Serpentine Marsh-6x8-$50

$8 s/h
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Another marsh painting done from the middle of Bald Head Island yesterday.

Overcast at Middle Creek-6x8-SOLD

Hangin' out painting on Bald Head Island as part of their Artist in Residence Program. Rena MacQueen's here too (go here to see her blog) and we're having a ball cruising around in a golf cart painting whatever catches our fancy. hey its a hard job, but somebody's gotta do it.

This (and upcoming posts) are studies for future paintings. i'm out doing quick studies to see if i might want to paint them larger the week i'm out here. Did four yesterday, and four today, six of which i'm happy with. Two of em are complete crappers (er i mean scrapers LOL) and will be painted over tomorrow. Hey if i can keep six out of eight on everything i do out here this week, i'll be happy. keep an eye out here for marsh, beach and island vibe stuff, all priced very affordably just in time for gift giving season.

Swan Quarter Repaint-6x8-SOLD

from my fave marina, right down the road from the house. this is a neat boat getting some work done, crying out to be painted by me!

i'm on Bald Head Island for the week, so look for lots of beach, marsh and island vibe stuff in the days to come.

Intercoastal Tree Shadows-12x16-$225

Framed and Free Shipping

to purchase click on the "buy now" button to pay using PayPal or credit card

'07 and '08 Studio Clearance Sale

Frames out to 18x22 and went for a whole lot more than $225 when the paint was wet! What do you care when it was painted?

Cowgirl-6x4-SOLD

Playing with light and shadow and red on green color scheme. i've gotten more and more comfortable with keeping the background non-descript so the focal point takes prominence. taking less and less strokes these days to describe the scene too. just one of the many benefits of painting everyday.

Ankle Deep-SOLD

6x4

painting with as few strokes as possible on this one. there's a certain peacefulness to the scene in this graceful pose.

Sound Investment- SOLD

30x30

can finally post the commission i've been working on a few days this week. delivered it to the couple today.

pretty happy the way it came out. have never done a complicated house this large plein air before. Went to the same exact spot at the same time several days in a row to complete it.

Gessoe Rack

No painting to post today. ive been working on commissions all week and then it was cloudy all day today, so i did some gessoeing and dropped off a painting at a gallery. thanks for lunch Ray!

this is my homemade rack i just made that can hold up over 40 panels on a card table. i took peg board i had left over from my painting storage rack (yesterdays post) and put one over the other with a 1x2 in between. then i stuck dowel rods in where i could stand up panels after i coat them with gessoe.

i love this homemade setup. i used to lay them around to dry and it took up A LOT of room and got gessoe all over everything. now 40 panels fits in a 2'x2' space.

they say "necessity is the mother of invention"

i coat masonite with four coats of gessoe and sand that last coat to make it nice and smooth. the gessoe allows my underpainting to soak in and stain so i can lay other colors on top and not mix. sometimes i'll underpaint the sky orange. if you lay blue on top of orange and it hasnt soaked in, it'll gray out the blue and it'll turn to mud. not good. but with this gessoed panel it doesnt do that. plus i love the fact that my paintings are all handmade from start to finish. i get consistency and that gives me confidence that every panel will act like i want it to.

oh yeah! did i mention that i can get 50 panels for a $15 sheet of masonite? but if you know me personally you know that had absolutely nothing to do with it. yeah right!

View from S. Front St.-6x8-$50

$8 s/h
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Done in the charming town of New Bern, NC.

Loved the way the afternoon light hit the tops of everything.

I made a neat little adjustable painting rack yesterday. i took 1x2's and made a shelf system with pegboard and dowels. now i can keep my paintings all in one shelving unit, and its totally adjustable by sliding the dowels out of the pegboard and moving them. got the idea off the internet. took about 2 hours to make but well worth it.

