The Avenue on an Autumn Afternoon

This morning's painting. Lots of old elements in it, but it is just an excuse to paint.

12x16" 30x40 cm acrylic on hardboard

October Study Two

I've been painting and scrapping off paint from this particular board for several days. This morning, looking at the shapes of paint that remained, I decided to just run with the scraped off remains of the trees on the board and see what I could come up with, and this is it.  The previous attempts where of an entirely different scene.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Autumn on the Cape

Back to a summer theme one more time...

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Autumn Rain

I wanted something moody and urban. For a while I tried to do it in greys like actual rainy days (around here), but that didn't work for me -- just too cold and ugly, so I'm back to using creamy colors instead.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Twilit Yard

I don't know about this one...

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Bike Trail in Fall

This is the morning's piece. I ride my bike along an abandoned RR route turned bike trail each day and this work is loosely based on a section of the trail as it approaches a road. I painted this even more loosely than usual.  I expect that this will be the standard for a while.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

October Study

I've been painting on this board all week. Painting and scrapping paint off. I like painting, so I don't mind too much if things don't turn out quite right, and well, I'm in a 'been there, done that' mood, so the sort of OK attempts did not make the cut. I've settled on this piece: quite abstracted, and painted with vertical brush strokes for it's colors and mood.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Autumn Afternoon

An improvised piece, again with the row of trees motif.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Along the Forest Road Revised

Sometimes I let things that sort of bug me slide, but this time, the differences between the types of branches between the right (far) and left (nearer) trees bugged  me enough to redo things a bit  last night to make them all the same type of trees.

Along the Forest Road

Well, I've been working on this one for the last several days -- hard to stay in and miss the last of the nice weather, perfect biking weather, you know. Anyways, this is the sum of the week's work so far, and it's another line of trees painting. I should have photographed yesterday's version just to illustrate the minor variations that have taken up a week's work... or anyways several hours of work...

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Park Row, Early Autumn Morning

Still exploring the shape of a line of trees.  You might notice this in several of my more recent paintings.  I started this board on Monday, but abandoned it until today. Starting over, I had the idea of light shining from right to left illuminating a wall on the left, and proceeded from there. I wasn't planning to retain the trees from the previous effort, but decide I could use them after all. I probably have a painted half a dozen paintings of Park Row -- an alternative to Pangone or one of the street or square scenes.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

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