June Art Works

12x24" 30x60cm acrylic on hardboard Summer, Early Morning

6x8" 15x20cm acrylic on hardboard Another Rainy Morning

6x8" 15x20cm acrylic on hardboard Summer Road

6x8" 15x20 cm acrylic on hardboard 9 oclock

6x8" 15x20cm acrylic on hardboard Forest Road

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard Cottage Over the Hill

6x8" 15x20cm acrylic on hardboard Street Scene in Greens

Larking Lizards and Carpboat in Drifts of Rain

I've got a couple of end pieces about, and it's Friday so it's time for another Archipelago of the Three Lovers painting. (Essentially these are abstracts, at least in my approach to painting them.)
Here's the premise of this series:
It's a science fiction scene. Imagine three planets (the three lovers) in close orbit around a point in space. They're close enough together to share an atmosphere and occasionally scrap by each other knocking bits and pieces, plants, animals and people off into this shared atmosphere and these rocks then hang suspended like motes of dust within the shifting gravitational pull of the three planets. This is the archipelago, drifting 'islands' in free fall in the space between the worlds. I seem to remember an Edger Rice Burroughs book with twin worlds and a shared atmosphere, but I think three worlds would work better.

12x24" 30x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Last Light on the Beach

Another 'light and open space' paintings. This morning, on my bike ride, I developed a theory as to  why I like this proportion of sky to land: for the last 30 years I've been living in the middle of a rolling prairie and unless you're looking at your feet, this is pretty much the split between land and sky you're going to see. I've just grown so used to it. As a matter of fact, last night when I looked at this painting I realized that my original version had too much land and I had to cut down the dunes by a good inch or two before I got to this, more satisfactory proportion.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

A Hint of Autumn

Just putting paint on board today while listening to the new Bombay Bicycle Club album. I really shouldn't be doing this: I should be making every painting important. Oh well.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Last Light Along the Falmont Bay Road

This is the first and maybe the last fruit of my week on the shore of Lake Michigan. There is nothing in it that directly reflects that week on the beach. Go figure.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Rainy Avenue

A rainy morning painting.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Summer in Lansworth 6

After spending a week's family holiday on the shore I should be painting pictures with the sea in it. I'd like to. But today, when I took out the bigger board, I decided I wasn't that ambitious today... maybe tomorrow.  I added today's smaller piece to my Summer in Lansworth series hoping to fool the gullible into thinking that I'm exploring in great detail the light and shape of street corners because it is important, not because I can't think of anything else to paint.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Misty Morn too

Well, it didn't look any better in the morning, so repainted it, keeping the same old scene just for comparison. I like this better, but is nothing to write home about. We'll see what I think of this version tomorrow.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Misty Morn

I'll likely paint over this one. It is just too much the same as too many others. As much as I hate to work, I'm going to have to really put some effort into coming up with some new ideas...

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

The Strand Before Sunrise

Okay, here's my story: I'm painting series paintings just like Monet... and I'm sticking with it.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Dragonfly Boats

As long as all I feel like doing is putting paint on board, I decided to do another of the Archipelago of the Three Lovers painting.  The 12x24" 30x60cm size board is what is left over when I cut two 18x24" 45x60cm boards out of a standard sized sheet of hardboard. And since I rather like a lot of sky in my large scale landscapes, this is somewhat of an orphaned size.

Summer in Lansworth 5

I spent yesterday painting another picture by lightly dabbing the paint on. It didn't work. I'm neither into drama or bright colors and the dabbing makes for a very diffuse painting that I found it impossible to create any contrast and interest in it at all. I'd like to think my devil may care approach to brush strokes add interest to my otherwise understated paintings would lack.

Today's painting brings nothing new with it. Mostly I'm just painting and exploring colors. In the past I used a yellows for my greens but now, for some reason, I want to use mostly blues for my greens. Go figure. Anyways, I'm not concerned about what I paint these days: its how I paint that interests me, so I end up re-doing familiar scenes. Hopefully I'll be able to move on in time.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Summer in Lansworth 4

A foggy summer morning in Lansworth.  Did this just to explore the use of a different type of brush stroke. Needs to be refined a bit. Somehow.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Creekline Study 2

An antidote to the overly literal pieces I painted earlier in the week. This one is painted over that Beach Grass, Fenlyn Bay painting I did last week. (Killing two birds with one stone...)

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Shady Alley

Oh, well. Trying to give a bit of shape to the paint I was putting down. Too literal for my taste. Don't like painting in the mid-day sun. More comfortable at the margins of the day and a narrower range of colors.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Summer in Lansworth 3

I've got to come up with a new series; this one is way too hard to paint for some reason. I wanted this painting to be looking up a hill, an angle that is not my long suit, and I see that I failed to bring it off here. More like I'm painting from a step ladder on a level street...  The other thing you might notice is that I paint most of my pictures looking north: morning sun from my right, evening sun on my left... I try to keep it simple...


12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Sands and Grass, Long Sands Island

What's summer without a visit to Long Sands Island?  Besides, the struggle to produce a second 'Summer in Lansworth' painting frightened me from doing another one right away... This piece, by the way, is painted over the Summer in the Uplands painting that I posted a week or so ago that never quite clicked with me. The scene is only a means to an end, and the end for me is a feeling, a mood. Summer in the Uplands never achieved this end for me. This one I think does, though I spent a day and a half re-arranging clumps of grass and sand to get that mood.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Summer in Lansworth 2

Seeing how hard it was to get even this little painting done, I may have been wildly optimistic about a series of Lansworth paintings....

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Summer in Lansworth 1

The secret of success, I've read, is to be the best in the world at one thing rather than to be good, even great, at many things. Now, as an artist, should I try to expand my skill set and paint lots of things in lots of ways, or should I be the best damn impressionist artist to paint Lansworth in the world?  At the moment, I'm opting for the latter, which explains the "1" it the piece's title.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Summer in the Uplands (Revised again)

Well, at least I'm painting. Too bad I ain't painting all that good. Anyways, the lines were all wrong on the last version of this painting. Just didn't feel right. Today's lines are better, more laid back, but they still don't make much of a painting.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard