It Rains in Pangone Too

Not too crazy about this one -- too many colors without a plan...

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Havlet Hill, Lansworth

I guess I'll just keep painting pictures like these until a better idea comes along...

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Another Rainy Day in Lansworth

I had several ideas to paint from my bike trail route, but I decided that there are plenty of artists who paint those types of scense, better than I could, so instead I did what I do best: start painting something in the upper left hand corner and hope for the best... in this case, another rainy day in Landsworth.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

The Estate Wall

I had a couple of ideas that didn't seem to want to work today, so in the end, I improvised this piece -- a re-arrangement of familiar elements.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Sunny Morning in Pangone

We're still in that most fictional hamlet of Pangone, amongst the hilly lanes and back allees.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

A Sunset in Pangone

I'll end the week's work with a return to the Allees of Pangone, and the warmer pallet I prefer.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Sun and Shade in Lansworth

Here's today's installment of our exploration of quiet Lansworth. This piece is a bit different than the others in that I knew what I wanted to do before I started it, indeed I had the idea yesterday...

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Summer Morning in Lansworth

I guess these summer street scenes are becoming a habit.

12x16" 30x40cm

Rain in Lansworth

A rainy day here too.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Upland Meadow

I probably mentioned it in an earlier posting, but my goal is to paint impressionist inspired abstract landscapes that do not look (at first glance) like abstracts. They are, however, meant to be abstracts and nothing but abstracts... as in this case.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Afternoon in the Gardens

Today's doodle in paint. This time I started with a clean board so nothing got painted over today.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Summer Street in Lansworth

This is painted over the last painting I posted, Moon Before Dawn.  I tried to put some figures in to liven the scene up a bit, but they did not seem to fit, so it is just the street and only the street.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Moon Before Dawn

This is today's doodle. Not much, but I was painting anyways.

12x16" 30x40 cm acrylic on hardboard

Marsh Meadow

Sometimes you wake up the next day and wonder what you've done -- painting wise. Such was the case with the previously posted picture, Morning Willows. I attempted to revise it, but nothing worked better than what I originally had.  So I had a panel to paint over, and this is the resulting painting.  We'll see what I think about it tomorrow.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Morning Willows

Inspired by my early morning bike ride today -- willows in the morning mist, though I  increased the contrast between the low sun lit mist and the line of trees.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Strand Creek

Another one of my doodles in paints. If I learn anything about painting, it is likely by doing it, so I keep doing it, even when I don't have a clue as to what to paint.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Alone in the Botanical Gardens

Today I decided to 'de-construct' last week's Botanical Garden painting, i.e. to paint it in this more abstracted style. I did not have the first painting in front of me, so this one only vaguely resembles the original (I think, since I haven't compared to two yet...)

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Crescent Park Studies

I've put aside yesterday's painting -- the bottom line is that I need a big enough idea to fill the size of the board I've chosen, and my idea wasn't big enough to fill an 18x24" board. So today we're on to smaller paintings -- which I think are my forte anyways...

Crescent Park Study 1:














A familiar scene -- a small fenced in urban park like a London Square -- that I return to time after time because I like painting it. This is done in more or less my usual style.

8x12" 20x30cm acrylic on hardboard

For my second painting I wanted to de-construct the painting above: make it more elemental, more abstract.  What I want to paint is impressionist inspired abstract landscapes that don't look abstract (until you look at them closely and realize I didn't paint anything "real").  Study 1, above, though far from realistic, is fairly literal never the less. For my second study I wanted to be freer.

Crescent Park Study 2

Having the first study before me made it easier to avoid falling into old habits and making things too specific. This is far closer to what I want to paint, and only occasionally do. Painting small paintings helps too: I find it hard to scale the effects I want up to larger sizes, though you would think it would be fairly easy -- perhaps I just need some really large brushes...

8x12" 20x30cm acrylic on hardboard

Moon and Fen Road -- revison in progress

This morning's work, not done and a bad photo -- not sure where I'll go next with this.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Moon and Fen Road

I was pleased at how using a green sky for night seemed to work a painting or two ago, so I decided to try it again.  I doubt that this will be the final version and the colors did not photograph well... so consider it a work in progress, though just what I'll do hasn't come to me yet.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

White Sky Study

The only thing I had in mind when I started this piece is I wanted to paint a white sky (rather than my more usual yellow ones...) My morning walk is now a bike ride and I go further on the bike path, along a long line of willows in a field, so this painting is more grounded in actual experience than most of my pieces. Still, it has a rather "Starving Artists" abstract landscape feel to it ... all I can say is "sorry".

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Russian Moonlight

I recently had a book on Russian landscape painting out from the library and it featured several paintings with moonlit or night time skies painted in greens. So I thought, what the heck, and thus the title of this piece.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Botanical Garden in Moonlight

Here is today's revision.  All very slapdash, but I spent too much time being slapdash, will have to do it right the first time.  Spending too much times is counter productive. I wish this one turned out better. Oh well. Next week.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Botanical Garden in Moonlight

A rather slapdash effort, on purpose, so I'll make it a virtue. I changed the foreground  from lawn to a pond, which I'm not convinced was a plus. I can always change it back...

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Orchard Lane Dawn

I still would not care to be found dead in a ditch with this piece, but it's an improvement in my eyes over yesterday's effort.  It is still not what I really want to paint, it is too specific, too literal for what I care to paint, but I wanted to re-do yesterday's version as a point of honor.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Orchard Lane Dawn

One of the dangers in improvising while painting is that you may end up with a painting you would not want to be found dead in a ditch with... like this one.  Oh well, it killed a rainy afternoon.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Morning Along the River (In Blue)

My greens weren't working this morning -- I tried using cobalt (hue) instead of ultramarine as the blue for my greens, but that didn't want to work today -- so I  just went with mostly blues. The subject was more or less improvised as I went along -- I wanted something a little different than what I've been doing recently.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Quiet Corner, After a Shower

As I confessed last posting, I'm just playing with paints these days -- the subject matter is of little concern for me -- thus we have here another treatment of a scene I have used several times before in recent weeks.  Oh well...

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard.

Early in the Morning in the Park

In the years I painted in watercolors I used to dip my brush into the various paints that I thought I wanted to use to create the color I was looking for and then put the brush to the paper and mix things up a bit with a little water.  The paints would mix and arrange themselves, creating interesting patterns and doing a lot of the work of making the painting interesting.  With these thicker paints, I still do the same thing, but the paints don't mix themselves on the board, I have to do that, which is a lot more work.  However, it is also fun to push the paint around and see what you can come up with.  This is pretty much what I'm doing these days -- the actual scene is a secondary consideration, and is certainly a secondary consideration in this piece.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Orchard and Pasture

During my morning walk I noticed that the white and red blossoms of a wild growing apple tree along the trail looked lavender in the light overcast light and so we have today's painting: a rather minimalist painting, cooler colored and with a lower tonal value than usual for me.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard