Dusk in the Heather

I've been working on this piece for the last two days -- the weather has been quite nice so I've also been playing hooky a lot. Still, this piece has been a problem one, both for composition - I finally lowered the horizon - and color -settling for the purples and pinks rather than golds or blues.  Like most paintings of mine that take this much work, the result is so-so. The best just flow....

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Oaks at Dusk

I was putting away the Summer Sedum piece  from last week and decided that it would just not do. I painted this piece over it this afternoon. Our five months of winter is not all that far away, so I had spent this mild fall day getting my 24 miles in on my bike and planting my garlic before it clouded up, so doing a little piece like this fit nicely into my day.

8x12" 20x30cm acrylic on hardboard

Sunday Morning

A small, quick study I did this Sunday morning. I feel I do some of my best work in small piecess like this one.

8x12" 20x30cm acrylic on hardboard

Road Over the Hills

I painted this piece over yesterday's painting. I probably won't try painting over this board again...but then again... The thing is that having painted around a 1,000 paintings I really don't need a lot of uninspired pieces laying around, especially since I can no longer claim them as 'early works'...

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Forest Creek

I used to do more of these types of paintings. Back in the day I'd usually  toss in a fly fisherman just to make the picture easier to sell...  I can't say I'm crazy about this one...

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

A Golden Moment on the Strand

It is not the London Strand, but it does bear more than a passing resemblance to the London Embankment.  The scene is however just made up so it is neither, just an imaginary Strand...

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Autumn Rain in Lansworth

I painted this one over yesterday's painting. I paint for fun and often they don't turn out  good enough to write home about.  In some ways it doesn't matter, most people don't like what I'm painting these days anyways, but I do care to keep somewhat of an eye on what I will leave behind when I die, and I'd hate to leave a lot of crappy paintings laying around... even if I just did then to play around with paint on rainy morning.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

An Unrepentant Gloomy Day

...Just like today. However, I can not bring myself to paint grey, so I warm things up a bit: besides, I try to bring new things to the world, and I don't think there is a shortage of grey skies.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Summer Sedum

Just a little study to while away a gloomy Sunday afternoon.

12x8" 30x20cm acrylic on hardboard

The Moon and Shy Faun Falls

I'd been thinking of Chinese black lacquer work with my Midnight Impatiens painting a week or so back, so I decided to try a landscape along those lines, and this is it. It is not very much like the Chinese version, but then I'm not trying to imitate their work so much as to be inspired by it.

24x12" 60x30 cm acrylic on hardboard

Sunset in the Doring Marsh Revised

Here's today's version of yesterday's painting.  I hated the stiffness of the sail in yesterday's version, and tackled that today. Still hated the second version, so I basically scraped everything down and started over. One of the problems with yesterday's (and today's earlier versions) is that the boat was too clumsy to be realistic, but realistic enough to look like I was trying to be realistic. If you can't paint realistically -- I can't -- you need to be careful not to get even near painting realistically....

12zx24" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Sunset in the Doring Marsh

I had to work pretty hard to paint a picture not many people would like. My morning's version was a conventional scene with hills and mountains in the distance and the sail boat entirely in the picture. If I had been painting only three or four years, it would have been alright, but I've been painting far longer than that, and it wouldn't do at all.

12x24" 30x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Rain and Fog Along the Strand

This was a last ditch painting as I was in danger of not having a painting done by my afternoon tea time.  As such, it is not that bad... though I might have to touch it up a bit...

12x24" 30x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Sunset in the Foothills

I generally do not paint mountains, they're too gaudy.  Well, at any rate, too grand. But since this week I'm looking for something different to paint, or something to paint differently, anything goes, including mountains.

12x24" 30x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Midnight Impatiens

It was very hard to get a photograph of this painting, so this is as good as it gets. But I'm sure you get the idea: I think things would look better if I actually designed a design instead of just painting my impatiens from life. However, I'm not taking these paintings too seriously, though I'm thinking maybe an abstract painting along these lines might work...

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Impatiens(ly) abstracted

This is what happens when an impatient painter paints impatiens.  I have a yen to paint something different or at least differently, and I am fond of this four year old annual. (I'm also painting over some paintings that needed painting over...)

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Impatiens Patterns

In answer to yesterday's question: you paint over the dumb picture the next day. My impatiens in a pot is getting on to be four years old, (they over winter in the house) and I paint it every once and a while when I want to do something different but don't know what. This time I just painted the leaves and flowers and left the pot and background out.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Meriwells Park

The question of the day: I've read that writers are advised to set aside a certain part of the day to write, and to write every day in that time, whether or not they feel up to the task or not. Does it apply to painters too?  I certainly did not feel inspired today, and this is what results...

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Soft Morning in Pangone

Another familiar scene, just something to paint until I can come up with something new.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard