green line of the marsh - plain air 12x10"

It is simply worth it every time that you go out to paint.....even if there is a heat warning or an imminent thunderstorm. We had a heat warning on Monday and it was totally oppressive by 8:30 in the morning but I went anyway. When I got to the boat landing it was hot but there was a breeze of about 20mph. and it was wonderful! The humidity made the landscape seem more solid somehow (without diminishing the color which it does sometimes)...........the water was at my back when I painted this and I focused on that tiny little stripe of green/coolness that appears between the horizontal tabletop of the grasses and the vertical of the trees!

Horse island View - 14x11" & some birds - 12x12"

I really love bird groupings and have been experimenting with them....this is nearly done but in all the heat, even the M. Graham oils I use have been getting sticky really fast; so, sometimes I have to wait a little to finish something because it's not wet enough to do wet into wet but too sticky to work as if the paint is dry. That's what happened this afternoon.

As long as I am painting by 8:30 or 9am, I can usually get in a couple of hours outside.....any earlier and the humidity is awful (it seems to increase overnight and then level off before the heat hits) - plus, the mosquitoes are still feeding. I've been trying to get out at least four times per week since it makes me so much happier than working in the studio! Horse Island doesn't really look much like an island and I was actually standing on the low conduit-style bridge to get this view.....there are a few wild ponies wandering about and every once in a while I see one!

Gay Fish driveway - 14x11"

I  live less than a mile from this spot - Gay Fish Co. - and routinely paint the boats and water but have never parked across the street and painted this view before. ....for some reason, it appealed to me this morning. I had to finish it back in the studio because the bugs were fierce! I was wearing this little bug repellant device (a fan sort of) and covered the rest of myself with "OFF deep woods" but they were still driving me crazy by flying into my face.

This 20x16" is based on a photo of a little girl I took years ago.......I did a square format painting (which sold) of her on sand but decided to try her again with some ocean around her. It's just too hot to leave the studio after noontime.

Russ Landing plein air - 10x12"

I finished the above painting this afternoon (24x12")......I had put it aside to dry thoroughly so I could finish the masts and some details and then the studio renovation happened so I am just getting back to it.

Went plein air painting in the morning at the Russ Boat Landing on Hunting Island.......you look across the Fripp Island Inlet to Fripp Island itself....Fripp Island is restricted to residents and I have only been there once. I liked the light this morning and wanted to get out and paint rather than work inside. It wasn't terribly hot today and there was a breeze.

cupcake airstream - 12x12"

Got really, really close to finishing this today but an enormous thunderstorm hit, the lights flickered, and I quit. It was as dark as night and branches were falling on the studio roof (they were pretty small but sounded big). I saw this cool trailer/vendor while I was visiting my daughter in Austin and have wanted to paint it ever since so I decided to do it.

July Heat

Just a couple of updates on things I have been working on - both are 20x16." I totally changed the background of the  beach scene - this painting is designed to be an ad for my upcoming show and I wanted a large area to lay copy over. I wasn't happy at all with bare beach and a top rim of beach trees at the top.....realized that as long as the values were quite close in the majority of the painting, it should work in a similar fashion.  The man reading the paper is pretty much done - stopped myself from doing picky little "ending things" and will now let it dry. The real heat is definitely here! Even when the temperature is only 93, the heat index says it feels like 101.......no mid-day painting outdoors for sure! I kind of love it though.

reading in the sun - 18x14"

Sorry about the glare but I worked pretty late today & decided to post anyway since I have had a bad summer cold for the past few days and did little else but sleep and blow my nose. I must say, having a fever when it's 93 and humid is no fun. At any rate, I woke up and felt much better this morning and couldn't wait to get to the studio, began this one and it flowed.