Bear Hill Series

The order of producing the work is as follows:  Storyboard on top.  Acrylic color sketch on the floor.  12x36" version on the shelf, and the triptych on the easel.  The single painting and the triptych are still in process.

Series plus one

I'm doing the preparations for a triptic plus one painting for Lully Schwartz's class starting this Wednesday.  So far I took probably over 100 photos, running out at sunrise and sunset to capture the right lighting and have settled on a view I see on my morning walk, although it will be set at sunset.

While a student of Joel Babb's at the Museum of Fine Arts School in Boston, we worked on complicated perspectives such as this view which includes what you can see on the left and right of where your field of vision actually is--a wrap-around more or less.  Joel is a master of this.

So I did a storyboard, a sketch, a rough color study and worked out some variations to decide what size canvases to use for the triptic and have pretty much decided on three 18x18" squares.

I also will attempt to use a broken color theory and use a modified impressionist palette.  I love the colors and style of work by Connie Hayes and will be using her style for inspiration.  There is an excellent but long lecture that she did, which is streaming online, and accessible by way of the above link as well.

Photo Station

I've have a good leg up on cataloging my paintings.  I set up a photo station and am in the process of doing an inventory sheet to track artwork which includes a photo and all pertinent information.  I can only do this at night because, they say, that any daylight entering the room would have an adverse effect.  It's taking longer than I thought, doesn't everything?

Observations at Mass Audubon Society

Today at Joppa Flats Education Center, Lully Schwartz, Carol Reynolds and Joan Merrill will be hosting a reception at 2:30 for the opening of their show.  The show title "Observations" should be a feast for your eyes of water, grasses, sand and skies depicting the warmer seasons of the year.

1 Plum Island Turnpike
Newburyport, MA

RED, the play about Rothko in Boston

I liked the play last night about Mark Rothko.  RED

I am preparing to do a series of 4 large oil paintings (no connection with the above topic) soon in a contemporary impressionist style using an acrylic ground, and coincidentally, I received an email today from  Michael Chesley Johnson about that process "using a clear acrylic ground in oil painting".  


I am a confirmed oil painter but lately I need the expediency of using acrylic in some of my work.  When people say that oil is too slow, they could be referring to the fact that it doesn't slide on easily and quickly like acrylic does.  If you like to move the paint around quickly, oil doesn't do that unless you add too much medium to it which destroys the chemical makeup of oil paint.  As long as the oil paint is the last thing you apply, in other words, acrylic under, oil over, all is well.

NAA Reception Tonight

Two of my landscape paintings were juried in to the current Newburyport Art Association and the reception is tonight at 7.  If you are near Newburyport, by all means, come and see this new show.

I've been busy ordering stuff and my kitchen is full of boxes:  4 easels for my new classes, and 4 frames to fill out my inventory of 9x12's.  

More prep for my class and for Lully's

I met and had lunch with the members of BOB today, that's the Band of Brushes. Great to see everyone again. 

I've been trying to take photos to organize my ideas for Lully Schwatz's "series" class starting on the 18th of this month.  I need to paint 4 paintings in 4 weeks and I plan to work LARGE.  We'll see how that plays out!

I'm doing some prep for teaching my class starting in mid-March.  I've got a good start on the curriculum.  I made mini-flyers to distribute everyday that I can meet up with anyone who can spread information by word of mouth--they are business card size, and I have large flyers made with those tabs on the bottom that I can put on bulletin boards at locations nearby.  I also made of blog that will be private and interactive, hopefully the class members will be able to compute.  It's www.laDaVinciClub.blogspot.com and I will do a Facebook private group as well.

Boy Oh Boy, I hope I get people!  The class will be terrific, I know it, I can't wait!