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This painting was originally finished in 2002. In this case that means I didn't know what else to do with it. It never worked the way I wanted it to; there was a static quality to the design and the point of view was slightly from above, not as it should be if you were standing in the snow and came upon the scene. Still, I thought the concept was worth persuing and sometimes our abilities catch up to our ideas. I simplified it, altered the point of view and found that maybe now I can exhibit it.

Field of Vision

A small composite piece from memory that I've been playing with, this painting will be included in a show I've been working toward for April. There are about five different paintings under this, each one suggesting the next. Like poems, paintings aren't finished, they're abandoned.

Shoes

In exposing the set up of the pose, I was interested in the abstract qualities of the light stand, blanket, the model, her street shoes; elements only in partial view and cut by the edges of the painting.

Progress Report

It's twenty below outside so I offer a work in progress, a painting that's been gestating since I saw the motif in Florida last February. I was captivated by an orchid hothouse there with mysterious blossoms and vaguely sinister root tendrils and I want to capture that primordial steaminess locked in a human-made environment. I'll post this again as it progresses.

Reclining

In landscape painting I like water reflections because, among other reasons, I can put the sky on the bottom of the painting. For figures I like reclining poses for an analogous reason; I can put the head on the bottom.

The Sources

It's winter now. Today there was too much to do so unfortunately no painting time. Instead I will cheat and offer a summertime view. This is a motif from Cap Code, the same one I'm painting in the photo on the right. It's a motif that has called to me over and over with it's constantly changing play of light in the sky and water. I crave to burn the sun into paintings but they have to live their own lives separate from the real glories of the world. It's the difference between the range of luminosities of about 12 for paints and perhaps several thousand in life. That is the challenge of painting light.

Inverted Chair

The model's pose didn't interest me as much as the dynamic of the flipped chair.

Sparrow

No painting today. Our next door neighbor died Sunday morning in a farm accident. Instead I post this painting from a few years ago of a sparrow that had smashed against my window. I placed it, along with Peterson's bird book, on a sheet of paper as a reverie on death, life and our drive to document it.

Barn Sketch

Saturday was cold but the sun was out and it blazed behind the silhouette of an old barn with a cage of trees in the forground. This is a sketch for a larger painting idea.

The blue I usually use is cobalt, a cooler landscape painter's blue, but the shadows on snow seem to be a warmer color than the lit areas, so for the winter I tend toward ultramarine- a redder blue. It keeps me warmer, too.

Head

A decisive color on each change of plane was the idea here.

Monarch

Found on the blacktop in a parking lot in summertime, I brought this fallen Monarch back to the studio for a more respectful fate.

Small Nude