Fleur on Rouge-6x6-SOLD

Flowers are good to work on because they teach you to be accurate with the complex jigsaw shapes of color and value. same with glass with water in it. put them together with striped fabric and you've got a challenge on your hands. you get scared the way the abstract shapes look all the way up until you put the last few lines and highlites down. then all of a sudden, boom, its a glass of water and flower. it'll give you nerves of steel. all painters have heard of the "ugly stage" and its like that, and goes on until the very end of the piece.


i'm doing a demo at Fountainside Gallery in Wilmington this sunday afternoon. here's the link to check out the E-vite.

Quiet Mooring in Sneads Ferry-7x5

Overcast sun made about a three hour appearance today. it was super silvery and makes everything cool and shimmery. this is in the little village of sneads ferry at merritt seafoods docks. the new river snakes into the woods a little, giving great little scenes like this one.

Sittin' Pretty-6x8-$75

$8 s/h
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Next time i'm feeling rusty painting from a few days off, i'll do some of these little still life's. i think the problem this past monday was i hadnt painted most of last week because of the Jerrys Artarama workshops, and then i run out and try to paint a complicated scene on an 8x10.

wipe that off the panel a few times and youre having a bad day. painting is very mental game. sure there's the technique/skill component but losing your "mojo" can kill you.

next time when i'm feeling blue and insecure i'll run down to the salvation army thrift store and buy something fun to paint. thanks to everybody that emailed me and/or commented about my "wall" experience. thanks for the support. gotta love this internet age! maybe van gogh would have kept his ear if he had had a blog *)

Strawberry Stripes-7x7

i'm on a painting binge!! went to the Salvation Army and picked up this shallow bowl. the colors around the rim made me want to paint it.

i always get stoked to paint when i get a new "find" at a thrift store. next stop.... grocery store for fruit. the striped fabric is from my dollar store find last night.

kept out the embroidery on this one. wanted to keep it more "geometric" and the extra detail would destroy that effect. After painting this i realized that alot of the colors on the rim match the table cloth colors.

i want to play with it some more to see what the possibilities are. who would have thought i'd want to "get to know" an inanimate piece of cloth. alot of studio time alone will do that to a person LOL

Lap of Luxury-9x12

contact me if youre interested in this piece

Saw this piece of fabric in a store last night and knew i'd enjoy painting it. threw oranges up on there, and stuck it in my still life setup (a cardboard box and photo lamps). reason i picked oranges? something with simple shapes to complement the complex fabric. i really like this piece since it marks the end of the "wall" ive been up against first part of the week. The mojo's back!

Red and Green Farm-6x8

Here's a shot of the ongoing commission with some, not all, of the realistic colors being layed in. i left the orange on for you to see what the color will be underneath the light sunny side of the trees. gives that green a nice glow you cant see in this picture. up close its nice and warm and looks like the sunny side of a tree.

Below is the finished 30x40. it's all knifed and super super thick paint with Lukas Butter added to make it super textured.

i'm usually not happy when i do a painting bigger but this one i'm tickled with! what do you think?

Overshadowed-6x8-$50

$8 s/h
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done yesterday at a horse farm across from my mechanics garage. "old Bessie" wasnt feeling well and i had to get her fixed and i had a few hours to kill. grabbed my painting gear and started walking around looking for something to work the bugs out of my head with. found this huge tree over a horse barn. just what the doctor ordered.

the discussion of "the wall" that ive hit continues........

here's a snippet of an email i got from a friend and collector and is food for thought

----------------------------------------snip-------------------------------

Mike, So sorry to hear about your “down” period. Personally, I’m convinced your body is telling you it needs a vacation. Your work ethic is amazing, and I marvel at the schedule you keep. It’s probably time to take a breather whether you want to or not. This may not be what you were hoping to hear, but it might be just what the doctor needs to order. Me and a lot of other folks would be VERY unhappy if you couldn’t paint anymore! Please take good care of yourself. Your friend and patron, KB

my reply---
thanks K. that's sweet of you to say! youre probably right. i tend to keep a grueling schedule and sometimes it takes its toll on me. another artist just wrote me and said that the jitters were coming from knowing everybody was watching and i now have a "brand". i think its probably both. kinda glad that the schedule eases off during the holidays where i can just paint and not have travel, teaching or promotions. just paint at my pace, experiment and enjoy the process again.

i'd like to post this reply on the blog so other artists can see the struggle. could be informative and get a good discussion of "the wall" going on the blog. thanks

-----------------------------------snip-----------------------------------

any of you guys that have experienced this phenomenon, i'd love to get you into the discussion.

