Sunday 24 April 2016

the oyster factory - plein air study 16x12


This is my favorite of two paintings I did on Friday at the Paint Out in Bluffton.......There are some pretty rough areas that I noticed after I took the photo (of course) but I liked the effect overall. It was a great day, lots of good energy and the weather was perfect.

Thursday 21 April 2016

orange and green - 24x18"

I wasn't going to post this one until it was done but then I decided to because I wanted to post a blurb about tomorrow's Paint Out in Bluffton, SC. This shrimper is docked in my neighborhood at our "community dock" that no one seems to use. At early morning and late afternoon here the sky becomes more orange than what I expect....this isn't a factor of what it normally does early and late because when you leave the forest here, the sky is it's usual self. It seems more to do with the dark green color of the trees and the warmer sky. This particular scene expresses that color relationship and how it is intensified when a storm is clearing.......not too many trees that you can see in the painting but trust me, there's a ton of them behind me. I've still got a lot to do but I'm getting there.


Tomorrow I will be participating in the "Bluffton Old Town Paint Out" and would like to mention it to anyone who might be in the area. I am not really familiar with Bluffton even though it is only an hour away from where I live and on the way to Hilton Head....it took me a while of exploring to get to really know the area closer to me and I just haven't gone towards there except to shop occasionally. It is a very interesting town and the historic area is pretty neat. So.....I have just joined SOBA (the Society of Bluffton Artists) and will be exhibiting there at their gallery.  

Wednesday 13 April 2016

my girl - 12x24"


It is very easy to really fall in love with "off line" life and I certainly have this past month - it has just been too hard to see well enough to deal with electronic reading so I didn't. My surgery is complete and I can see super well but I have decreased my internet presence so much in the last six months that it is really hard to get back into it again. I started this painting before I was "cleared" enough to lift my painting equipment (and do some plein air) and finished it today. Now I just have to force myself to catch up on email all the while realizing how much life has changed since the mid-nineties or so when the internet became such a huge presence in our lives. I have really begun to relish the quiet of my little woodland home, the sounds of birds, wind and the ocean and the lack of television. 

At any rate, I loved the way this young dad was teaching his baby girl about the ocean and I could see his total adoration for her so I "snuck" a photo last summer and it just had to become a painting.