Cupulas y Sombras (Domes and Shadows) - 24x18

 

Cupulas y Sombras (Domes and Shadows)- 24x18

contact me to purchase

 

in Cuba the mix of modern life, 1940's cars, and centuries old architecture is alluring to me and my paintbrush.

the underlying goal in this one was distinctive color, loosey goosey brushwork and a spark of crazy color (the cab and orange car in the distance). the more I paint the more I realize that brushwork is a way of transmitting a vibe to the viewer of the painting. It can signal repose, calmness, or action and vitality, or something in between.

 

in this painting (when I look at it anyway) I sorta feel the hustle and bustle of Havana, but at the same time, the centuries of its just 'being'.

 

like when you stand at the edge of the ocean. its as if in that one moment of looking at the waves lapping at the shore, that you can feel the eons that it's been happening.

 

my color changes happened a few months ago (and continue to morph). now the brushstrokes are evolving.

 

in painting as in life, the only constant is change. sit back and enjoy the ride!

Excursion en Coche (Joyride)-8x10

 

Excursion en Coche (Joyride)

8x10 oil on panel

 

a cool street scene from the trip

Solo en la Calle (Alone in the Street) -24x30

 

Solo en la Calle (Alone in the Street)- 24x30

headed to Gallery on Greene- Key West

 

my focus on this painting was to play warms against cools colorfully in the shadows. and use the 2/3 shadow against 1/3 light value plan I loved in my sketch.

 

the chrome on the car glinting in the sunlight should draw your eye more than anything in the painting. the very definition on a focal point. the car is the star of the show and the buildings are the supporting actors in this one

Viejo Canon Habana (Old Havana Canyons) -18x24

Viejo Canon Habana (Old Havana Canyons)  18x24

First large one in the series done. doing all the sketching, prelim studies and careful planning made this come together pretty quickly. I'm happy with the cohesiveness of the image even tho' I want the street scene to reflect the somewhat chaotic, disorderly nature of old town Havana. looks like a lot without being a lot. Also playing with cools over warms and warms over cools and loose edges through out.

Adventures in Old Havana

Ok. so I'm back from my painting trip to Cuba. what can I say? It was a blast! sorta like Italy (in the city) but with coconut palms, and sorta like mexico out in the country. My kinda Caribbean place. The music was awesome. to hear what its like go to Pandora and listen to Buena Vista Social Club

 

here's a link to youtube to see me jamming on my ukulele with some Cuban street performers. kinda cool. check it out

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UPNo5zTLgaw&sns=em

 

the musicians there were intrigued with the uke and said it was very uncommon to see one there.

 

thanks to Nance at Gallery on Greene for asking me to go and her assistant Karen for getting me there and keeping me under her wing and outta trouble. she was cool under pressure and did a terrific job in unknown territory.The consummate professional. also thanks to Faviola and Giovanni the best tour guides in Cuba. No! the world!

 

I have tons of sketches and photos, as well as a plein air piece or two from the trip. and I'm stoked to start larger paintings, for the gallery, from them.

 

Here's the first one in the pipeline.

 

 

 my reference photo

 

the underpainting showing whats in the light and whats in shadow. underpaintings are fun for me because its pure color and loose as heck!

 

more on the adventure later.

 

also don't forget that I start my four week drawing class at The Studios of Key West in January. I'm also doing private lessons if you come outta snow country for a vacation to Key West. i'm  here at my winter studio the whole winter. just email me to reserve your dates.

Girl from Ipanema

 

have had a few requests to see me (aka Calypso Kid) playing my steel drum.

 

so here's one called Girl from Ipanema.

if its cold where you are right now, I hope the steel drum sounds take you somewhere warm and Caribbean, and you can feel tropical breezes!
 

 

 

Heading to Galleries

 Island Morning- 30x40

 Down From Atlantic-24x36

 North Harbor Morning-30x40

On the Docks-30x40

 

 

Big Brother-24x30

 

email for prices and availability

Jazzin' it up!

had a painting in my inventory for a while and felt like it wasn't bad enough to sand down and paint over so I put it up on the easel and decided to give it a facelift.

