thoughts

Here is a somewhat somber poem for a beautiful spring day:

O let me not die in the cold gray of winter
And let me not die in the merciless heat of summer
And let me not die in the giddy, heedless spring
But let me die in fall with an honor guard of color

Farm Evening 12x12

 

reeth, yorkshire

Here is my first painting inspired by my trip to England.  It is a small, stone village in the Dales. 

commission

I think a lot of people feel nostalgic about Colonial Beach, Virginia.  I do and I've only been there a handful of times.  I love the drive along the river with old houses and stately trees on the right.  Osprey nests top most of the telephone poles on the water.  I did this commission painting of that drive for a young couple here in Fredericksburg.  

art show

I will be exhibiting my work at the Hill Center Galleries on Capitol Hill October 2nd- January 4th.  The show opens tomorrow!  The reception will be Tues, Oct.7th, 6-8pm.
 
The Hill Center Galleries are located at 921 Pennsylvania Ave., SE, in Washington, DC.  They are one block from the Eastern Market Metro.  They are open Monday- Friday 10am-7pm and Saturday, 10am-5pm and Sunday noon-5pm. 

commissions

It has been a while since I've painted animals and even longer since I painted people but this was really fun.  

This was also a lot of fun.  I was commissioned to do a series of pastels of a woman's grandmother's farm near Bealeton, Va.  I drove up and did some sketching and took lots of photos before getting started.  Also fun- having lunch with this wonderful family and learning about the local farming history. 

skagit valley barns

I went to Skagit Valley, Washington for the flower fields and was blessed to arrive at the peak of the tulip season.  After taking about 500 pictures of flowers I looked around and noticed the amazing barns.  I wasn't sure what I would do with them but I snapped about 20 barn photos too:

Inspiration!

"Skagit Valley Barn 1, 30x30

tropical breezes

The finished painting, 16x20, oil

new work

Buena Vista, Colorado, PASTEL

Here is the oil painting from the pastel sketch of the yellow house

St. George, Bermuda, PASTEL

yellow houses in Bermuda

pastel

oil

st. john

Cinnamon Bay, 22x38, oil

This is from the park where we camped at St. John- Cinnamon Bay National Park a few years ago.  I took a early walk each morning when it was quiet.  The clouds though were already on the move rising with the heat of the day.  I've started covering the first layer of acrylic paint with a medium that has very fine sand in it.  Then I finish the painting in oil.  The medium gives the painting a little texture and subtly changes the way the paint moves when it is applied.  It has more drag- dry brush effect. Here is the pastel sketch I worked from:

new work

Here is the painting finally:

Hyacinthe Fields, 30x40

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And here are two new pastels:

new paintings

Bananaquits, 9x12, oil

Houses in Bermuda, 12x16, oil

A Brief Moment, 30x40, oil

a painting and a pastel

Finished a large painting today and a small pastel, both inspired by St. George, Bermuda:

palm trees and banana leaves

I’ve been doing pastels and paintings of the sun soaked, colorful houses of St. George, Bermuda.  A four hundred year old harbor town, tropical twin of Jamestown.  The town’s houses are roofed white with limestone whitewash, an ingenious method of waterproofing, cooling the house and disinfecting the rainwater as it runs down and into cisterns.  I found this little intersection houses in an alley with a palm tree growing up among them.   It’s squat, rich, rough, burlap draped trunk rises up under the sweeps of palm fronds. 

 

I love the awkward, messy quality of banana leaves.  When we lived in Key West years ago, we had a small tree in our backyard.  It was the favorite haunt of green lizards.  I would trim the old, ragged leaves off and give them to the children to play with, not knowing that the clear sap when it gets on your clothes turns brown after being washed.  It was several months before we solved that mystery.  

cherry blossoms

         A couple years ago I went with my daughter on a nice day to see the cherry blossoms.  We wanted to avoid the crowds at the tidal basin so we went to the National Arboretum.  The trees were in a section labeled "experimental".  We pretty much had the place to ourselves and enjoyed a lovely sketching picnic under the flowers.  In DC a sunny, warm day in late March is rare treat, sliced in between a procession of windy, rainy days and chilly, overcast days.   And under the ethereal pink haze of cherry blossoms it was transcendent.  

Here is the pastel

    

the painting, just finished yesterday

In my new studio I have a wall painted with blackboard paint that I can make full scale sketches- very fun!

on the river

Just finished this little oil painting based on my pastel sketch of the Zaan River.  It's interested how each medium has it's own feeling that emerges as you work.  The oil has a softer, gentler feeling than the pastel but pastels have such intense color and wonderful texture.  I love both mediums!

"on the river" just started

"on the river" in process

flower fields

Color Play, 30 x 40", oil

  
I finished this painting a couple months ago.  The sky has a subtle shift from pink on the left to blue on the right.  A couple other paintings have had a similar sky and I've been pondering how red, blue and purple interact and what kind of associations these colors have for me.  The result is this poem.

Incarnation

A clumsy knife

cut in the kitchen,

just a pause to consider

the intense red

perhaps the most beautiful color

tightly tethered to love and anger

earth color

before wrapping it up

and returning to chop the carrots

Blue, insubstantial as air
invisible as breath, cool
as a scientist in a lab coat.

Between the two
purple echoes both
red and blue, it hums
along the spectrum
like a child running back and forth
between mother and father

It is the familiar land/sky,
earth/heaven,
red/blue story.
expansion and habitation

Beyond our place of living, You O Lord stretch out the heavens. 

art for a snowy day

     These are tennis courts near our house.   Here is a poem and a painting:  


Glimpses

As fleeting as the after burn on the back of my eyelids
just before sleep,

I see a gray mouse sweep across the rainy street
like a windblown leaf to hide
under a car stopped at a light.

Something so tender, so unseen.

Where is that acorn?