Cape Cod Fish Market

This scene was originally painted during my summer on Cape Cod. I was hanging onto some rocks down by the river balancing my gear. I loved the vantage point that I had but I did hurry and overwork the painting. Doing it this time in the studio was much easier. I eliminated some details and kept the colors simple with single strokes of paint. I like it.

Weekend at Zion

Spent the weekend painting at Zion National Park. What a venue for the artist. It is truly awesome with its red walls and canyons. It is difficult to put a frame around anything since it is so overwhelming. I want to return and try it again. It does take awhile to be up to the task of composing a painting since it is so great.

Utah Creek Trail

What a difference a summer makes. Painted here in the spring with greenery and budding trees. After a continued draught everything is dry, dead and dusty. I was out there on Wednesday morning with my plain air group. Lots of sneezing and itchy eyes with the stuff blowing around, but I'd rather be painting.

Fall Color

This was an exercise on desaturation of color. Take a pure color and add its complement to get to a gray and then a dark. It's very enlightening for me to see how bold you can paint and then modify. This was a totally imaginative composition in which I changed values and kept doing the desaturation which I never heard about in my years of painting. I have always mixed my pure color and formed grey, light or dark colors. This was a good exercise to realize what it is really about.

Morning in Locke, CA

Returned home last week and have already had a week of painting. Weather here is warm and bright. This is a painting of the main street in the town of Locke, CA on Wed. morning. It was quiet but for a film crew finishing up a 4-day shoot. They were waiting for the right shadows in an alley of this old Chinese town. While setting up camera shots, they were interesting to talk with, since they waited much of the time. I have painted here many times over the years. The town is usually quiet on weekdays but attracts lots of visitors on weekends. I am always surprised the structures are still standing. The porches sag and are supported by long 2x4 poles. The entire block of buildings lean and I wonder if the collapse of one would set off a domino effect.

Sand Dunes and Salty Air

Sand dunes are so calming to observe. We live on a sand bar here at Cape Cod so there are plenty of dunes to see. They become carved by the wind and support the growth of grasses. I found these next to a beach parking lot and sketched. I then wandered up close and there was a beauty getting her tan inside the dunes. Wow. The sand dune is very easy to sketch and then it is a selection of colors to match the grasses both close and afar. It was a beautiful day to paint.

Round Cove Afternoon

Round Cove is quiet this afternoon. One sailor is out in a good breeze. It is autumn and the air is clear with a brilliant sun. The temperature reached only 70 degrees. This is ideal painting weather. I used my next to last sheet of watercolor paper. I leave the Cape in a few more days. That should be fine but I have a habit of painting on the other side of a finished painting. This confuses people when they find it in my rack. Round Cove has lots of boats moored so I only selected a few. The green grass growing along the edge is overpowering. There is a sand bar in the background leaving a way out of the cove. The grassy slope of the distant hill is bathed in sunlight. What a sight.