 

 here's the original. proof positive that my color sense has changed a lot since I painted this on Sullivans Island several years ago. it was just plain ho-hum boring.

 so I decided to paint cape school underpainting colors over it and try to revive it. brighter blue on the fish house and all the other shapes.

then I painted the more realistic colors over that. now its way more colorful (read: appealing) to me! look at the feeling of light on the grass and in the palms, for instance (compared to the top original image).

 

so don't throw away those paintings that keep finding their way back into your studio. Jazz em up!

On the Docks-30x40

On the Docks- 30x40 oil on gallery wrapped canvas

email for price and availability

 

ive been painting big paintings here lately and loving it. my quest is for glowing saturated and bold color statements these days! think Wolf Kahn!

 

ever concerned with how underpainting affects the finished product. also more color notes in each shape. its and evolution of sorts. the shimmery water you see in the lower left hand side of the painting is the effect I'm after. the total percentage of this painting that has that "X factor" is way up there, so I'd say I'm happy with the direction my painting is going. still not there in a lot of ways tho'. guess i'll always be saying that huh? 

heres what the underpainting looked like. I know its right when it almost looks done in this "crazy color" stage

On the Docks-12x16

On the Docks- 12x16

email me for availability and price

 

playing with shapes continues. the dock here was the perfect lead in to the painting and sets up the feeling of depth I was after. seeing how abstract I can make things and it still look like a building, boats tied up, or distant trees.

love the light on the front of the house, in contrast to the shadowed side.

Island Morning-30x40

Island Morning

30x40 oil on gallery wrapped canvas

email me for pricing and availability

still stoked about painting ocracoke island, even tho I'm back in surf city.

Playing these days with making the shapes way more colorful and making interesting "shapes within shapes" but trying to make sure they hold together as a unit, from a distance. I like the new direction this is heading.

Key West Light-6x8

$75 plus $10 s/h

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

Found this one hiding while cleaning up the studio this week. its a key west plein air I did last year. its just up from Duval Street.

 

to be honest when I can see my breath in the air like I did last night, I get the itch to get down there!. ive got a big season planned down in Key West this winter, with private lessons, a trip to cuba, teaching weekly at TSKW (the islands biggest art center) and last but certainly not last, painting for my show at Gallery on Greene.

 

I also found out where ive stayed for the last several years is not available to me (she's moving off island). if you know of anyone that would like to rent a room to me from December to late April. please email me. I'd be grateful!

Two Diners -SOLD

SOLD

I'm unloading a bunch of paintings that ive had in my studio for quite some time. its time to organize and I just don't have room to keep them around any more, as much as I'd like to. they were studies for much larger paintings. if youre interested email me at rooneystudio@hotmail.com and put the title of the painting in the subject line. free shipping on this one.

 

these two are catching up at their favorite restaurant. I love the color harmonies of orangish reds against the blues!

Elizabeth City Splash event

Charleston Color-18x24

if you'd like to purchase email me for price and availability

 

this one was started outside and finished in the studio. when I set up on the street in Charleston I got the drawing done and then the clouds came and blocked out the sun. luckily, my friend (and awesome Charleston painter) hilarie lambert had a photo reference of something sorta close, so I finished it from that. like all the drawing and all the temperature shifts in this one.

 

Just agreed to be part of Elizabeth City NC's Splash Event the week of Nov. 2-9. i'll be one of the artists in residence and will be doing private lessons in the Elizabeth City area that week. so if you're from the Tidewater Virginia area, Outerbanks of NC, or close to E.C. and want to take some plein air lessons from me in this beautiful waterfront town, and hang out with an assortment of artists from all over the place, email me or call 919-920-9718 and let me get you on the calendar.

 take a few hours, half a day, or several half days. $35 per hour (less for half day).

i'll also have paintings for sale on display all thru the week. Looking forward to this event and seeing the whole EC crowd!

a new one on the easel

heres a shot of my 30x40 on the beauport easel in ocracoke. what you see is the setup on the second day with the underpainting on the canvas from day one. unfortunately the clouds got in the way for day two. so I had to paint from memory. I stuck with the strong, direct sunlite I saw the first day. luckily I had tons of painting done and was able to finish it. that's joanne geiselle setting up her easel across the street.

