This is a field study, a.k.a. plein air painting I did a couple weeks ago in the late afternoon. I have painted this barn a few times before (always in a small size) but the lighting was gorgeous on this particular evening, better than any of the other times I've painted it. I plan to turn this into a large studio painting-15"x30". This small study represents about and hour and thirty minutes of work.
It has been some time since I last posted. Things have been a little hectic and I've been working on commissions for Christmas. This is the first stage of a painting I'm currently working on. This has a bit of a Christmas theme to it since it shows a donkey, which are usually portrayed in Nativity scenes, not to mention that Christ rode a donkey into Jerusalem before 
I have some more great news! This painting won the 2nd Place VIP Best of Show Award at this year's Waterfowl Festival! The Benefactors got to vote for their favorite painting at the Thursday night preview event.
I love painting white, whether its snow or some kind of animal. I always have fun with all the subtle tones and neutral colors. Rarely-if ever-is anything in nature pure white. While the local color of the object may be completely white, the light source will almost always give it some kind of slight tone. This fact reminds me of the Transfiguration of Jesus, where it says in Scripture that His clothes became dazzling white, as no fuller on earth could make them. While I do have a couple spots of almost pure white paint in the highlights of this painting, I guess pure white in nature is usually reserved for Divinity.
This is the final painting that was based on the small oil sketch I posted a couple weeks ago. I bought this old silver tea set last spring and decided not the clean it for this painting, hence the name of the painting "Tarnished Silver". This was painted from life in my studio in natural north daylight.
This is a scene I have witnessed many times, Mallards bursting out of a group of cattails.
Out of Nowhere, oil on linen, 11"x14"
SOLD
This is the 6th painting I did at Plein Air Easton. Ellen, the artist in the painting volunteered to finish her painting in the sun instead of moving into the shade; this way I could paint her with all those nice cast shadows. As you may have guessed it was incredibly hot. I had to paint fast and completed this painting in less the an hour and a half.
This was the third painting I did for Plein Air Easton. I started this one early in the morning; as the sun rose it's reflection in the water almost blinded me. At one point I was about to give up and completely wipe out the painting, but I ended up moving my easel back and finished the painting. I'm glad I did because I like the painting.
This was my quick draw painting that I did for Plein Air Easton this year. I won an Honorable Mention Award for this painting. In this particular quick draw you have 2 hours to complete a painting from start to finish and you must paint from life within a designated area. After some frustration in trying to find a spot I settled on the Easton Farmers Market. This was the first time I have painted a scene with many people moving around. After I was set up fellow artist Scott Llyod Anderson set up right in the middle of my scene. His twin umbrellas added the center of interest that I needed.
This is a plein air painting I did last week on a perfectly sunny afternoon. The field was filled with Buttercup flowers. The fence was not there but I added it for interest. There was also a small white building in the foreground that was built at a funky angle in comparison to the other buildings, so it had to go. One of the benefits of painting a scene rather than photographing it.
This is one of the largest paintings I have ever done, well at least the longest. 5 Pintail Drakes out on a foggy morning in early spring.
This is a little oil sketch that I did a couple weeks ago during a late afternoon. We drive by this farm all the time on our way to Mass and family gatherings, and for years I have thought that I should paint it. I love how the late afternoon humidity simplified the shapes and gave such a strong feeling of aerial perspective.
This is a photograph of a large painting in my studio that I'm working on. It will depict 5 Pintail Drakes. The main duck is finished and I have a close-up of it in the upper right corner. This is typical of how I do many of my paintings, I just tone the linen and then start painting without any pre-drawing. With this one I indicated loosely about where each of the duck's heads would be and then proceeded to finish the main duck's head and then used the head as my measurement guide for the duck's body and wings. I had to make sure the head was the right size so the body wouldn't be too big or too small, as this could have messed up the whole painting. The trick now is making sure I get all the other ducks in correct size proportion to the main duck.
This young lady is putting her hair up and getting ready for the day's activities. This is the final painting based on the monochromatic painting I posted last week.
This Pintail is crouched near some Cattails on a foggy morning. Painting the duck's head in this position was a challenge and at one point, after over and hours work I had to completely wipe out what I had and start over. Overall this painting was a fun with all the textures I got to experiment with.
Ducks spend a lot of time preening their feathers. The "hairs" on feathers act as little zippers and throughout the course of the ducks activities these little zippers become un-zipped. Ducks will run them through their bill to zip them back together. I'm sure they also get little bugs in their feathers that need to be removed. That is what I painted this little male Green-winged Teal doing.
This Pintail is moving into an area of thick grasses during a cold autumn morning. Many times when I would go out to photograph ducks they would fly away or move into heavy grasses. I could never see what they were doing in there but I can paint what I imagine they were doing.
Many times in the wild, when I have come upon ducks they would fly away. Other times, when I was not too close they would just waddle into a thick patch of cattails or grass and hide. I imagined this Pintail sitting among some grasses hiding from someone or something.
I'm sure most of you have either heard of or experienced first-hand the blizzard that slammed the Mid-Atlantic last night and today. While yesterday I heard many complaints about the approaching snow, I for one was very excited because I love painting snow scenes. I started this one yesterday in the late afternoon and completed most of it en plein air. Painting this on the spot was tricky. When I started there was hardly any snow but after about an hour and a half the wind was driving snow all over my pallet. Despite the challenges I'm very pleased with the results.
At times I like to experiment with darker, more neutral colors and values. In this composition the Pintail's white breast area becomes dominant but the center of focus is still his head. I didn't plan any composition with this painting as composition was not the primary intent; it is basically a portrait of a duck. I just flew by the seat of my pants and has some fun using thick brush strokes in the background and scrapping with the palette knife in the foreground/water.