Nags Head Antique-6x8-SOLD

$75 unframed

One of the oldest cottages on the Nags Head beachfront. how can you not love those orangey roofs against that blue sky. and the shutters held open with skinny sticks. love 'em! done a few months ago while on the Outer Banks.

November Glow-8x10

$275 unframed

contact me about availability if you like this one

Some houses lit up in the november afternoon sun on the swansboro waterfront. the light was beautiful today and afternoons in the fall are glorious to paint.

Just got back from the big Art of the Carolina's gig i was doing last week in raleigh teaching workshops, doing demo's at the Lukas paint booth, doing meet and greets at the dvd booth, and shooting a bunch of free art lessons for Jerrys Artarama Online.

a funny thing happened to me and its thrown me for a loop, as we say here in the south.

i got recognized everywhere i went and the dvd's were selling like hotcakes. workshops were well attended, and i was on a high during the whole thing. i felt like a rockstar. i left and headed home on cloud nine and i kicked back sunday and took the whole day off thanking God for my fifteen minutes of fame.

Problem?

monday morning i hit the proverbial "WALL". i'd heard of this wall from other artists on their blogs but had never experienced it or even knew what they might have been alluding to.

its real!

the sense of letdown, doubt and exhaustion. wow! i couldnt even paint that whole day. its as if i had forgotten everything i knew, the complete struggle to even get paint down. i had several wipers that day,that morning i couldnt get my hands to stop shaking, the drawings sucked, compositions worse. i couldnt believe it! nothing was working. then a double dose of confusion and doubt hit me. came home and immediately started double-dosing my St. John's Wort to even out my mood. Today was not much better. did (above) November Glow, feeling like i was painting for the first time. ive never experienced anything like this, and dont know whats going on.

if having people know who you are does this to you, count me out. i'd rather paint away in complete obscurity than go thru what i've just gone thru. its terrible.

any other painters who've gone thru this let me know what's what by commenting below. i'd love to know what you did to knock down the "wall".

Lumina Ave. Bend-8x10

Coming around the corner into Wrightsville Beach. The November, late afternoon sun bounces off Roberts Grocery and other Lumina Ave. buildings.

A little one person sailboat sits on a dock waiting for a sailor to get her back into the intercoastal waterway.

just painted and delivered these two new paintings to Fountainside Gallery in Wilmington for the Holiday Show i'm participating in.

also, i'll be doing a demonstration and lecture on Sunday Nov. 29th from 12:30- 2:30. if youre in town then, come by and say hi.

i redid the girl's hand on the previous painting below "A Day at the Beach". it looks way better. take another look.

Ocracoke House on Silver Lake-6x8-SOLD

Painted one afternoon when i was on ocracoke island a few weeks ago. funny how i can look at this painting and the whole experience comes back to me... in detail. the heat and humidity, the bugs were vicious that day! i saw a misquito getting bit by another misquito, thats how bad they were! LOL

this is the very beginning stage of a 30x40 i'm working on. it'll be a knifed piece using a prior one i did smaller as the reference. this baby will be going to a nice home in Philly when its finished.

i'll lay more realistic colors over this bright underpainting a la cape school technique. By the way i have room in my friday and saturday classes at the Jerry's Artarama Art of the Carolina's Expo if you want to call them and sign up. Tomorrow's class on Cape Cod Underpainting is filled.

Retro Blue-4x6-$35

$5 s/h
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a cool retro blue couch thats backlit. i'll paint anything wont i?