 

i'll show you the finished painting pic, soon!

Ocracoke Shine 24x30

Ocracoke Shine- 24x30

 

Now available at Down Creek Gallery on Ocracoke Island NC

 

This one really shows the new direction my painting has been evolving to in the last six or seven months. everybody is starting to say they see a big shift taking place. 

 

I'm becoming less and less enthralled with copying what I'm actually seeing. these days I seem to want to put my own twist on what I'm seeing and I love pushing around the more saturated color. That's what inspired me to paint this scene. the contrast between the flaming yellow orange fall grass and the deep blues of the water and sky, as well as the red roof of the building in the distance.

 

was able to stop painting when I needed to, to give me the raw energy in the strokes that I wish I had in all my big stuff.

 

Thanks to all my friends that showed up in Ocracoke to paint for the week. they were: Sue Morris, Dan Nelson, Joanne Geisel, Fen Rascoe, and Scott Boyle. You made me laugh, contemplate a lot of things, and really inspired me creatively. It was great fun hanging out with you all, making paintings!

Ocracoke Trip

a 22x28 painting on the easel on the waterfront of Ocracoke Island NC. The block-ins with acrylic continue, allowing me to use giant chip brushes to lay in big color notes on these bigger canvases. then I put the oil paint over it that to "tweak" it to the right color, temperature, value, and saturation. The trick is leaving some of the original right out of the tube acrylic, showing in key spots to energize the passage. Still experimenting and pushing myself to see what i can get away with. I like my migration towards more saturated color and looser edges with very accurate drawing. its a journey not a destination thankfully. all I know is it gives me something to wake up in the morning for.

Ocracoke Retreat

My buddy Dan Nelson and I had such a ball painting together for a week in June that we decided to do it again and make the group larger. so I rented a house on Ocracoke Island for a week and we split it with four more painting friends. Great comraderie eating, painting, co-miserating and then on the other hand saying how blessed we are to make paintings and have people buy them. IMHO the best affirmation I know of for our craft!

 

I'll be posting all along my progress this week.

 

Below is a newly completed 16x20 from the Ocracoke waterfront

 

 

Workshop News

Don't forget Art of the Carolina's is coming up in november. Dan and I both teach for this annual art supply/workshop convention. Folks come from all over the country to attend and it's well worth coming to Raleigh for if you want to paint better. You can google it to find out whats being taught and the other details.

Seal Cove (maine)-9x12

 

Seal Cove-9x12

 

this painting is headed to my new gallery in maine. email me if you'd like to get it first!

 

A plein air piece from my recent trip to Mount Desert Island, Maine.

this one was fun playing with all the rock shadow colors and trying to catch that glint that happens on the water really late in the afternoon. really like the distant land mass with the sailboat leaning into the wind too.

when you dont feel like painting

What do you do when you just don't feel like painting? I don't know about you, but I just don't. I used to feel guilty and think, 'man, this is your job, you gotta work'. But as I've been doing this eight years now fulltime, I've learned to listen to what my body, mind, and creative spirit are trying to tell me. Thus the lack of posts here on my blog.

The trip to Maine and Cape Cod seemed like a grueling pace, with a lot of pressure to perform and I think that's the reason for the burnout I experienced when I got back to NC, a few weeks ago. It's been a crazy paced year and I was running on fumes!
So I just worked on my steel drum music and did email stuff, lining up next years workshops. And what about the guilt about not painting. Too satisfied with the knowledge that when I get the itch to paint again, (and I can feel it coming) I'll be rested and happy to create again. Thankfully, guilt doesn't factor into the equation any more.