Orange Ride-6x6

contact me or Woods Gallery on Bald Head Island for this one

From some photos i took this summer. i like the loose brushstrokes and my figures are improving every one i do. they used to look really stiff and "gumby-like".

just goes to show that doing the things that you arent so good at, over and over, helps.

and so does taking classes with Luana Winner who helped me get the problem under control. thanks Luana!

Wilmington Waterfront 2- 6x8 -framed

SOLD

Old Homestead-9x12

$350 framed

$8 s/h

to purchase click on the "buy now" button to pay using PayPal or credit card

Also available at Tidewater Gallery in Swansboro

i recently read an article online where they hooked a machine to peoples head and could tell where they were looking when they were shown a picture of something. seems alot of what we learned you HAD to do in compositions was wrong. the people didnt follow around a certain way from this to that in a flowing manner. they looked in order of prominence from the greatest value change, sharpest lines, and most saturated color. it didnt even matter if a figure was looking off the page. these people's eye didnt go off the page but instead went to the next sharpest line, value change and brightest color. this article has changed the way i think about "flow". my take on this is that most of these composition books were written in the early nineteen hundreds (or earlier) before "moving pictures",TV and videos and that we've learned to look at things in a little bit different way? jumping from most interesting to next most interesting instead of linearly. just my guess. it has liberated me tho' i'll say!

Flowing White-7x5-SOLD

Revisiting this girl with the flowing white dress. there's something so fun about painting them so i'm sure there will be many more.

Paintings Going to Woods Gallery on Bald Head

Overcast Middle Creek Marsh-6x6
to purchase contact me or Woods Gallery on Bald Head Island

Middle Creek Clouds-6x8

to purchase contact me or Woods Gallery on Bald Head Island

Middle Creek Cloudburst-8x10

to purchase contact me or Woods Gallery on Bald Head Island

Middle Creek Afternoon-8x10

to purchase contact me or Woods Gallery on Bald Head Island

Painted on Bald Head Island recently.

Paintings Headed to Woods Gallery

Capt Charlie Triad- 8x10

to purchase contact me or Woods Gallery on Bald Head Island

Capt Charlie Grouping-8x10

to purchase contact me or Woods Gallery on Bald Head Island

Bald Head Glimpse-8x10

to purchase contact me or Woods Gallery on Bald Head Island

Atmospheric Morning on Bald Head Island-8x10

to purchase contact me or Woods Gallery on Bald Head Island

These four are from my recent trip to Bald Head Island where for the first time i got to wake up there several mornings in a row. this really gets your head into the place and i think this is some of my best stuff done on island. i'm heading back there in a week for another week of painting.

Woman in a Straw Hat-6x6-$50

$8 s/h
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I fell in love with the pic this painting came from. i'm obsessed by it. i've looked for something like it on Flickr for a year. then one of my workshop students showed it to me in her pile of photos she thought she might want to paint. she was nice enough to make me a copy of it to paint. i love backlit ladies in beach hats. theyre so california impressionistic from the 20's and 30's. they capture my imagination.

This one will go thru quite a few renditions while i play with it, i'm sure.

Thanks for the pic Cookie!

Yellow Pepper-SOLD

8x6

A demo painting for the workshop class a few days ago. Who says it takes hours to paint a painting? this one was done in about 45 minutes and thats explaining what i'm doing as i go!

Orange Pepper-6x8

SOLD

Todays demo. i started painting everything as five different values of purple and then blotted it off so it wouldnt mix with what i put over it. see the purple remnant up in the far right top corner. you can faintly see other purple spots in the light green part of the table top. the purple and green are so close in value that i can leave parts of the purple unpainted and it doesnt shout "paint over me, PLEASE!" Thats how you know you have the values similar when you can hardly tell the difference between whats down and what you put over top of it.

then i mixed the real color and applied making sure that it matched the purple value i assigned each shape.

lastly, i showed the class how to put in the highlite on the pepper, blur the appropriate edges, and put a few finishing touches on it.

this is what i ended up with. done in less than 45 minutes.

