Archive for the ‘oil’ Category

Washington National Cathedral

This is from the second location of my class “Evening Landscape Painting.” I painted this a few days before the class met to get used to the venue, though it was painted in the morning so the light was very different. The Washington National Cathedral makes an natural choice for a subject. Standing on the highest point in Washington it is always lit spectacularly from sunrise to sunset. Its stone is a remarkable color that  seems to flicker between pink and yellow, so you get to choose what color you want to paint it. I painted this standing in the Bishop’s Garden, looking up at a magnificent tree with bright yellow leaves. The garden seemed so rich and inviting compared to the austere and  and somewhat harsh appearance of the cathedral. I left its lit portions almost white which contrast with the dark shadows draws you eye at first to the top then down the spires to the garden where you can slow down for a nice stroll.

Down along the River

I have been teaching a class, Evening Landscape Painting on Location, sponsored by the Yellow Barn Studio. The class meets at various outdoor locations Wednesday evenings at 6:30 pm. I haven’t heard of anyone else who teaches a weekday class  as the sun begins to set; maybe I am the first! It is a real challenge, even for an experienced painter to paint en plein air when the light is changing so rapidly. But it is amazing to watch as the colors mutate from deep orange to deep blue, with purples and turquoises to match, within the space of a few hours.  The paintings that you see here I painted down along the Potomac River, at the Anglers Inn entrance.We met there the first two weeks of the class.

Painting en Plein Aire

Just a small sketch done along the C& O Canal on a 10″ x 10″ square canvas executed mostly with palette knife. Its funny how all the trees lean inwards towards the canal to reach the light. I plan to do a lot more of these small canvases with simple compositions focusing mostly on color. They had a sale on this size canvases anyway.

Viewing the world through yellow-tinted glasses

The subject is a view from the backyard. Though most of the year the forsythia looks scraggly and doesn’t do I good job of blocking the view of the neighbor’s yard, they justify themselves in early spring when they explode with color. One very brilliant spring day I was impressed how blue the rest of the world looked through the brilliant yellow blooms. Spring is an odd time with strong contrasts, some places still look wintery and other places like summer is in full swing. I started this painting several years ago but left it unfinished but this time around it seemed to finish itself.

Candy Corner

 

 

 

Another attempt to work with a limited palette but this time with the accent of the “Candy Corner.” This little building was left over from the days when Glen Echo was an amusement park. It hasn’t sold candy for quite a while, and I don’t think it is used for anything but storage, but it is still is kept up. I guess it just looks so interesting contrasted with the neutral colors around it, like a brightly dressed child surrounded by solemn grown ups.

Winter colors

 

Recently I have been painting outdoors when the weather permits. There seem to be more colors in the winter landscape than in the summer. At least there are a lot more subtle variations of browns and grays. What exactly is the color are bare branches? Sort of a purplish brown or a greenish gray? I never seem to get it exactly right, which is why I keep at this, I suppose. I simply wanted to match the colors I saw in this painting, though there is something touching about how the two buildings seems to be having some kind of conversation.

Flying High

 

During the third week of January, our house was full of guests visiting DC so they could be part of the inauguration of our 44th President. While I stayed home at home watching everything on a new 32″ TV set, they battled the cold, crowds, blocked roads, and general mayhem, just so they could be a part of this special time in US history. I was impressed by how calm our new President seemed and how much he seemed to be enjoying the whole long and elaborate ritual on what was a very cold and somewhat gray day. I felt the least I could do was do some work in the studio to make up for not being there. I tried to capture some of the spirit of Obama’s energy by modeling him somewhat on Superman and his ability to fly.

Painting over the speed limit

I have always wanted make a painting of the Beltway, the highway that circles around Washington, DC. It has the classical elements of a landscape: trees, open space, and sky except that it has a ribbon of concrete going through it on which you are traveling at very high speeds. Not really a great place to savor the complexities of natural light and atmosphere. And certainly not a place to set up an easel. But since every is moving at about the same speed and the landscape changes so little—one highway looks much like any other—there is a sense of time slowing down, too. Anyway I thought there was some interesting situation there to work with and this is my first attempt. I worked from a source photograph, a process that is relatively new to me. I altered the color from the original photo to exaggerate the sense of space fading away in a thick atmosphere and of the light reflecting and being absorbed by the highway.

 

This painting was entered and accepted into the Annual Members Show at the Yellow Barn Gallery in Glen Echo, MD. It is up through December 21 so stop by if you can.

Fall Landscapes

Recently I have been working on a large cityscape that I based on a photo. After adding layer after layer of paint and making change after change to the color scheme and composition I have to admit defeat. You won’t see that painting here, at least for a while. Almost as a break I painted a few smallish landscapes. Something about finishing each picture in one two-hour period and not going back to rethink it kept the paintings pretty successful, I think. Seems like the old adage of KISS (Keep It Simple Sweetheart) has some merit. Both were painted on canvas board; something about the hard surface encourages me to paint in more or less flat blocks of color.

The first painting was done at the Agricultural History Farm Park in Derwood, MD; the second at the entrance to the Washington Cathedral.

Still Life

Thought I would try my hand at still lifes. I have had a table set up in my studio for quite some time now and it has collected several objects I thought would be interesting to paint. My inspiration was a book on Morandi’s still lifes and their feeling for shape and subtle changes in value. I did several perparatory sketches, not to prepare a composition but just to discover shapes that are often hidden in plain view until you start to draw. Then I did these two small oil paintings on panel board, starting with the pear as a strong focal point and working around it.