The Seafood Ketch-8x10

 

The Seafood Ketch- Maine

8x10

email me if youre interested in purchasing

 

Did this one after class one day, up in Maine, a few weeks ago. The light's gorgeous at this time of the day. Long shadows, boats and water, and the front side of the building started to light up. what's not to like? 

 

if youre on Facebook (and who's not these days) drop me a friend request. seems I'm on there a lot more than I thought I'd be, posting new paintings. workshop postings, and other good stuff.

Mt. Desert Island Workshop

here's a pic of Ineka hard at work. the scenery on Mt. Desert Island is phenomenal. Beautiful harbors and evergreens. Docks and tidal marshes with huge tidal shifts in the 10-13 foot range empty out and fill coves quickly. the colors in august when I held the workshop were super clear unless there was some fog in the morning. It'll usually burn off by 10 or so if there is some around. I don't particularly like to paint foggy scenes. Too monochromatic for my tastes.

Monhegan Island is the next workshop on tap for Maine and it'll be August 2015.

Looking forward to painting in Cuba in December and if you'd like to go, there's a spot or two left, but you'd have to get on the stick. Copies of passports need to be mailed and received in a week or so. Cost is about $4000 for everything. email me if you'd like to go. Guaranteed trip full of memories, this one!

Mt. Desert Island Shapes 8x10

Mt. Desert Island Shapes 8x10

Just finished up a weeklong plein air workshop teaching on Mt. Desert Island (Bar Harbor) in northern Maine.
Had a wonderful group of artists stoked on learning and painting.
We painted idyllic Maine harbors full of lobster boats moored near sailboats and yachts. I love the evergreens (firs I think) and rocky coast here.
A ships captain from Massachusetts at the turn of the century, after sailing to Maine for months on end wrote in a letter to his wife, "put a bucket of sand at the head of my grave. Ive seen enough stones for eternity".

My next foray to Maine will be for my Monhegan Island Mentoring workshop next August (the last week).

In that workshop we paint, paint, paint and hang out talking art for hours. Its limited to prior students of mine that are experienced painting outside. There are two critique sessions per day and I give lots of career advice, too. The class is nice and small (6 or 7) for lots of personal attention. If you think you'd be interested let me know ( rooneystudios@hotmail.com ). Only a seat or two left.

Lazy Summer Afternoon-9x12

Workshop News

there are still a few spaces left if you want to paint with me for five days in maine! i'll be on Mt. Desert Island (near Bar Harbor) at Acadia Workshop Center first week of September

 

 

Just dropped off at Rowley Gallery, Orleans Cape Cod

contact them at 508-247-0444

 

 

Summer Stroll-8x10

Summer Stroll-8x10

available at Rowley Gallery, Cape Cod

email me to Purchase

 

to see another painting just completed on the cape go to

the galleries FB page here

https://www.facebook.com/elizabeth.rowley.33

 

BIG NEWS

People to People Cultural Exchange

 Well its official. I'll be painting and teaching in Havana, Cuba this coming December. We'll be taking folks who would like to paint with me as well as visiting Cuban artist's studios as part of an official "People to People Cultural Exchange".

 I've wanted to paint Cuba since I started going to Key West in the winter.  Just this past winter, Gallery on Greene had many of Cuba's top artists come to Key West for a very successful exhibit. At nearly the same time, the Cuban National Museum was exhibiting Cuban American Mario Sanchez's work. Something that doesn't happen every day, I might add. Sanchez lived and painted in Key West for most of his life and is considered the preeminent Cuban American folk artist.

 While you're in Cuba you could spend most of the day painting and/or visiting the working art studios of some of Cuba's top artists.

 The trip is planned for December 7th-12th. This is a once in a lifetime experience and promises to be full of painting and people to people exchange with Cuban artists. If you'd like to join me please email Karen Wray at Gallery on Greene, for the details.  Their email address is: galleryongreene@bellsouth.net. Don't delay if you want to go, since December is right around the corner and the trip is already starting to fill. Spaces are limited.  Deposits are currently being taken, with final payments due by September 16th!

