"Blue Boat" - SOLD

"Blue Boat"

8"x6" oil on Raymar panel

I've had a month of too many distractions and too many wipe-offs and so no posts. It's good to be back and to spend some time painting. I painted this one Sunday morning at the Yarmouth town landing. I enjoy weekend mornings there, with all the boat launch action and the occasional lobster boat coming and going.

"Yellow Meadow"

"Yellow Meadow"

6"x8" oil on Raymar panel

It's wonderful to be able to paint outdoors. Long live summer!

Sketchbook Girls

Pose 1

Pose 2

Pose 3

Pose 4

On Sunday the kids went down to the dock to get away from the heat. I took four quick photos and chose this young lady to draw from each photo. What a great pose.

"Summer Lupines"

"Summer Lupines"

8"x6" oil on Raymar panel

Summer Lupines in process

The lupines are in bloom at Great Brook State Park and they are gorgeous. I've been struggling this last week, with lots of wipers to my credit. On this one, I wiped off the whole bottom half of the painting and made a second try, which you see here. The bottom photo shows my approach on the second pass, to cover the grass and flower area with blocks of color giving the basic composition. Then I came back in with strokes of color on top, first with the lupines and then using the green to shape the negative space around them. In version one, too much of the orangey-yellow background was showing through.

"Farm Pines Again"

"Farm Pines Again"

8"x6"

oil on Raymar panel

It was wonderful to be out this morning at Great Brook Farm painting this wonderful group of trees above the pond. There was a big bullfrog serenading me and hopefully getting his fill of the mosquitos that my bug dope scared away. I am so glad to see the sun!

Fellow Passengers Sketches

On a tour boat in New York Harbor last weekend, I did a few sketches of my fellow passengers.

Values

"Off the Rim" in black and white

"Off the Rim" in color

mixing the same value as yellow from the tube

black and white version of mixing the same value as yellow from the tube

I really enjoy doing value studies, whether in paint or as a sketch. I think it's a lot harder to translate those values into color though. Take a look at "Off the Rim" above. I was surprised to see the red bowl and blue background have almost the same value after I photoshopped the image of the painting into black and white. In the color version, the blue seems much lighter to me. So I decided to try and improve my ability to see the values in patches of color with the above exercise. Give it a try and see if you find it as challenging as I did: paint a swatch of cad yellow straight from the tube. Then try and mix a gray, red, and blue to match the value of the yellow. It took me a couple of tries to get the red and blue light enough (above is my second try). I've added a value finder to each image above to make it easier to see.

The above swatches were painted in gouache and scanned.

"Drew's Farm Apple Tree"

"Drew's Farm Apple Tree"

8"x6" oil on Raymar panel

The trees at Drew's Farm Orchard are pruned so that they look almost like sculptures. I was intrigued by the shapes and the clumps of flowers and leaves.

"Apple Orchard"

"Apple Orchard"

8"x6" oil on Raymar panel

I had a great time last week at the local apple orchards, in the few moments of sunshine. This was my second effort, not sure if I can save the first. We'll see. Thanks to Bob and Joelle for the wonderful scenery.

Sunflowers

"Sunflowers"

8"x8" oil on Raymar panel

I couldn't resist these sunflowers at Trader Joe's, they are such fun to paint.