Branches

I did a series of paintings looking upwards into tree canopies during winter. the trees were bare of leaves here on the east coast and the branches cut the sky into beautiful shapes like a stained glass window.

Blythewold old oak panorama

Blythewold beach canopy

Blythewold Larch

The simple drama of trees

I have always been enchanted by Plein Air painters and by the romantic era in painting.  I found that breaking down the images into their more graphic elements sends me in that direction (happily).  These two images really came through as they became simpler.  It's so interesting how emotion can be found in a photo or coaxed into a new place by the artists choices.

Lincoln Park tree at sunset

Morning's cold fire

Cadillac Mountain rich colors

Bar Harbor is one of my favorite places on the planet.  Here's a composited and heavily painted image that uses some of the incredible stone formation from the summit.  I was intent on bringing out the furtive shapes of the moss and scrub grass and show their relationship to the marbled rocks and the graphics the shapes create when turned hard edged.  I've painted the colors to be how I felt about the place and unabashedly pulling bits and parts equally from my imagination and other photos.  This isn't traditional media so these images are about the end result.  The process is very freeing.

Cadillac Mountain colors and shapes

Here's a close up showing the wonderful abstract shapes that emerge and that I get to play with and paint into.  These rock surfaces are not just a stipling of color.  They are twisting and cropped shapes that have tremendous energy at the miniature level and mass up to create a richness that goes beyond impressionist dots.  Look at the colors that emerge as well.  I have several hundred of these paintings and after having done them as an experiment over the past few years I find they have informed the "from scratch" paintings I'm doing in a big way.

Bar Harbor rock close up