Cape Street-24x30

Cape Street

24x30

Headed to Rowley Gallery, Cape Cod

contact me for details

Wellfleet morning light. Cant wait to get back up to the cape and paint. leaving soon!

Wish You Were Here-30x40

The new and revised Wish You Were Here. I lightened (and warmed with yellow ochre and orange) the sky and water, added sparks of pure color sparodically and warmed the light side of the trees and grass. this is truer to my concept of the painting which by the way looks very little like the photo reference. to see that scroll down a few posts.

 

this ones headed to Atelier Gallery in Charleston.

You can still bid on this 16x20 silent auction piece I painted a few years ago. its been leaning on my studio wall too long. I want somebody to take it home.  any reasonable bid accepted. Shipping is $15.
 email me your bid before midnite Saturday.
NOTE: no NC, SC, Key West or Cape Cod folks please.

 

Wellfleet Shapes-12x16

Wellfleet Shapes- 12x16

above is what I'm using for reference for this painting. it was a plein air study from last year on the cape.

 

today I started playing with an acrylic underpainting with cape cod underpainting colors, to speed up the painting process. I don't really like having to wait for two days to start putting down the topcoat so I'm using an acrylic underpainting like Dan Nelson uses. I was painting the sides of my gallery wrapped canvases with acrylic all week,  and liked it because it dried so fast, so I thought this might speed things up in the studio, production-wise. whats nice is I will go back in in a few minutes and darken and and/or add rich color on top of this without having to wait till tomorrow. one thing I see I need to darken is the tree to the left behind the buildings. right now its to light in value and too red (warm), Its the value of white in shadow like the buildings to the left. NOT good! Good thing is i'll be able to fix that and it'll be dry in minutes and I'll be able to paint green on it tonite with oil. 

 

I love slapping the acrylic around with huge, crappy brushes. it keeps the painting loose and I'm not "rendering" it but thinking this shape with this value and this temperature.

 

I use to paint acrylic underpaintings a few years back, but it dried too fast outside, so I abandoned it. now the question is will I underpaint one way big in the studio and another way small, plein air?

Hmmmmmm....

 

after much reading then and now I think the key is to paint the acrylic super thin, so its not shiny. then the oil can adhere to it fine.

Wish You Were Here-30x40

 

Wish You Were Here

30x40

 email me for price and availability

Don't forget the silent auction for Overlooking the New River 16x20, is on till Saturday at midnite. Highest bid will take it no matter what that may be.
go ahead and make a bid!
remember- ONLY non NC, Key West, SC, and Cape Cod folks can participate.

the image is one or two posts down.

Edges and Masses

 

these two pics are close-ups of a painting on the easel today. 90% done just wanna tweak a little after I live with em a few days.

 

note to self: remember how you did this cloud, sky and trees. cloud mass soft and fuzzy, nice color harmonies with the shadow side violet leaning red. shadows on trees are blues and reds with green scrubbed in to change the mass to read green. tree lights are orange with yellow green scrubbed in. skyhole- blue was scrubbed over darker pink and turquoise and light blue scrubbed into the bottom half. sweeeet.

 

less worries about being literal with the photo which is hard for an ex illustrator/sign painter. like the greens scrubbed over the rich blues and violets, red/violets, and letting bits of the rich color peek out.

 

all I'm concerned these days are the differences in the masses and less about the reference material. can feel the style shifting. there are very very few places of neutral paint tho' it reads as if there are. the eye is doing a lot of the mixing versus me doing it.

Overlooking the New River-16x20

This ones been in and out of the studio for several years now and its time to do a silent auction, a very popular thing i do on here from time to time. been a while since I did a silent auction so here goes.

going to sell it to the highest bidder that sends me an email in the next week. no kidding. bidding will end next Saturday night at midnite

whats the most you wanna pay for this. send me a bid!

 

its 16x20 on stretched canvas

no Cape Cod, Key West, SC, or NC bids please!

 

shipping $20 in U.S.

