Winter in the Lane

Same old same old, but I still had a fall painting on the wall in this size so I had to do a winter one quick. This is it. It was quick.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

The Factor's House

Last night I painted a much more, well, not realistic, but more crafted version of this scene. It didn't seem to work when I looked at it this morning; too stiff and to easily mistaken for a painting that someone was try to paint realistically and failing.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

The Farm of Covervale Lea

Started out with the idea of doing something like "Farmyard in Early Winter" but that wasn't working so well, so I decided to change the coloring to something more like "Frosty Morning in Sparrows Sq." and this is what I ended up with.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Frosty Morning in Sparrows Square

Old theme, old treatment. Different shape. I've now used up my backlog of 12x24" pieces, which are left over from cutting two 18x24" boards out of a standard 2x4' hardboard sheet.

12x24" 30x60cm acrylic on hardboard.

Farm Yard in Early Winter

Open spaces, now closed spaces. The challenge was to make the buildings as casual as the trees.

12x24" 30x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Field of Snow

I like my don't care attitude about this painting. It's simple, stark, creates a mood, and I like it.

12x24" 30x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Brook in Early Winter

It's that time of year again. And it sucks. Might as well paint it.

12x24" 30x60cm acrylic on hardboard.

Quad Blade Boats

A little return to steamimpressionism. Mostly an excuse to paint clouds and sky. Also wanted to find some better sort of air-boat. I don't really want to paint blimps, and I can't really get very detailed either. A problem.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Last Light on the Heather

This piece is all about sky. I spent several days working on the sky and in the end, scraped it down to assorted past layers, touched it up and called it a day. I then had to decide if it was morning or evening. It was morning right up to the end, but when I was finished I decided it looked more eveningish. And it follows my policy of almost always looking north to paint; morning sunlight from the right, evening sunlight from the left. (For no reason except that's what feels right and you never have to paint the sun into the painting.)

18x24"45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Afternoon Along a Forest Road

The interesting thing about this piece is that I used the same pallet of six colors & white that I used on the previous two paintings. I pretty much can get by with these six colors; Ultramarine blue, burnt umber, cadmuim yellow light (hue), burnt sienna, alizarine crimson, and Atelier's red gold (PY74 PR175. I like manganese blue for skies and shadows, plus I use beige and pastel yellow as well as white. Every other color I own I could get by without, and don't use much at all. Most were just picked up on a whim.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard.

Golden Afternoon

Another small brush painting, and probably the last. I find that it doesn't make much difference, I still paint the same way with a small brush as with a larger one, the painting just looks a little grainer. I had to try very hard not to make this look too Kinkadeish, with only limited success.

12x16" 30x40 cm acrylic on hardboard

The Arbor Gate

Another painting using a small brush. Actually I don't really paint any differently with a small brush; same strokes only smaller. It does make everything look more fine grained, however.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Dawn on the Thames

Another painting using only a small brush. Still, don't expect any details as I never learned how to paint with thick paint. When I switched from watercolors to oils, I never really had the training or patience to learn how to manage the thicker, stickier oil paints. Luckily I like impressionist paintings, so I never had to force myself to learn.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard.

A Day on the Downs

This piece's sole claim to fame is that I used a small brush -- which I rarely do -- to suggest that this piece is larger than it really is. The image I'm seeing on my screen is very blotchy, so the sky may be more subtle than what it appears on screen. Anyways, this was mostly about making a sky, the land is just there because I needed it.

12x24" 30x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Cloudy Day Studies 1 & 2

Our almost summer like weather has gone and I can no longer stay outside, so I've no excuse for not painting. I am, however, in painting these little pieces, avoiding working on a larger piece that I don't quite know what to make of. Hopefully it will show up on this blog sooner rather than later.

8x6" 20x15cm acrylic on hardboard

Rainy Day Studies 1 & 2

Rainy day studies as in it's raining outside and I found some little boards I had around that matched my ambitions, so I improvised these moody little pieces with a four colors and white.

8x6" 20x15cm acrylic on hardboard

Fall in the Lane

Just playing with light and paint.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Alley Abstract

One of the benefits of painting on hardboard is it's affordability. I paid less than $4 for a 2x4 foot sheet of hardboard the last time I bought some, and since I can get six boards this size out of it, I have less than $1 invested in this piece of artwork, paint included, which I will gladly sell to you for $100K; a nice Apple-like margin. The real value, however, is that I can paint a piece like this; basically just playing around with paint without worrying about wasting a much more expensive canvas on it. I suppose it could be argued that without having to think about the cost of materials I'm given license to put out slapdash rather than thoughtful paintings, but then slapdash is my style.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Shaded Alley

This time around I'm giving shade pride of place. At least in the title. I can't paint light without shade nor shade without light. But I think shade is where it's at in this piece.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Misty Morning in the Lane

A rather simple painting, but I decided I'd just keep it that way. What the heck.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Sunset in the Lane

All about light again, this time a bit more warmer light.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Glow of the Day

