Journal 1/1/13

Happy New Year! One of my many resolutions is to pick up the practice again of starting each day with a one hour "journal" painting that pays attention to the here and now (today a look across my road to trees, fields, mountain and snow.)

"Journal" paintings are available from my studio for $200. shipping included. Please click here to reserve.

Road through the Village, Winter

A view of my village of Plainfield in the dramatic, rosy light that one sometimes sees for just a few minutes at the end of a winter day.

Available from Gallery North Star.

Hill Farm, December Evening

A wish to you from here on the hill for a peaceful and happy holiday.

Available from Gallery North Star.

Pond Edge at Bolton, Autumn

I celebrated being back home in Vermont after time away teaching by going up to the Bolton backcountry to paint on a beautiful fall morning last week. The Vermont Land Trust is working to save this land from development, and this painting will be in a benefit show that you can learn about here.

Town Fair: Snack Stand

I'm leaving today for five days painting and camping in downeast Maine, and will post when I can find wifi--meanwhile here's a painting from my upcoming show at West Branch Gallery.

Hill Farm, Early Spring

Another "rural cathedral" that's weathered a century of seasons and hard work.

Available from Gallery North Star.

Click here to see earlier stages of "Hill Farm, Early Spring".

Out with the workshop group to Cabot, to paint a farm house that reminded me of a venerable old aunt peeking out from behind her beloved flower beds.

Sheep and Trough, Summer Morning

I've been busy with my Vermont landscape workshop this week, and today was very happy to be with my hard-working group up at the Comstock house in Plainfield, painting quickly shifting sun, shadows and sheep.

Camp on the Lake

I drove around the Champlain Islands with my easel for a few hours, and finally found this old camp in Alburgh, for sale and probably by next summer torn down to make way for a fancier home on the lake (which I will drive past, looking for something to paint...)

Breezy Day, Alburgh

Alburgh is one of the Champlain Islands, and painting here is as close as I can come in Vermont to that coastal feeling of being surrounded by the pearly light of open sea.

Fourth of July

Main Street in South Royalton, Vermont--standing in for small towns everywhere on hot and hazy summer days.

Available from McGowan Fine Arts.

Click here to see previous stages of this painting.

Walking Up from the River

The River is Otter Creek in Middlebury, Vermont, and yes, the Ben Franklin store is still there.  

Click here to see previous stages of this painting.
Available from West Branch Gallery

Journal: Cloud Shadow, Afternoon

Looking west towards where the weather (a rain shower that arrived a half hour into my painting) comes over the mountain.

Back working in the studio this week on paintings for my August show, including repainting the sky of "Blue Barn" ( a small detail shown here) from cloudy to breezy.

Journal: Edge of Pond, Afternoon

Between storms today I painted down at the pond, where dragonflies were drying their wings and frogs carried on a lively conversation about the weather.

Journal: Fields and Trees, Morning

Back to my daily exercise of focusing on the present (which is one way to pay respect to the past.)

Hill Farm, Early Spring (detail, in progress)

Here's another painting keyed around a strong local color (the green truck) that has required some advance thinking about compositional unity and variety--though it always finally gets down to just putting the paint on the canvas and seeing what happens.

Hill Farm, Early Spring (in progess)

I've been mostly out of the studio this last week celebrating my son Colin's graduation from college and getting the garden in (an activity taken very seriously here in Vermont), but am back now working on this under painting of a composition all about shapes, shadows and seasons.

Blue Barn, Breezy Day (detail, in progress)

I'm starting this new large studio landscape with a different approach, thinking out the color composition carefully (a limited palette of six colors) and painting color shapes directly, without a monochromatic under painting. It's an exercise in what Kenneth Clark in his great book "Landscape Into Art" calls "the artifice of construction".

Red Truck and Wood Pile (in progress)

Here's a detail of first color--all keyed to the red truck--on yesterday's under painting.