In the studio 5/27/16These small still lifes are based on photos I took during a trip to Colorado with my son, Garth. I started both of them the same morning, the upper one first. The larger one is 24″ x 30″. The small format is unusual for me these days. I’ve stuck with large-size paintings for…
I have a lot of small canvases ready to go. By small I mean in the 24′ x 30′ range. Recently, I started painting landscapes on three of them. You can see the beginning of one in the background sitting on the wastepaper basket. Yesterday I worked on the landscape seen out the window in Grandfather and had…
It’s raw and cold for a May day in NE Ohio. It feels more like March than May–rainy, gray, and windy. A woman asked me why I don’t spend more time teaching art on my website. Seeing my puzzlement, she added, “You write about technical subjects related to painting, but you don’t provide instruction on…
My work today on Spring was all blues: ultramarine blue-violet on the blouses of the outer-most figures; cerulean blue and black on the pants of the middle woman. Magnesium blue and Veronese green on the Bug. All cut with cool grays, of course. I love Old Holland paint; they’re my favorite, but they’ve priced themselves out of my…
After working on paintings with a lot of figures in them, working on The Photographer’s single figure is refreshing. I don’t actually know the woman in this painting, which is based on one of many photos I took at a local fair. Anyway, she struck me as a tough customer; all business, if you know…
I was busy today. I got into a groove and worked on several paintings. These two are the last ones that I worked on. When I finally put the brush down, I was mentally exhausted. Victory Park I is cobbled together from several photographs. I’m having fun painting the dog and painting GREEN. I worked…
Aboard the Betty Jane is another of the 48″ x 60″ canvases I recently wrote about. This painting is based on some photos taken during a fishing trip abroad my boat. The Betty Jane is still in dry dock; next week we start preparing her for the season. We have to scrape the bottom and apply…
I use several products manufactured by James Groves. Jim specializes in historical painting mediums and ingredients. I’ve tried almost all of his products and they are unfailingly excellent–world class. I use his 19th Century Copal Oil varnish and Siccatif Courtrai every day. Both ingredients are staples in my practice. By itself, the copal varnish is too…