A Day at the Beach-6x6

Seemed fitting to do a beach scene since Hurricane Ida (now a tropical storm) is making herself known around here in the southeast. not much wind here, just potentially flooding rains for the next several days.

i'll be working on a large commission for a nice lady in Philly for a couple of days and then off to Raleigh to teach at Jerrys Artarama Art of the Carolina's. i have the biggest class i've ever taught thursday. almost thirty people. hope i dont get stage fright. yeah right! LOL

Old Time House of Worship-8x8

anyone familiar with eastern nc knows that there's one of these on every corner around here. this particular church has loads of character doesnt it? and with the lovely fall light on it i couldnt resist putting it in paint. i drew some funny looks while doing it. i'm sure they've never seen anyone painting on the street before.

Glistening Capt Charlies-6x8

More work from the Artist Residency stay on Bald Head Island. Lots of neat cape cod style houses, beach and marsh subject matter.

I especially like this one. kept the shadows on the road light but they still look like shadows. lots of neat "cape cod" underpainting glowing and peeking out in just the right amounts. I did one like this 9x12 too but didnt get a photo of it unfortunately.

The Misty M-8x10-$275

unframed

$8 s/h

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A working boat from the docks on the New River in Sneads Ferry. Fall afternoon light is fun to paint. its a little crisper (ie. less atmosheric) and of course another upside-youre not sweating a bucket and swatting misquitos every minute.

Commission Piece-12x16-SOLD

A commissioned piece just completed. Marsh Harbour Inn sits on the harbor front and is absolutely beautiful in the fall afternoon sun.

The rest of these were painted on Bald Head Island in the last week

More to come!

Autumn Gold-6x8-SOLD

$50

Wanted to see if i could capture the glow on the marsh in the last few minutes of light. you have to really put the paint down fast for these fall sunsets. the sun is going down really really fast. mix and lay it down, no time for second guessing yourself or God forbid you should have to readjust a color, or value. no time!

the Artist in Residency week is drawing to a close. the weather was especially fickle. half the days were partly cloudy. the type where its sunny for 30 min. and goes cloudy for the other 30. not very conducive to plein air painting but we made the best of it. when the sun came out yesterday it was like the world went to wild, saturated color after being black and white for a week. you plein air painters know exactly what i'm talking about!

High on a Hill-6x8

This is the original house that the lightkeepers family lived in, who ran the lighthouse on Bald Head Island. His name was Capt. Charlie Swann, and he was here from around 1900 to somewhere in the 30's. The area is affectionately called Capt Charlie's. The spot really reminds me of the dunes and architecture i saw on Cape Cod when i was up there painting a few months ago. i cant imagine someone (and their family) living on an island by themselves without the modern convenience of electricity, grocery or hardware store on the island, or weather radios. they would never know when a killer hurricane was bearing down on them. its wild to even consider how hardy these people must have been to do it for thirty years, over a 100 years ago.

in this painting i'm working with subtle color shifts on a cool overcast day. the kind with that silvery light. i especially like the fall beach grass up the hill and the sand path works composition-wise to take the eye up to the house from bottom to top.

Fields of Gold-5x7-SOLD

How can you not love painting in a place with these kind of scenes at sundown. such a peacefulness on these vast marsh vistas at this time of day. all you hear are the screeches of beach birds high overhead. and it seems to echo miles off into the distance.

this one will probably make it into the 8x10 format for the gallery here.

this Artist-in-Residency thing is a blast. thanks shawn!

Graveyard of the Atlantic-4x6-SOLD

Got the title of this one from the fact that while climbing all over the dunes to get this vantage point, i found what looked like a human thigh bone. it was halloween and it was freaky! so i wanted to call this one Pirates Graveyard, but the area really is known as Graveyard of the Atlantic because of its shallow sandbars that claimed many a ship, when they ran aground on them in storms. the ship would be half on the sandbar and half in deep water with the huge waves ripping the ship to pieces board by board until it eventually sunk. even today with GPS and great maps people are still very very cautious in these waters.

this area was also home to Stede Bonnett and Blackbeard, two of history's most notorious pirates. they'd have made great modern day IRS agents, eh matey? LOL