 

Overlooking the New River-16x20

I just pulled the below painting out of the finished pile and painted some of the cape school colors back onto what I considered a dull painting. wow, I juiced it up already. more realistic stuff will go on top of it when this is dry.

 

this blog will be invaluable to me in the future as I'll be able to go back and look and my evolution as a painter. I can see paintings from my very beginnings and watch as my style, technique, etc. changes from year to year and concept/vision to concept/vision.

I've always been very interested in the "process" of painting. don't really care what the painting is of, as much as how I paint my vision of it. at first it was about seeing the light ont these objects in its most honest environment, which would be plein air. then it evolved into how to capture the sparkle of that impressionistic vision. now its seems to be more about painting large (either inside or out) and having fun with the shapes even at the expense of "reality". more about the surface of the canvas

ive always had a tool in my toolbox that I called "de-volving" the image, but it was a very underdeveloped muscle. in these big ones my vision is much more expressionistic and personal using the plein air study and/or photo as a launching point. so I'm strengthening this de-volving muscle lately.then once I get the feel for what I want I sling large brushes loaded with varying degrees of opacity around (thanks dan!) trying to lose lots of the forms into one another.  then I think I'm trying to bring back the focal point out of that. dreaminess has, and I imagine always will, always been part of my painting equation. I go for that seconds-before-you-wake-up-from-a-dream look. just the beautiful, most important shapes, colors, and delineation.

this week ive been de-volving paintings I thought were finished. I went back into them with rich out of the tube color to bring back a lot of the snap they had on day two. the process of painting covered up the part I like the best. so I went back in and put that in. then i'll act like its day three. if I keep doing this to what I considered finished paintings, i'll have to stop posting them so soon. gotta go back and delete three of these what I thought were done deals, from the blog and replace them with the todays "finished".

a close up of adding reds and blues back into a dull painting! funny thing is I didn't think they were dull last week when I finished them!

 

i'll go back and get rid of about half of that red (and orange) you see in the grass. i'll keep just enough for that spark I get if I don't paint too much green on the surface or its not dry enough to cover without mixing (graying) on day three. which I invariably do tho' I don't want to. I'm beginning to see that layering over dry paint is the key to doing this. so much for all my stuff being alla prima anymore. oh well.

 

on the boat painting at the top of the post I added orange to the light side of the grass, pink back into the water to the left of the glare, pink in the roof, translucscent lavender into the bost and shed, and orange all the way around the edges of the shapes. i'll then go back and paint over about half of that to get rid of it where its 'obnoxious'.

 

keep your fingers crossed for me!

Sittin' Pretty-24x30

 

Sittin' Pretty

24x30

email me for price and availability

 

wow! look a the looseness of this one. drips, scrubby strokes, large brush frenzied controlled chaos, one stroke bravura brushwork, thick thin, scratches (thanks for the scratch technique Dan N)

 

Time Standing Still

24x30

email me for price and availability

 

more coming off the easel. has been a really productive week. I'm in my groove. here's what the average day looks like. wake up and eat, then play some steel drum in the morning. block in a canvas or two. eat lunch. work on paintings in varying stages of completion in the afternoon. take a nap. more easel time till supper. more steel drum practice and a little more easel time. a little marketing and setting up workshop stuff on the computer. late night snack ( I know awful right?) who cares! then bed about 1 am.

wake up do it all again. getting about five large paintings done a week not counting some smaller ones here and there. the paint seems to flow out all by itself when you get a life-rhythm like this going on. I think the start and stop lifestyle I sometimes lead is counter productive to serious quality painting. painting isn't like painting a house where its mindless putting on of paint 100% of the time. painting pictures is 10% putting on of paint and 90% spent thinking about how you want to put on the paint. you have to be in the right frame of mind to do it effectively?

work in progress day two

The Acadia Maine workshop is officially a go! still seats available if you want to paint on gorgeous Mt. Desert Island on the upcoming Labor Day holiday (the best weather in maine). just contact Acadia Workshop Center and tell Gail you wanna attend. you wont regret it, I promise!