The Attack-6x6

Wow! can you tell when the cold fall/winter weather hits in my neighborhood? if you follow my blog you know when you see still life's and figures from photos you know that old Mikey must be hanging out in the warm, dry studio right?

Conch Point Boat-5x7-SOLD

Did this demo painting today, the second day of the three day Morehead City Workshop. Love these three day workshops because i can take my time and explain the "how to's" of painting, and not just let people loose painting without instruction, which frustrates them and me.

Painting is a learned skill just like cooking. if you want to cook someone can show you how to make a nice dish if you use these ingredients, and put this in with that, and cook it this long. if you do all those things the way they said to do it, even if you've never done it before, it'll turn out. its not some mystical thing that only the "annointed" can do. hogwash. a little aptitude and a whole lot of "how to info" and you'll be painting. doesnt mean it'll be that good right away. like anything else, it takes practice practice practice.

i have a really good class this go round and they make teaching such a rewarding experience. thanks "girls" LOL

BW's Surf Shop-6x8-SOLD

From Ocracoke waterfront. as i was doing this one the guy must have been getting ready to close. he'd come out and take the surfboard down when i was halfway done with it and then came and got the sandwich board as i was painting it in real fast. then when i sighed with frustration over that a lady in a huge SUV parked right in front of me blocking my view of half the scene. she jumps out and says in her best i'm not going to move if you say yes voice, " am i blocking your view?" DUHHH!

i'm the one who doesnt belong in the middle of the parking lot painting so i say in my best you werent going to move if i said yes voice, "youre alright" Liar Liar pants on fire! thats why it pays to develope your photographic memory if youre going to plein air paint.

Sittin' on the Cooler-5x7

contact me or City Art Gallery in Greenville for this one

i've played with the photo i took of this guy several times, going back three years or so. this is my favorite painting of him to date. i came the closest this time to capturing his calmness, and the summer light, than on previous attempts. sometimes three times is the charm!

Ride Times Two-6x6-SOLD

$8 s/h
to purchase click on the "buy now" button to pay using PayPal or credit card

Just felt like doing some figures today since i've been on traveling/landscape painting tear for a while now. Took a bunch of photos yesterday on the Ocracoke to Cedar Island ferry. Got to hang out with Doug Hoover this week on ocracoke. he's the guy i got the idea for the ferry riders from. thanks doug!

Get this one before it dries and gets sent to the gallery!

Afternoon on the James-SOLD

4x5

A cloud study on the James.

Clouds have to be done quickly. best thing to do is mix the colors so they're just close (before painting), and then paint very quickly. you can always go back to color/value correct but at least you have the shapes and approximate values/colors for when they invariably change in just a few minutes.

Little Camper-8x10

SOLD

Ocracoke Bend-6x6

$100 plus $8 shipping

Clouds Over the River-4x5-SOLD

Around the next bend of the James River trip. Was trying to nail the light key and color harmonies in the short amount of time a 7 knot cruise allows.

Silver Lake at 10 a.m.- 8x10
$350 framed
at Down Creek Gallery- Ocracoke
email me if you want me to get you up with them


After a long day of painting on Ocracoke i jumped up and sat on top of "ole bessie" for this parting glimpse of the big yellow orb. Somewhere floating on the cool breeze was the sounds of somebody playing jimmie buffet on a guitar, at the marina bar, on the dock.

i started contemplating all the places i've seen sunsets from this year and thanked God for letting me do what i really love to do, where i love to do it. i've stayed and painted on islands from cape cod to key west this year, and feel exceedingly blessed. i've met some of the finest folks on the planet.
thanks to everybody who's ever bought one of my paintings, taken one of my workshops, let me stay at their house, or showed me all the cool places to paint (and eat, and have fun) on their island. i hope God blesses you for your kindness to me, and that He allows me to keep doing what i love, where i love to do it (on an island)

i've got saltwater in my blood, and dont want to get more than a few yards from it for very long.

hope it shows in every brushstroke i make.