In this piece, Summer Sun, the intention was to keep the piece simple, sparse of detail, and focused on the light, shadows, and the object casting the shadows. As many things in the scene were edited out, it was the remaining elements that proved to be a bit more complex to render than I had anticipated. Shadows, the texture of leaves, the balance of warm and cool colors, all offered challenges, requiring continued editing to keep the intended simplicity.
While painting the piece, I felt the need to Google around a bit to see what others had to say about the process of achieving simplicity in something…and if they, too, found that process to be complex. Apple’s Steve Jobs summed it up perfectly: ” Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple.”
A friend recently commented on a social media post, showing work in progress and a corner of the mixing table I use. The friend requested a close up of this table, to see the “fun” I was having. Painting is fun. If it wasn’t, few would endure the hidden difficulties and abundant failures encountered throughout.
I’m always impressed by the neat, orderly, way in which many artists set up their stations, organizing their pallets, and keeping things tidy…contrasted greatly by my process, void of any sense of order. Instead, I prefer this setup…I know exactly where everything is…
Cape Cod’s landscape of water, sand, meadows, flatlands and hills provides uncountable views of incredible beauty. This sand bar has been the inspiration for many artists, most of whom claim the Cape Cod light is one of a kind. For me, the light isn’t different than it is elsewhere, but what it shines on is. The Cape is all about simplicity and sparsity. The old architecture of the Cape was built when there was nothing else around, and was constructed to fit into the landscape, and to survive the often battering weather the Cape can deliver.
In “Bay View” 40 x 40, the simplicity of the landscape, and the old architecture built on it many years ago, combine in a way that complement each other, and the light that illuminates it, becomes the subject.
Completed: “Upper Valley” 48 x 36. Sometimes it can take a couple years to truly complete a piece…
I occasionally receive photos of work hung in residential or corporate settings, most recently this photo of “Eastern Slope” 36 x 36, purchased via Powers Gallery in Acton, MA, and installed as part of a design project outside Boston.
It’s always great to see where a piece winds up, and how it complements an interior design project. In this case, the designer and the client had seen and liked a piece at the gallery that, in the interim, sold and was no longer available, and asked if a commissioned work could be done with a similar color palette, and similar theme.
40 x 30 : oil on canvas
Cape Cod and Memorial Day have been, for most of my life, never separated. But unable to be there this year, completing a piece based on a location not far from where I stay when there is as close as I’ll get this holiday weekend.
With an almost constant offshore breeze blowing in from Nantucket Sound, the landscape of the ocean-facing side of the Cape slants inland, with scrub pine, oak and cedar holding on to the landscape, but shaped by the winds that bear down on them year-round.
“Offshore Breeze” 40 x 30, oil on canvas. To be part of “Cape Color” show, this July, at Left Bank Gallery, Wellfleet, MA.
40 x 30 : oil on canvas