 

 

forgot to shoot pic of day one on this monster sized painting but it had a crazy out of the tube orange for the dirt, orangeish/pink for the sky and purples and violets for the boats and shed in shadow.

 

on day two, I went over all that dry paint (key to colorful paintings-no mud) with a less saturated mixture of yellow ochre and orange with gray in it. then I put a less saturated purple down and got a few variations of value in the boat. green grass in shadow and grass in light. then I went over the sky with a pretty saturated manganese/cerulean blue and then i scrubbed in a slightly lighter value of yellow/yellow ochre mix into the bottom half of the sky to warm it up. I might leave the sky as is as I'm pretty happy with it (in present context) as is. dirt might need some cooling off and graying down but its a really good underpaint color. like the pinkish roof on the little shed to the right of the bow too. might leave it as is too. liking the white reflection but i'll probably add some warmth to it

 

the glare is going to be the star of the show so i'll give that area a lot of thought and painting time.

 

Tip

spend more time on the focal point than anywhere else on the painting (inch for inch)

Wish You Were Here-30x40

Wish You Were Here

30x40

email for price and availability

 

finished this one up today. after looking at the photo on here tho, I'm going to soften the  the front edges of the clouds a little. they look a little too "puffy" for me. I'll blend the front edges and get a lost and found effect that will take care of that. other than that its done. I like the looseness and color especially. something I've been focusing on in recent months.

Today and Forever-24x30

 

Today and Forever

24x30

email for price and availability

 

fresh paint! been on a painting binge here lately. I'm excited about the work, so it makes me want to get in the studio and be productive. finally the big ones are as loose and colorful as my plein air studies. not to mention, its great to be in the studio when its 95 degrees out with 95% humidity. plein air is no fun in those conditions.

 

today the hurricane is bearing down on my beach town. I don't see anybody boarding up anything so I'm thinking like everybody else that it wont be that bad. the only sign of panic ive seen so far is one lady coming out of the grocery store with half dozen gallons of water. see that kinda rubs me wrong. if everybody did that the shelf would be empty really quick then nobody could get even ONE and they might need it worse than she needs six. I don't know, I might catch flack on that. been watching too much Curb Your Enthusiasm lately. the hero of the comedy is always pointing stuff like that out and everybody ridicules him for his opinions. hilarious.

 

hope you like the painting even if you don't like my take on the water hoarder!  :)

Early Morning Skiff 2-16x20

Early Morning Skiff 2

16x20

contact me for availability and price

I took a bunch of paintings to galleries lately and you always get some you really liked back in return.

 

like orphans who keep getting left behind at the orphanage, some of em are good kids. sure they've got their little flaws but I cant understand why nobody wants to "adopt/buy" them. so I say, must be something the buyers just cant overlook. so I threw this one on the easel to see what could be done after not looking at it for the last 12 months (tho its actually a few years old)

first thing I decided to do was wash warmth all over it with a glaze. it looked a little too cool to me. I'm thinking the original was probably closer to the original light key but the electric company doesn't care about that at all. they want my money for lights this month. I gotta sell this puppy. ok I'm exaggerating but I cant help but keep playing the starving artist role ive perfected all these years.

then I took out all the paraphernalia on the boat and the boat numbers. strengthened the trailer and fooled with the shadow (darkenening the value) under the boat and made some darker shapes in the background trees adding some warmth (and some blue) to the shadows and made better shapes on the ones I thought were awkward. will anybody notice? doubtful but I think its like....if you don't comb your hair its not so bad but if you don't comb your hair, brush your teeth, or put on a clean shirt, its the cumulative effect that'll kill ya. the less little things ive got wrong with this piece the better it'll look overall.

hopefully, another painting saved from the brutal and violent "sand down" day that happens when I'm in a funk. haven't had one of those in a while, so I'm due.

Mid Tide2- 18x24

 

Mid Tide2 

18x24

email me for availability and price

 

 

I like this one from Swansboro. what a great shape the little creek makes right? and the color of the light is very summer morning-ish. hopefully you can feel the humidity in the air too.