Sunset Dancer

I love to paint plein air because it is so relaxing, especially when I am out and there are no people around. That is my favorite. It can't always be like that, and usually when it is not... that's where the best painting stories come from.

This painting for example was painted within 10 minutes. The sun was setting rapidly in Costa Rica so I set up and was slashing color down when this American girl came up to me. She was working at the Adventure Camp and had served us the night before... but she did not recognize me. She had obviously been indulging in some of the native plants (wink, wink, nudge, nudge)

We talked for just a minute as she realized I was with the group that had been there for a while, she thought we departed already. She told me she would love to be able to paint and thought she could pull it off. Good luck, I thought... it ain't as easy as it looks.

As we ended our conversation, which was basically her talking and me painting, she excused herself from the conversation stating that she did not want to disturb me any more. "How nice," I thought. I wish all onlookers were like that. I usually get stories about their aunt that was a painter or that they have a dog and would I like to paint said dog. I was impressed with her ability to recognize the importance of the moment and to excuse herself. We exchange pleasantries and she excused herself. What happened next was so funny that I could hardly contain myself and only wished I had witnesses. She literally stood right next to me in my peripheral vision, facing the same sunset I was and DANCED her weird Grateful Dead, Widespread panic, Phish dance. All I could think was, "didn't want to disturb me?" Luckily for me it started to rain, which chased the Sunset Dancer away and gave me a few more undisturbed moments to finish my last stokes with the knife.

Plein air is always interesting and I know that 10 days painting at the Forgotten Coast paint out next week will yield some great stories!

Sunset Dancer, 8x10, plein air, landscape, sunset, palette knife, $600, framed

Corcovado Beach

Drake Bay, Costa Rica, 8x10, oil sketch, plein air, landscape, palette knife

This is the first piece I did upon arrival at the Corcovado Adventure Tent Camp on Drake Bay in Costa Rica. It was hot... super hot and sticky and I did not have everything I needed. I had shipped tubes of extra color and OMS from Dick Blick to Costa Rica and they had not passed through customs at this point. I had to improvise with think paint and no thinner!

Rise

Rise, oil on linen, framed, 8x10, $500

The Beginning SOLD

This is a painting I did of my favorite alley taken by a friend of mine. It's nice to see it through someone else's eyes every now and again. This was at the start of our snowstorm last week.

The Beginning, 8x10, oil on linen, palette knife, architecture, SOLD

Buchanan General Store

Buchanan General Store, oil study on panel, 8x10, $400, architecture

Quick study of an old abandoned storefront in Tennessee

Twin Steeples SOLD

Twin Steeples, oil on panel, 8x10, palette knife, churches, steeples,  SOLD, urban landscape, architecture

The New Space

The New Space, 8x10, oil on canvas panel, $400 framed, landscape, PBS

This is the first a series of paintings that you will see coming from me during the school year called PBS paintings, or Paintings Before School. I will be doing a lot of paintings before my school day starts. I don't have the same schedule I had last year that gave me an entire afternoon, from 12:30 until whenever every other day, in the studio. I do have a free block every morning and I will be doing a great deal of plein air work on campus and in downtown Newnan for another project I will tell you about later.

The school just put in a traffic circle or roundabout and it has open the campus up to a filed that I have coveted for years. It has been the subject of many foggy morning photos and paintings. I now have vehicular access to this field, although that comes with it's own curse, and will be able to paint it much more frequently. It will not continue to be a beautiful field as it will become a new road in the next few years. I will continue to immortalize it in paint and film until and through that day that the road goes in.

Study, The Rolling Hills of Marfa

Study, The Rolling Hills of Marfa, 8x10, study, palette knife, oil on panel, $450, framed,  landscape

There is a ranch road just west of Marfa. You can take it straight to the border, or close to it. You actually have to go a few extra miles east to Presidio to make a legal crossing. The only problem is that it isn't paved and a 4x4 is a must. Luckily the new paint mobile has all of those bases covered. It is in the top 5 of drives I have ever taken. The scenery is unadulterated and WILD! During the 4 hour, 54 mile drive was saw only one other vehicle and that was pretty shocking. We did part of the drive again before we left.