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this was a demo for one of my recent plein air classes. i hired a model and took everybody out on the beach to paint "mudheads" ala cape school tradition. also had a lot of inspiration from peggy kroll roberts dvds. the feeling of light and simplicity of drawing were my main goals with the class of mostly novice plein air painters. keeping the values in the shadows close (and the values in the light area as well) helps to simplify the process as well.

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i like the dreamy morning light in this one!

 

Sloppies (as its called) is an indisputable must see for anyone visiting key west who likes a cold one. along with the green parrot and capt. tony's, sloppy joe's is one of the most visited bars in town. ive rode past to a painting spot and looked inside to see live music and drinking in excess as early as 10 am. thats late in this town. the crowd at schooner wharf starts drinking and playing at 7 am. its called the "breakfast club"

 

i guess it was some drinkers on vacation in paradise who came up with the saying 'its 5 o'clock somewhere'.

weekend mornings are great for a plein air painter because its like a ghost town downtown. theyre all in bed hung over and dont start moving around till noon or so. must say i'm glad i put that lifestyle down 23 years ago. gotta have a steady hand in this fine art business!

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a little ditty from the lanes of key west. some of my last ones unfortunately. heading to hilton head for a three day workshop next thursday, on the way north. i'll miss my island home but am looking forward to getting back to my family, NC island home,and friends.

Monhegan Workshop News

Looks like the dates of the monhegan workshop will be august 28-30. cost will be $225. there are just a few slots left and class size will be very small. it will be an intense plein air painting experience with many of the painters being working profession painters. we'll eat, drink, and live painting the whole time. i went to monhegan a few years ago and i fell in love with its light. everybody told me there was a painting everywhere you turned and they were right. quaint beaches, manana islet across the bay, small charming cottages and crashing waves on steep rocky cliffs all wait to be painted. the wyeths, hopper, george bellows and contemporary painters of today couldnt all be wrong right? email me if youre interested

$100-Conch Color-0401B-6x8

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back out doing some smaller pieces. wanted to put down very loud bright color on the first notes of color today. then i color correct with the second notes. i like the feeling of light it gives my work. really simplified the scene eliminating a lot of the detail. the vertical compostional elements are a great foil for the horizontal ones. love the SUV!

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.

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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

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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

SOLD-Flame-0127B-8x10- Key West Paintings

 

no i'm not dead! i checked this morning. very interesting week to be sure. getting ready for the upcoming show in key west opening on the 16th and was a little behind schedule so thats why i havent been posting as much.

 

i did this once before and did it again this week. i painted on a 18x24 for about three half days, and as i was putting my stuff in the truck, i stuck the painting on the roof to keep from smearing it. well.... proceeded to jump in and drive away. yes.... i gave the painting to the universe (read LOST) ouch. well i was teaching yesterday and one of my students said "i saw a guy carrying a board with wet paint on it like a waiter holds a tray of food over their shoulder. it looked like the one you showed us in class last week".

 

yep, that guy had some good kharma coming his way that day! nice to know its at least not down in a gutter somewhere covered in leaves and trash, right?

 

oh well, went back and did another (which i like better) so i'm caught back up somewhat and will be posting here a little more frequently.

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imagine eating your dinner with roosters, chickens, and chicks running around at your feet. thats Blue Heaven. the birds are treated like cows are in india. they roam free and you better not run over one in the Conch Republic!

Looking Down Greene St.-0216B-8x10

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this place is right across from my gallery on greene st.

 

painting away on some bigger pieces for the upcoming show in march and started class monday. do i ever like that 12:30 afternoon time slot! great for folks like me that hate the early morning shift.

 

lets talk about shadows today. ive noticed that most people just paint them one color. if you look hard at them they are darker the closer they are to the object that is causing the shadow. as they move out into the open they start to get that cooler blue from the sky reflecting into them. theyre a lot of fun to paint if you look for the different "color bands" that are always present. keep it subtle and they'll look more realistic than if you just paint them one color (temperature) the whole length of the shadow. give it a try.

