I have been struggling with a painting for the past week. It was not going as I wanted and it was difficult to “see” it. This “blindness” happens to me periodically. The first few times it happened when I was young, it troubled me a lot. I thought I’d lost my talent. Sudden changes like…
I applied the second and last oil ground to this new 44″ x 60″ canvas. I made the tone by adding a little burnt umber and burnt sienna to the Williamsburg lead-oil ground. I applied the ground with a scrapper as usual. After letting it cure for a few weeks, I’ll prepare a drawing for…
When I woke at 6:00 AM, I thought a helicopter was outside my bedroom shining a searchlight onto the shore. The authorities still haven’t found the body of the man drowned in a recent boating accident. A helicopter searched my shoreline a fortnight ago looking for his body. I thought they were searching once again.…
As with every Christmas week in NE Ohio, the weather is dismal and gray. When I saw this gold stuff spread about our living room, I grabbed my camera to memorialize the strange event. “What is it,” my daughter asked in amazement? “Beats me,” my son shrugged. “I think it’s sunlight,” my wife suggested. By…
Yesterday I was late to the studio. I dragged my lazy butt into the studio at 8:30. Morning people know how head-shakingly lazy that hour is. I painted until lunch at 12:00. After lunch, I was back in the studio until 3:00. The studio sessions were good–better than the previous day where my energy was…
Cedar Point, a Disneyland-like park on Ohio’s Lake Erie, is only a half-hour trip from my house. I picked the perfect day for my visit last week The weather was fine and because it was a school day, the crowds were smaller than normal. Finding parking was easy and the line to get in was…
I use my Nikon Z7 camera all the time. Nearly all my paintings include elements from my own photographs, typically mashups of several photographs. Summer is a great time to take photographs, of course. I stay alert for festivals, fairs, or other events that promise to provide a harvest of usable photos. Next week, I…
The backyard trees are in bloom. Soon, their bones will be hidden beneath their green plumage. Although it can still snow in NE Ohio in early April, this photo from my kitchen against the background of a peaceful Lake Erie brings a smile,