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
Pastel study for “Upham Farm”
This farm, which sits on the corner of the vast Upham Tract, a hundred-acre undeveloped parcel in our town, has remained unchanged since it’s construction, with the current owners still managing the land as their father, grandfather, and great-grandfather always have. I pass it daily, but have only recently chosen to paint it, focusing on this one out building.
Long New England winters give way to light, cool colors in April and May, with one of the hallmarks of the season being the Forsythia, with it’s perfect yellow bloom, that lasts only a few weeks.
This scene in Vermont, where it seems Spring comes a bit later than for elsewhere in New England, illustrates the blast of colors we all wait for, that comes only after the snow melts, after mud season, and as warmer weather comes–and stays.
“May” 48 x 36 oil on canvas.
Just completed large 60 x 48 commission for a couple in Virginia, with ties to this location in Fairlee Vermont. Following several charcoal studies and a pastel color study, the completed work was sent for review.
The subject of a composition can be anything, created with the artist’s use of drawing, light, and color. Often, for me, color is as much the starting point as the scene itself. In this quick pastel sketch, I chose the intense yellowish-orange light of morning, surrounded by varying shades of lavendar, rose, and violet.
The scene, of a local farm not far from my house, is cluttered with stuff–trees, equipment, trucks–and it’s a very dark red structure. It faces north, and I pass it nearly every day, early in the morning, and it’s the morning sunlight coming over the east hills that warrants being captured.
Working with a couple from Virginia on a large commissioned piece of a scene, and a place, that is a special place in their lives–past and present. It is always an exciting challenge to develop a piece that is both the representation I bring to scenes I encounter, while putting into the place the aspect of “place” that is special to the commissioner.
After several charcoal studies–all of which could be compositions with the potential to merit being turned into a painting–I chose the charcoal above, as it contained the aspects of the scene that initially struck me (and the couple I’m working with). This charcoal, and the pastel color study below, will be reviewed and discussed (against the 4 other compositions provided) to determine the direction for the final oil.
