Monhegan Trip in the Works

if you'd like to go to paint on Monhegan Island in Maine i'll be taking a small elite group of painters on a painting trip in late august. it will be a three or four day mentoring workshop. this means i'll be painting during the day teaching early, late and inbetween my painting sessions. when i paint it wont be a demo but you can watch me from start to finish if you  choose, or you can work on something yourself and i'll help you that night. we will all have dinner together and critique paintings, discuss techniques of painting, how to sell your paintings once theyre done, including the finer part of getting into galleries, art history and much more, well into the night. everybody in this workshop will be experienced plein air painters from all over the east coast. if youre interested let me know now. it'll fill fast and will be an extremely small class size for personal attention. we'll most likely all stay together in the same cottage, as well.

Monhegan Island is ten miles from the Maine coast and you travel by ferry. artists have been going there for 100 years and when you get there you'll be surrounded by the rugged beauty of steep cliffs (edward hopper painted these beautifully) and lobster boats strewn around on low tide at Fish Beach. ive been before and i'm here to tell you its gorgeous landscape to paint. you'll see folks set up all over the place painting from sun up to sundown. it was and still is an artist colony in the strictest sense. everybody has to paint there once before they die!

8x10

one from the show

 

it was said to me at the show several times that this has a hopperesque feel to it. what do you think?

 my demo during the key largo workshop

 the setup

my initial cape cod school underpainting. these overly bright first notes will get second color notes on them (and maybe third notes as well ) until they are the color i want them to be.

SOLD Shady Elgin-12x16

 

 

one from the show. shady lanes abound in key west and i rarely get tired of trying to capture the feel of one on a late afternoon. notice how i made you go right into the scene by making you hop into the middle of the "donut" composition. edgar payne.the great california landscape painter that wrote a book on landscape painting describes this as an "o" composition. there is also an "L" composition the runs up one side of the canvas and across, either at the bottom or top (wont see that too much). there's also a diagonal composition that runs corner to corner

below is a pic of some of the 18 very studious conchs from key largo in my three day workshop sponsored by the Art Guild of the Purple Isles this week.

we were working on cape cod underpainting today and yesterday i drilled into them the importance of value. i know i know,,,,which comes first the chicken or the egg? LOL

Beginning a Painting

most of the time this is how i begin a painting. i draw with orange paint not much darker than the orange acrylic wash i use to get rid of the white gesso. then i plan a four to five value "road map" and paint those thinly in the appropriate shapes.

 

then i'm ready for thick juicy color with a good idea of what is what

 

had the show in key west last night and was very pleased to sell a bunch of paintings. big shout out to B and S from Sugarloaf, M and B from Elgin Lane KW and all who purchased my work. you made it a memorable night for me.

 

and thanks to Gallery on Greene and all who showed up there to see the work and support me. youre all the best!

work in progress 16x20 for upcoming show

heres the underpainting for my next painting. i love the composition as the wall points back into the painting to the house. the reflection points down and the dark reflection of a palm gets you going up to the boat, and round and round.

 

these are the overstated colors and you can see the orange underpainting under the greens. the house wont be that yellow and the blue sky and water will go over the pinks. the wall will get cooled down and grayed out to show weathered concrete.

the study of this was from Boca Chica just up from key west. i was drawn to the subtle hazy light effect and reflections.

$100-Trio-0301B-6x8

$100 plus $10 s/h

to purchase with PayPal or credit card click the "buy now" button below

i love the lighting effect on this one. you can feel the cool lavendar light permeating all the objects in the scene.

 

went out the other day just to paint. i know.... i hear you saying "dude thats what you do everyday". well yes and no.

 

this day i went out NOT looking for something sellable to paint. i went out and just looked around for anything that interested me whether it was marketable or not.

 

i read a blog a year ago that had a good idea in it. she said that for every two paintings she painted for sale, she painted one that she wanted to paint that wasnt destined for the gallery. i liked that philosophy and tho i dont do one for two, i've made a habit of painting a few just for me. theyre not something that you'd expect someone to put on their wall.

 

i always say these are the ones my kids will get when i die. lucky them LOL