Stormy Day, Elbow Cay

No bright whites and clean blue shadows today, but to compensate for the lack of sun, there's the saturated color of a cloudy sky and windy-swept trees.

Sharon, VT

Here's another Vermont town that, nestled between a mountain and river, was hit hard by flood waters this summer.

To purchase and donate to flood relief.

Sunday Sketchbook: Vermont

Today I'm driving north again, after a busy and enjoyable week of teaching in Washington. Meanwhile, back in Vermont, flood-damaged roads are reopened, cider is being pressed, and the first frost visited last night.

Moretown

The Moretown town hall--a lovely example of Vermont vernacular architecture--painted by me in the key of violet.

This is last Vermont town photo/painting left from my current flood relief sale! More photo/paintings in this series will be posted in the coming weeks, so stay tuned if you'd like another chance to buy one. I'll continue to donate 100% of sales to help Vermont recovery efforts.

Plainfield

The Winooski River, on a calm and peaceful September afternoon, flowing through the village at the bottom of my hill.

I've added this painting to my Vermont Flood Relief Art Sale--you can take a look here!

Vermont Flood Relief Art Sale

Up here on my hill we were lucky to escape Hurricane Irene without anything more than a wet basement, but just a few miles down the road, homes, farms and businesses were badly damaged by flooding. Many towns in central and southern Vermont (such as lovely Wilmington, pictured above) were devastated. Vermonters are pulling together and working hard to recover, but they will need some help.

So here's your chance to give that help to flood victims, and at the same time get a unique piece of art. I am donating all sales from my "Let Me Show You Vermont" mixed media series to the Vermont relief effort. Please take a look at the online show!

You can also make a direct donation to Vermont flood victims here.

You can see a photo record of flooding in Vermont here.

Sunday Sketchbook: Meeting

A sketchbook haiku--
Two pens and paper:
you can watch people's lips move
and never be bored!

Orchard in October

Under the apple trees, purple loosestrife waits for the first hard frost.

Sunday Sketchbook: Vermont

I've been out working in the garden the last few days. This fenced compound where I grow tulips and snapdragons, French green beans, butternut squash and fingerling potatoes is, objectively, way too big and takes alot of time and effort (keeping all of those beds full of compost, mulched, seeded and weeded sometimes makes me feel like Sisyphus rolling that same rock up the same mountain every spring). But I can't imagine not having a garden, and I hope that I'll spend my last minutes on earth tending either my peonies (as my grandmother did) or my palette.

Here's the painting that developed from that sketch.

Sunday Sketchbook: Paris

Artists need museums like teenage boys need refrigerators: to sustain energy and as a relief from plain old everyday boredom, we need to regularly poke our heads into those sacrosanct interiors, and pull something that satisfies our appetites (inspiring images, cold pizza) out.

Sunday Sketchbook: London

I visited my son Nate when he was living in London a few years back, and we went to a club to see Aphex Twin. Nate of course immediately disappeared into a dark crowd, and at 2:50 am I was still planted realtively happily with my sketchbook and a warm beer in a hot corner.

Sunday Sketchbook: Vermont

Driving south out of two-lane Vermont for a visit to my son in expressway Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania, where there is still a little farm land butting up against mall parking lots. (Yes, I've officially become a cudmugeon.)

Sunday Sketchbook: India

I was lucky enough a few years back to spend three weeks traveling through Rajasthan with my sketchbook, watercolors, and an adventurous group of painting students. The view from my seat on our bus was sometimes harrowing (will that family on the motorscooter make it around the truck and donkey cart in time, or will they hit that cow wandering across the highway?) and always amazing. You can see my sketchbooks from Rajasthan here.

Memory: Cape Breton II

I painted this from the Mabou Highlands--easy to see why Scottish exiles felt so at home here, and easy to remember how exhilarated I felt trying to keep up with the light moving over the hills.

Sunday Sketchbook: Study

Thinking out my 7/7/08 journal painting.

Barnyard, Evening

The farm down the road casting a long shadow in the last light.

Changing Weather

I painted this yesterday morning, then packed art supplies and coffee pot and drove up to Johnson for a residency at the Vermont Studio Center ( a working retreat for artists with meals, studio and monkish bedroom provided.) My goal for the next two weeks is to finish four paintings from the “Places/Possessions” series, plan the next, and keep up with my visual diary. It’s true, I have a fine studio at home where I can paint full time, but here I can be away from daily routine, inhabit a new work space, get some distance from familiarity, and share with other artists a community of solitude.