An old familiar scene painted with a slightly different technique.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Late Summer Along the Bayport Road

A little cooler pallet this time: more greens less yellows. I've also raised the horizon line, closer to the classical 1/3 line than I usually do. Like the previous painting, I've done most of the work with a larger bush using a small one for the house and distant details.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Mars in the Abstract

I worked off and on all summer on this piece, spending more time on it than any 20 other paintings. And it doesn't show, of course. Hell, I might not even be done yet. But now that I took the photo I'll put a few coats of varnish on it and see what I think. My 5 year old granddaughter spent several weeks visiting and we worked on this together; she giving me her opinion and I teaching her the concept of "it", as in all those other previous versions were certainly not "it" even if she liked them. I'm far from certain this is "it" yet, but I've about given up hoping to finding "it" in this piece, if I haven't already.

24x36" 60x90cm acrylic on hardboard

Late Summer Along the Trumet Road

This weekend I start my eleventh year as an painter. It's been a decade now since I quite my day job to paint "full time". Haven't a regret. Lot's of changes along the way. Started in watercolors and then had to learn how to paint in oils on canvas when it quickly became apparent that watercolors are too much like prints to command much interest in the "over the sofa" market. Later on I switched to acrylics on hardboard because I realized I could do everything I wanted in acrylics with a lot less annoyance. I sold paintings for the first five years or so and enjoyed the process, but I came to realize I was unprepared to do what it takes to make painting a business, so I just put a minimum $100K price on 'em and have never had to ask myself, "But will it sell?" again. (I know the answer.) In return I have the freedom to paint pictures like the one above without caring that no one but myself is likely to like it. Well worth it.

I did make my quota of two paintings a week this year, but I only did so by cheating: painting a lot of little paintings last fall. Oh, well. And I am not exactly painting at my best these days; maybe I'll get better and maybe not. We'll just have to see what year eleven brings.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Late Summer on the Upper Orham Road

Back from a week's holiday on the Lake Michigan shore with the extended family; lot's of walks along the beach and lots of time re-reading Joseph Lincoln books about Cape Cod a hundred or more years ago, which is the basis for this and these types of painting. Nothing new here, but at least I'm motivated to paint a bit. Can't complain.

12x24" 30x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Late Summer Along Lost Spring Road

I see it's been more than a month since I last painted a picture. I've always relied on intuition and inspiration to paint without any formal training. When inspiration and intuition fails I've nothing to fall back on and am pretty much out of luck. And the spring of inspiration and intuition seems to have run dry. I could, I suppose re-hash old scenes, like this piece, but that really doesn't interest me. Instead, I don't think I'll be painting for a while and see if anything changes. I'm not holding my breath, it's been hard to come up with things to paint for a year or more, so I'm far from sure this is a temporary thing.

But it's not like I'm not continuing to create. I'm just into words these days. I've finished the almost final draft of the first four episodes of my open ended science fiction serial "Captain of the Lost Star".  If it passes muster (a big 'if') with various reviewers, I'd like to self-publish as an ebook this fall sometime. It's a 60,000 word introduction to the characters of a tramp space ship plying the Nine Star Nebula. My plan is to add 10,000-15,000 word connected short stories on to it to keep the story going to where ever in the Nebula it's going. I'm planing to draw some illustrations and will post them here if I do. In addition I'm working on another science fiction novel with the working title of "The Rhymer's Gate" which I hope to have done by the new year. I write, as I paint, for fun, so that if I do finish them to my satisfaction, I'd publish them myself as ebooks if I don't think I'd embarrass myself too much. We'll see.


18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

The Moon & Sailing Barge

Another old Thames sketch. Unfortunately it looks like a four color print that's been left in the sun too long and all the yellow ink has faded out of it. Oh well.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

The Old Thames

Paint something different or paint differently seems to be my only two options to get painting again. This is piece is mostly a paint differently painting achieved by using a small brush and colors I don't usually use. The subject is an old friend including my favorite bridge, the Hungerford bridge, now sadly disfigured.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

little study 4

Did this last week. Just got around to photographing it. No better than the rest.

6x8" 15x20cm acrylic on hardboard

little study 3

Boring. I think because I'm trying to paint landscapes instead of moods using landscapes. At least painting on little panels is an economical way of trying to find what you're doing wrong.

6x8" 15x20cm acrylic on hardboard

little study 2

Not what I wanted, but will keep trying.

6x8" 15x20cm acrylic on hardboard

Little Study 1

It's been quite a while, once again. Vacations, babysitting, no idea what I want to paint are largely to blame. I was at a gallery the other day and saw big paintings (eight foot by eight foot) painted to sell to rich people to hang on their big white walls in their big houses, and was glad I didn't have to do that. So I painted this instead and put a $100K price tag on it.

6x8" 15x20cm  acrylic on hardboard

Ships in the Clouds

Another piece where I just started out with blotches of paint and worked them into shape. Not sure were this is, but it's near some port anyways. Is that spot of brightness near the bottom milky sunlight dancing on the Thames? Could be.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard.