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well it happens every year about this time. kinda feelin' some island fever setting in. if youve never experienced it, here's how it happens.

key west is an island about 15 or 16 blocks wide and about three miles long. its the dead of winter and tho' its warm here, thousands and thousands of folks have fled the frozen tundras of the north to come here to put on some shorts and turn that lily white skin as red as a lobster. not all mind you, but many will get drunk, dive off hotel balconies into the pool, walk blindly in front of traffic looking at a map,  drive scooters dangerously, and generally do alot of other things they'd never think of doing in poughkeepsie. throw in tons of regular folks ie. locals and snow birds( like me)  and things start getting a little crowded. you feel like its wall to wall people, and nerves start to jangle. then to make things even more  interesting let the powers that be tear up the main hiway into town causing gridlock and traffic jams island-wide for about two years, then open the bars from 9 am to past two a.m the next day. toss in a few thousand cruise ship visitors also getting drunk and wearing bra's on their head and you get the idea of why after about a month of riding around on a bicycle carrying your paint studio all over bone island  i'm goin' a little stir crazy. that means i'll be hitting the road for the middle keys soon. its slower up there and kinda like going to long island ny after a month of hanging out in new york city. a good way to unwind, get away from all the people, and catch my breath. hard to keep the painting vibe when you want to tell the nice man swerving his scooter dangerously close to your front bumper to sober up, open his eyes while he's driving, put his pants back on, stop texting AND looking for a t-shirt shack, and would he mind expeditiously getting on back to poughkeepsie.

painting downtown today kinda felt like running a marathon. you gotta love it to survive it

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i get on these night painting kicks every now and again. here's one where the lights came on just as the sun slipped below the horizon. this was civil twilite. the time when the sun has set but you can still make out objects. always glad to see some folks get their lights on earlier than the rest of town for this great lighting effect. had to finish it under headlamp light as it was totally dark when i finished.

Bobs Barricades-8x10

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creeping and crawling at night. 

i love the feeling of mystery in this one

wish i could get really well known for night paintings. then after hanging out all night playing music i could go paint night scenes until dusk. then i'd go home and sleep all day and wake up at 7 or 8 and do it all again.

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as i see the planes fly over while i'm painting this one i can picture everybody on the little jet looking down on on a little jewel of a tropical island, and theyre squeezed up to the little window, sitting there smiling real big. theyre dressed in winter clothes from chicago (14 degrees) new jersey (33) and all points north, it must look wonderful coming from miami watching the little speck of a key, getting bigger and bigger in the turquoise vastness until coconut palms and banana trees appear. and then they get lower and lower until they can see us smiling back up at them. welcome to the conch republic.

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more from the middle of US1 South 

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Beware Editorializing Ahead! 

my painting bud john c. and i were comparing notes on some artists that we've encountered in person and online that we consider "bashers". they are extremely opinionated and have no tolerance for those artists that they dont consider "serious". one guy swears that if you watch tv you can never become a skilled painter and he considers you somehow unworthy. i say this as one who doesnt watch tv myself. not to make me a better painter but for different reasons.do i agree with the above artist?

yes and no. yes in that i agree that you will always get out of something what you put in. this goes for painting as well. who wouldnt agree that a person who painted instead of watching some desperate housewives wouldnt get better? but do i think that because you do watch the tube, that you wont ever be a skilled painter? no. and i dont like the elitists who say you cant have a social life or other interests and be a good painter. they just say this i think to justify their life. and thats ok to have that kind of life, just dont put down others who dont live that way, right? this type of person is usually extremely accomplished (and many of them commercially successful) yes this is true, but can you be balanced and hold the attitude that one should only be painting and all other activities are a distraction from that end. i dont think so, but again i could be wrong

will we have to work harder when we are painting, if we dont do it every waking minute, probably (unless you are a painting savante) but as for me i'll work harder and balance that with my credo that says 'work hard and play hard!'

Below is one of my newer gallery paintings and will be on the cover of the postcard invitations announcing the show starting the 16th of march

A View up Fleming 0126B 8x10

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$100-Dinghy Crowd-0118B-6x8

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and over cast day on the docks where all the people that live on boats park their dinghies when they come on dry land. love the redish gas cans and orange life vests on a mostly blue day. mice spark of complementary color.

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this scene is right next to conch republic seafood restaurant. some of it anyway!

i made up everying to the right of the staircase, taking a page out of the playbook of one of my fave artists Edward Seago. they say he often made up half the stuff he was using in a painting. he had painted outdoors so much that he had a virtual library of stuff to pull from in his imagination. i remember early on in my painting career not being able to do that at all, and how frustrating it was to have to be a slave to painting what i saw.