Painting in the Cherry Orchard

Watercolor plein air painting: simple materials (paper, dried paint, a brush and water), complicated calculations (lines, shapes, lights and darks, colors, space, proportion and atmosphere, each component affecting the other), emotions (frustration and exhilaration) and practice (work and play).

Memory: Plowed Fields, Iowa

I went out to Iowa after graduate school with the vague reasons one has for moving when twenty four but ended up with a sense of purpose there, studying printmaking at the university, painting still life in my decrepit farmhouse studio, and venturing out to paint the gentle, functional landscape that I learned to love.