new work

So, I'm very excited about the direction of my latest paintings, in a series I am calling "Abstract landscapes." All of the paintings are done very loosely with lots of gesture.

Here's an example, called Storm at Sea II. (I called it this because I made two very similar paintings.) Both paintings were inspired by a painting I saw hanging at the National Gallery in DC on tour from the Tate, by Joseph Mallord William Turner called Steam Boat off a Harbour's Mouth (1842).

To see more, you can go to my website and click on the gallery "Abstract Landscapes."

Dad enjoys the crossword puzzle in the teahouse

It's cold in the teahouse, but dad likes to go out there for the crossword puzzle and a coffee. Here's some sketches of him puzzling.

Oil painting tips - don't end with a failure

A couple of days ago, I had a bad painting day. Everything I did was terrible.

Rather than give up, I kept wiping the canvas clean and starting over. For several hours this went on.

It is important to end a painting session on a good note, otherwise if you give up when you fail that is what you remember, the failure. So keep at it until the painting works, and don't be afraid to start over. Eventually, your head will get out of the way and the painting process will take over and it will be magical again.

When I finally felt I could live with the image on the canvas, I stopped. This is the resulting painting. For fun, I took some pics of the flowers to show the inspiration.

Oil Painting, part 3

Yesterday I worked on the house again, and it was a classic, pulling of teeth do-not-accomplish-anything kind of painting day. I ended up nitpicking the details and ended up with a painting that looked little different from what I started with, completely losing all momentum, rhythm, and gesture. It was hard because neighbors kept stopping by to say hello, which was nice, but it didn't help the painting process. And I ended up with something that looked more like a precious moments painting or Thomas Kincaid. Some art just shouldn't be photographed. So, no picture of that step. This morning I worked on it again for a couple of hours, this time in the studio so I could concentrate and get a rhythm down. And it worked, and the painting is much looser and something I would show. Here it is, the final and signed version.