Steam Lighters and Ships

Sea ships and cloudships in and over the Hooghly, Calcutta's harbor. This piece is closer to my natural style than the previous entry in this series. I set out to do a more airy painting then what this turned out to be, but I've come to like the thicker, clunkier paint style. The sky proved somewhat problematical, I was thinking of rain, or sun shining through a mist, but it seemed boring. This sky, though disordered at least implies motion.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Sunrise on the Ganges

It's one thing to cross oceans, seas and deserts high in the clouds in a racing cloudship, but it would be a waste to cross the vast Maratha Confederacy lost high in the clouds. So I left the Anjer at Bombay and took passage on the Empire Mail Cloud Prince, seen here at anchor. The Cloud Prince is floater type of  airship that cruises only several hundred feet off the ground making it much easier to see India. This is a study of sunrise in Varanasi on the Ganges.

I'm not really a painter of postcard scenery (obviously), so I suspect that this type of scene is a deal end, but I've been sketching it all week, so I thought I might as well give it a go.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Coaling in the Clouds

Taking on coal from lighters over Muscat. Next stop, Bombay.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Steamtraders over Alexandria

The third sketch in the series as I travel East aboard the India & East Mail cloudship Anjer (the white hulled ship on the far left). Below is Alexandria harbor (Egypt) after calls on Tunis and Malta.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Deeper in Glen Maig

Unlike most of my paintings, this and the previous Glen Maig painting are loosely based on a real place as seen by google's street view. I didn't have the pictures in front of me when I painted these and felt free to take all the liberties I wanted including features, time of day and season, but their real life sources can be found. (Though the name of the glen is fictional.) I'm not too crazy about either of these paintings, even if they were good, I don't like painting picture postcard scenes, which these would be, if I could paint picture postcard scenes. The main reason I painted them is that I'm writing a story set in this glen, and I wanted to paint as well as write it...


12x24" 30x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Glen Maig

A fictionalize Scottish glen from my The Rhymer's Gate story which I'm working on. I was struck while painting this last night how little I know about painting. I'm still just flying by the seat of my pants: just trying this and that to see if I can make it work rather than setting out and getting what I wanted done. More surprises my way, more failures too, I suppose.

12x24" 30x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Pirates...of sort. Study

Another quick study of bumboat peddlers (the "pirates") hawking their trinkets over the side of the Indian & East Mail Cloudship Anjer while calling at Gibraltar. I really hadn't meant to make this sketch so similar to the last one. I had actually started painting it as I had intended to: a view looking towards the ship from alongside it, but my clunky style of painting does not lend itself well to creating any illusion of depth by subtle graduations of textures and shadows; I need clear lines to suggest depth. The side view was just too flat, and with the lack of details, too confusing as well.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Departing for the East

A regrettably quick study aboard the Indian & East Mail Cloudship liner Anjer departing Portsmouth for the Eastern Empire. The cloud cruiser HMCS Kestrel is off our starboard bow.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Cloudships Passing Revised

Completely repainted from the previous post. I wanted to give the scene more atmosphere. I also wanted to revised the cloudships as well, though in the end I decided not to over think things like how they stay aloft... we'll just go with the Barsoomian seventh ray or what ever that lifts them skyward rather than paint blimps.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Cloudships Passing

I'm far from certain that there's any demand for steampunk impressionism, but my art is not market driven, so here's a steampunk impressionist painting of three steam driven roto-ships passing in the sky.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Flowering Trees, Haven Street

I haven't forgotten about this blog. I simply haven't been painting. I usually follow the local seasons in my painting and I got tired of painting winter. Well, I got tired of winter, and it's been unbroken winter around here until this week -- snow banks still more than 3 feet high along the driveway.

I've been writing instead, working on two science fiction pieces; an open ended adventure story "The Captain of the Lost Star" and a mystery/romance "The Rhymer's Gate". Can't say I'll ever finish them, but seeing that I may well have lost it when it comes to painting, I'll probably keep at writing for some time to come.

As for this painting, well I needed to replace a winter scene around the house, and felt as a matter of principle I should paint a new one rather than just find an old spring scene. I don't really know what to say about this piece; I spent an hour on it, trying very hard not to try: just to see what would happen. It shows. The problem with painting at the moment is that it seems that I've done all I can do and everything seems' been there done that'. We'll just have to see how it plays out.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

The Winter Creek Again

Pretty much the same bend in the creek, just a wider view.

12x24" 30x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Bright Winter

Decided to be fair to winter and do a sunny winter scene along the lines of my last two larger winter pieces. Still keeping it simple, we're painting openness and air here not a conventional landscape. The landscape is the language not the message.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

In the Heart of Winter

All week this was little more than sky and a line of trees. I wanted to do something along the lines of The Blanket of Winter, but not a just re-arrangement of the elements. Yesterday it came to me to combine elements of those watercolor style paintings I did with the more stark and abstrated thick paint winter ones and this is what I ended up with.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard