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Plein Air award

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I was delighted to receive an Award of Merit for one of my paintings from the Swope Art Museum Plein Air Event, at the awards ceremony yesterday evening.

The juror was Julio Suarez, professor of Art at Hillsdale College, MI. He gave an enjoyable and interesting plein air demo yesterday evening, accompanied by thunder, but we never felt rain.

Musallem Union, Rose-Hulman, 11 x 14 ins, oil on canvas board

This was painted in one session on the morning of 6/24/25. The main part of the building pictured here is the Dining Hall in the Union building.

I painted from the small beach on the side of the lake— a great way to spend a morning!

A Spring in Her Step

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9 x 12, oil on canvas panel

This is a re-painting I did recently of an earlier painting which was in a smaller format. It is my mother and daughter striding out across the hills and fields while taking the dog for a walk.

Which one has the spring in her step?

The Green Look

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Oil on Canvas Panel 12 x 16 ins

I painted this portrait of my daughter from a photo I took while we were sitting on our deck one sunny lunchtime. I was struck by the lovely green reflection of her shirt in her cheek and chin. It really seemed to jump up there!

Here are some of the steps I took in the painting:

The first layer and the motif
All colors and values blocked in
Momentum added
Started on refinements

Happy in Greece

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Oil on Canvas Panel, 12 x 16 ins

This is my brother!

Last summer I delivered paintings of his wife and his son to them when we visited. He very gently hinted that it might be fitting to have one of himself to go with them.

When I returned home I collected all the photos I had of him and sent him a selection of my favorites as possibilities for painting. We both agreed that this one was our choice. It’s from a vacation in Greece (I didn’t take the photo!).

I liked the warmth and happiness of the photo. It was a full-length shot and the resolution was not very high when I enlarged it, but the expression and the colors were so great I proceeded anyway.

He and I are both pleased with the result and I will deliver it to him in the UK later this year.

Contemporary Portrait-Indian Girl

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12 x 16 ins, oil on canvas panel

So much fun! This portrait is based on a photo from Unsplash, but adapted according to my memories of our 4 month stay in India in 2014. One overwhelming impression there was the riot of color—in clothing, outside temples, in decorations. It was a beautiful feast of color!

Here’s a gallery of some steps in the process:

Dancing with the colors—a freehand placing of connected colors.
Adding the motif by oil transfer.
Negative blocking—rubbing out the lightest areas with a paper towel.
Blocking in the major values and colors.
Adding some momentum—brushing, scraping, swiping and swooshing!
Restoring the image with more layers of color and refinement.

Composition 5

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Oil on Panel, 8 x 10 ins
Sketch book Notans from a photo I took in a NY cemetery last spring.

I liked the lower left design best, so I chose that for my painting.

I applied the paint with a palette knife throughout. I like the sunlight effect in the lower half of the painting.

Composition 3

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8 x 10 ins, oil on canvas board

This painting was developed from the notan on the top half of the sketch book page, 3c. I used the value pattern on the top right, although the tree/bush at the left side of the road really ended up being a dark shape. I thought it looked a better balance as I was painting.

This time I painted entirely with a palette knife. I enjoy the thick and expressive paint!

Rare Encounter

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‘Rare Encounter’, Oil on Linen Panel, 18 x 24 in

I had a painting like this in mind for several months, ever since I took the photo last fall of my granddaughter staring at parachute jumpers exiting an airplane. I liked the lighting on her, her position, and her look of interested wonder.

It seemed a fitting start for a painting for a group Show connected with our local library’s Fall Big Read–World Of Wonders, by Aimee Nezhukumatathil. The book is intended to increase people’s interest and wonder in the natural world. I read the book over the summer and appreciated many of the author’s thoughts and insights.

In my painting I made the object of her vision and wonder a Monarch butterfly, the subject of a chapter in the book. I enjoyed researching the butterfly and adding it to my painting.

The art display is up in the Terre Haute library for the month of August 2022.

Plein Air today

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8 x 8 ins, Oil on Linen Panel

I painted this from my front porch this afternoon, an exhilarating experience. It was a crisp, clear, windy December day. My focus was the large maple tree in the middle of the front lawn, and the way the nearly-setting sun was lighting it, although by the time I finished (an hour later) the light had pretty much gone from the tree.

I took a lot of artistic license with the view and completely removed the houses across the street (their complexity and presence did not add to my ideas about the tree), so this is not actually the view from our porch, but my ideas about the tree and the light this afternoon. I loved doing it.