Maine Paintings
July 5, 2018
Back from my daughter’s wedding in Maine! One of the benefits of being a helpless male is that during the preparations for important events like this you are actually in the way and so are encouraged to take off and do your own thing. My wife insisted I go off and do these paintings! I know better than to ignore a direct order from my wife.
This is a painting of Ripley Creek, at a little bend in the road in Tenants Harbor.
It’s directly opposite my wife’s favorite view, which I painted in 1998:
The second, done the day after the wedding, is a view of the Camden Hills from Rte 133.
I love the Camden Hills and my original intention, when my wife suggested I bring my paints, was to redo one of the views I had painted more than 20 years ago, in 1996 and 1997. I was very disappointed to find that the views I had painted years earlier were now marred by new construction and ticky tacky, but I did manage to find this almost untrammeled view.
Here are the 1996/1997 paintings:
Plein Air Season!
June 5, 2018
Just getting started on outdoor painting. Here are a few new ones.
Daisies
October 17, 2017
Oil on canvas
That is, I believe, a viceroy butterfly, not a monarch. Smaller, and monarchs only eat milkweed.
September – Part 2
October 2, 2017
Some more paintings from the past few weeks. FYI, I now limit myself to one self portrait per yer.
Rumford River, Norton
Emma’s
2017 Self Portrait
September – Part 1
September 11, 2017
Thought I’d put this in now and, hopefully, remember to update it at the end of the month. That’s Hull, a lovely little town on an island in Boston Harbor, a view of the Neponset River in Foxborough, and yesterday’s painting, a meadow in Mendon, MA.
August
September 11, 2017
OK, the first painting is a still life I painted in grad school 30-odd years ago. I was showing it to someone on Facebook. The Dighton painting is a result of a little game I like to play, “Ask the Local.” I stopped a pedestrian and asked her where I should paint and she sent me to this beauty spot on the Berkley line. Westport is on the Massachusetts south shore, Third Beach is in Newport, and Squantum Point is in Boston 1000 yards from the big painted oil tank on 93. The airport is in the distance and I couldn’t resist including one of the jets that flew directly overhead at a disconcertingly low altitude regularly.
July
September 11, 2017
Landscape season in full bloom! A painting of my wife’s garden, a nameless pond near Purgatory Chasm in Sutton, one last gasp of Kate’s portrait session, which closed for the summer, my third visit to Slater Mill, and some additional exploration of Naragansett Bay in Rhode lsland.
June
September 11, 2017
More portraits from Kate’s portrait session, my second visit to Slater Mill, and a quick jaunt to Hingham, MA.
May
September 11, 2017
Another portrait done over an imprimatura. The nude was a little bit of goofing around, just because I didn’t want to end up with a tiny drawing of the standing figure in a pose that was, to be honest, not all that interesting.
After I painted Eugene, who looked like an Italian barber in his striped shirt and pomaded hair, I thought to myself, “He looks awfully familiar and when I checked I had done another portrait of him a few years ago, the exact same view except back then he had a scruffy beard and man bun.
I’ve been driving back and forth from Massachusetts to Connecticut on Route 95 for nearly 30 years and must have driven past the sign for Slater Mill a hundred times. I finally decided to check it out and, rockin’ views! You’ll see in the June posting that I went back there a couple of times, and there are still paintings I want to do there.
April
September 11, 2017
My first couple of forays painting outdoors. The Valentine painting was a little experiment with an imprimatura; it’s an approach I haven’t used since college. Chrissy was so buttoned down and prim in her little red blouse I seriously considered suggesting we ask her to pose nude; then I thought, “Nah, I don’t want to get arrested.” After painting her in the afternoon, I went to AS220 for figure drawing, and the model was… Chrissy.
I Paint What I See 