Shady Street

I started painting this piece with a pallet knife but I found that I do too much of my painting on the board, things like mixing colors and deciding just what I'm painting, that working with a pallet knife was too cumbersome. And it's not very economical either, though it seems that if you're in the over the sofa art market, pallet knife paintings are all the rage. But since I'm not in that market, no point wasting paint...

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Morning in the Meadow with Sheep

Looks like this is the week's painting. Blame it on the nice weather. But I did go all out and put livestock in this painting, sheep (in long grass) being one of my specialties. Dogs, cats and seagulls are the other animals I dare to tackle.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Summer Street Study 2

I tried making this scene into a river painting, but it seemed pretty boring. Pure wilderness doesn't thrill me: I like the well worn interface between people and nature (or rather the rest of nature), like these street scenes with front yards overgrown with trees.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Creekline Study Revised

Yesterday's painting was lame, but I did like the colors so I went back and repainted most, but not all of it. Hopefully this one won't turn lame overnight.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Creekline Study

A return to an old standby, the willow tree. Now that I'm riding my bike again, I ride past a line of willows early in the morning and in the evening, if not a noon as well and for some reason I find them very paintable. I don't actually paint from life, the mosquitoes would eat me alive if I tried, but I do try to remember the impressions they make on me each day.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Day's End Along Berry Creek

Another improvised piece - I don't really know what I want to paint, and I'm using the good days to put off trying to find something. But yesterday was a rainy day so I had no excuses. This piece's claim to fame is that I used a much smaller brush than I normally would, and it was a round one! Living close to the edge.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Summer Street Study

I haven't been neglecting this blog, I've been neglecting painting. Actually I was on vacation for several weeks, and I've taken a week or more to recover. I'd really like to figure out some new place to paint, but as you see, I haven't yet. Oh well.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Spring Along the Orchard Road (Rev)

Minor revision: added the people on an oriental scale: dwarfed by nature. The original was a little too empty without them.

Spring Along the Orchard Road

Another cold and gloomy spring day around here, so I might as well paint. I was tempted to paint over yesterday's Fenlyn Bay painting, but decided that it was too enigmatic to paint over, as in 'why would anyone bother to paint a few tufts of grass,  blue hills and half a dozen seagulls?' sort of enigmatic.  I think I'll just consider it a 'challenging' piece.

As for this piece, I was thinking of a stand of I think silver poplars along the bike trail that had that white-ish blue green look to them in bud when I started, but I rather strayed from that idea as I went along. Oh well.

18x24' 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Spring Sands, Fenlyn Bay

I wanted a nice airy piece for today's second work. We've had a few very nice spring days this week , so I've been in the yard and on my bike and not painting. Needed to catch up to my 2-a-week minimum budget for painting. Had a number of different ideas on what to put below the sky and this is the one I ended up with. A very simple painting, but that's what I was in the mood for.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Feather Boats, Three Lovers Archipelago

Likely the last of the little series. Clearly run out of ideas. Parts of this piece where once parts of a larger 2x4' 60x120cm piece that I thought I could do, but decided that it wasn't going to work. I need big ideas to fill a big space, and I don't see any point in scaling up smaller ideas, since I'm not in the over the sofa art market.

12x24" 30x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Butterfly Boats at a Market Landing

A second scene from the Archipelago of the Three Lovers.

12x24" 30x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Butterfly Boat Amongst the Floating Islands

Painting impressionistic fantasy scenes is petty iffy, at best. With impressionist painting you're rather counting on your viewer knowing just what it is you're painting and from that basis appreciating (hopefully) how you've treated that subject. In the case of a fantasy painting like this one, the viewer isn't familiar with the vision I'm using as a basis to paint impressionistically, so they're likely to be very confused by it. I've decided that that's okay.

12x24" 30x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Lost in the Woods

I've long since left the bank of realistic painting, but I've no great desire to reach the far bank of pure abstract painting, so here's were I'm at. Basically foliage abstracted. I had no other idea in mind.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Misty Park

I considered making yesterday's painting into a park scene, but decided I wanted the lights that reflections on the pavement provide. Today I did the park scene, though on a much smaller scale.

6x8" 15x20cm acrylic on hardboard

Umbrella Weather in Lansworth

The road seems to have been neither long nor winding, 'cause here we are again. What happens is that I paint what I feel like painting, not what I feel like I should be painting. I dislike painting the same picture over and over again, but that doesn't seem to stop me from painting the same picture over and over. At least I alter the size a bit.

18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on hardboard

Sandbrook Meadow

This is just a little painting, 6x8" 15x20cm. I wanted to have a bridge in the painting, but it looked either clunky, or too trite or both. So no bridge.

Early on the Road

I'm basically painting an abstract painting here, with only a toe touching the ground. Also I didn't feel too concerned about painting green trees and bushes green.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Along the Sandbrook Road

I didn't go too far along the road, just down and around the bend. I painted this on a new board mostly because if you put too many layers with acrylics on a board, it tends to have lots of questionable texture in the wrong places.  The hard part of painting spring and summer around these parts is that there is so much green making it hard to find some contrast or other interest.  Not that it's green around here now:  it's actually snowing here today and sticking to the ground, so all I'm doing with this painting, and the last couple of dozen is dreaming of a green spring...

Spring Time Road

Well, here's today's version of a country scene. At least I'm out of the city and on the road.  We'll have to see where it leads. This board may get a third painting tomorrow. We'll see.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Untitled landscape

I did this today just to make a break with what I've been painting for a while. It will no doubt be painted over tomorrow.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Rainy Spring Evening 2

This is the painting that replaces the previous painting. I found I could not find a way to make it what I wanted. The problem is that what I want to do is to evoke a mood and I use landscapes as a language to evoke that mood. My impressionism is about creating the emotions of a first glimpse of an unexpected scene: the specialness of it all before all the mundane details have filled in to make it real. If I put too many (and too poor) details in, I feel that I destroy that first instant, which is what I'm looking to capture. Yesterday's scene just had too much for that first instance.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Soft Morning, Fairmeadow Blvd

A rather boring painting, even with my understated tastes. I'll have to see what I can do with this tomorrow.

Rainy Spring Evening

I'm sort of in a rut here, but I had something more colorful and realistic yesterday, but decided that it wouldn't do. Today I just started toning down the areas and adding trees instead of buildings on the left and here we are again: in Lansworth on a rainy evening....

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard

Pangone in the Rain 2

A gloomy little scene with warmer greens than I've been using recently. It also rains in Pangone, and on ships at sea, as well.

6x8" 15x20cm acrylic on hardboard

Pangone in the Rain

I worked for hours and hours on this little piece and couldn't seem to get it good. Since it's only a 6x8" (15x20cm) piece,  I settled for this.

Afternoons in the Back Courts

Had nothing better to do than paint another little painting this afternoon. This one is more "drawn" than the last one.

6x8" 15x20cm acrylic on hardboard

Morning in the Mews 5

I make the distinction between drawing and painting this way: in drawing you  attempt to recreate the lines and shapes of objects with a brush, pen or pencil, with painting you use your brush to imply shapes and lines of objects. I went out of my way to only paint this little piece.

6x8" 15x20cm acrylic on hardboard

Morning in Dering Crescent 2 (Minor revisons)

Added the curb and tree trunk on the right. Any other changes are just the differences in photographs.

Morning in Dering Crescent 2

Sorry, getting rather uncreative with names, probably too many paintings too alike. Otherwise, I've been exploring the cooler shades of green recently, but I'm more of a gold and yellow sort of painter, so this is a step back in that direction, but only a step.

12x16" 30x40cm acrylic on hardboard