a nice dinner and started painting at 9:30PM. I work a day job and have family so I was pretty tired picking up the brushes but once I started painting it was all good. I relaxed and enjoyed the process. I feel that I did not give myself enough time. It is just started and a lot of the details and highlights are not placed but that is the nature of these quick oil sketches. It forces me to think and act quickly to get down the overall impression as fast and accurately as I can. They are exercises, like running or lifting weights. It is a training and it is very rewarding.

Padanaram Bridge

This is another drizzly, cloudy day. The weather report says more of the same to come. Can I learn to like painting grey? We will see. People still fish off the bridge in this weather. They are the die-hards. I like them.
Oil on panel, 7" x 5"

Tia Gina Marie

Just a quick sketch of pretty GinaMarie.

Movie Night

James is home from college and that means watching movies with Kayla and Liz. It was so good to have them all here again! Painting them was a good challenge. I wasn't sure if I could capture them but that is them without a doubt. My intention is to keep it simple for myself but in the end, I paint what I love even if there is a little bit of an overwhelming feeling. That is what makes it was so much fun. They did not pose or even hold still for more than a moment (it was a thriller flick). They were a joy to paint. I couldn't have had better subject(s) to paint to represent the highlight of this day.

Oil on panel, 5" x 7"

Sunset at Hacker Street Beach

Today's painting is a sunset at Hacker Street Beach which is a short walk from my sister's house where I had just visited. It was started at 8:30 PM. The fog was rolling in quickly so I had to work as fast as I could to try and capture the misty-ness. It was fun and by the end I had to put on a head-light so I could see what I was mixing on my pallet and so I could pack up my gear before the mosquitoes took over. I had the company of three men who had just finished catching some large blues. It was a very good end to a very nice day.

Oil on panel, 5" x 7"

Lobsters in the Pot!

This is a 5" X 6.5" oil panting that was made by using my usual limited pallet of three colors (yellow, red and blue) plus white. Just four tubes allows me to keep my kit as simple and as light-weight as possible. I carry around a small box-ealse and all my supplies in a backpack so that I can set up quickly and paint almost anywhere I go. I like to create a painting that tells a story about something that happened during the day as a visual journal. The highlight today was lunch and dinner! Got a surprize gift of lobsters today from John. I cooked them up and shared them with Uncle Jimmy, my daughter and friends. Thought the lobsters would be my Painting of the Day. Ha! We ate them long before I pulled out my paints! Thanks, John.

Oil on panel, 7" x 5"

Padanaram Harbor Wicked Nice Boat

This is a small oil painting that I made while standing on a bridge in Padanaram Village, Massachusetts. It was done in 2008 and is one of my first plein air paintings.

Oil on panel, 7" x 5"