April Sky Study

 oil on panel  6" x 8"

  The thing about painting in the field, alla-prima, is the terrible battle between what is actual and what one is able to latch onto as everything changes. After all, we are trapped by gravity on a spinning ball of rock and dirt and water as it hurtles through the vast and cold space! The planet is spinning so fast we can't comprehend it and every living thing is struggling through its life cycle and straining to gain nourishment and warmth from the sun's light. It is a mess out there. The primary business of making a painting 'out there' is to try to grab a moment of the real during a process that takes an hour or two, or more - compressing that time and distill the essence of that time frame into that chosen moment. The stuff of physicists, philosophers, and poets - but in visual form having the capacity to delight and transcend. Wow! So, here is an attempt at such magic - just looking up on a glorious day and attempting the impossible.

Overhang

  oil on canvas  14" x 18"

Art is the means we have of undoing the damage of 

haste.  It's what everything else isn't.  Theodore Roethke

Well, as often is the case, the poet has said it all. I haven't posted in a few days - we were up in Western Maryland last week and we went hiking around Swallows Falls. All along the hike there were these rock formations hanging above us - dramatic and fascinating. Here's the first in a series - hope they're what everything else isn't.

Afternoon Fields, April

  oil on panel  7" x 10"

Sometimes a day so wonderful just brings you to a sense of how lucky one is to be alive, in this time, in this place. On this glorious day, standing before my easel in the field, it was like living in the middle of Beethoven's 'Pastoral', what could be better?

April Creek

  oil on panel  7" x 9"

Got this one between rainy days and the sky just won't give over to a clear day. This little creek is one I have painted from several different spots over the years. We have had years when the whole thing just dries up and thin puddles of trapped water get stagnant while sand and rocks dry out in the sun. It seems that after this winter's snow and rain she's recovered (after four years) and the blue herons are back as well. Being aware of the rhythm of nature and the smallest changes are one of the benefits of being a landscape painter - everything is a possibility and so I'm always looking and imagining - makes for interesting driving on these dirt roads. 

April 6th, On The Way To John's

 oil on panel 7" x 12 1/2"

On a chilly, breezy April day I found this spot on a back road just shy of the West Virginia line. When I was setting up my paint box in the bed of my truck the couple that farms this place drove up and stopped and asked me what I was up to. I told them it was so pretty there I was going to try and make a painting. They said OK and drove on down to the farm house. A little later a truck stopped on and the driver came over to see what I was up to and commented - he seemed to like it.  By that time the breeze had changed to a steady wind and I had to hold the paint box with my left hand to keep it steady while painting with my right. Just another joyous day outside trying to come to grips with a painting.

Early Spring Afternoon

 oil on panel 7 1/2" x 9 3/4"

I was heading out to the studio to gather up my kit and hike down our quiet dirt road, to find a spot from which to paint. I was taken by the yellow forsythia and my old aluminum row boat with its faded blue cover. That boat I will take out on the middle Potomac river and throw down my homemade anchors near the shade of a river island and work the shadow and light into some sort of paintings. In 1875, Monet had moved his growing family out of Paris up along to a rural village along the Seine. He made a series of paintings of the construction of a bridge; piles of lumber, the superstructure going up, the view downstream from under the bridge. Seeing a picture of Monet painting on the Seine in a small boat rigged up as a studio inspired me to buy this boat. In these early paintings, he wasn't yet the colorist painting the haystacks or the cathedral facade, in these works he worked boldly with slabs and shapes of paint in descriptive color and capturing the luminescence of the river in changing light. Though I've only seen these paintings once at a retrospective at the National Gallery, they remain my favorites, except perhaps the late, huge paintings of water reflections and lily pads. So, as I set up in the side yard and built this little spring painting, I kept the memory of those paintings in mind and maybe also my image of the artist himself, working along the river, reveling in the light and the paint.

Morning Sky, April First

  oil on panel  8" x 10"

The day started with patches of sharp blue peeking through big, wet clouds, so I strapped up and hiked down the road to a small turn-in along a farm field. As one tries to catch a swirling, moving sky, speed and memory and flexibility are most important. You can get set up and begin as the sky you loved stretches and runs and skitters away - but you can follow along with it and use visual clues to anchor down the first impression - even as the whole thing dissolves or (in this case) fills in. as I reached some kind of conclusion the sky covered over metal gray, the wind came up from a breeze to a stiff breeze and I realized it was only about 40 degrees out there - the pack up and hike back up the hill was made in record time.

March Marsh

 oil on panel  9" x 13"

March Marsh, March Marsh, bet you can't say that ten times fast.  

There is a wonderful book in a series, "Monet By Himself". Its a compilation of his letters and selections of his paintings and at least half of the letters deal with his difficulties with the weather and how it affects his work. This Spring's weather has brought me to understand these difficulties more deeply. The weather has been much colder than normal and it seems every day begins overcast and clears and clouds over again. Don't get me wrong, it is my joy to paint out in the field - but this spring is testing me. Then a day comes and you get a good light and no wind and things are looking terrific -  and every where I go is posted 'no tresspassing' or with stone walls right up on the on the roadside so that no one could stand there and no place triggers a compelling visual moment and my doubts creep in as I push my truck around these dirt roads aimlessly.    And then a discovery.   A place that is a frayed edge, a place no one cares for enough to post or wall in and the light and space is magic once more, even with the steady noise of traffic nearby or the pink flags marking the land for the coming bulldozers. For a compressed moment all is visual exploration and the struggle to find and process understanding and form.
The joy is returned. 

Early Spring Cedar

        oil on panel  7 1/2" x 11"

I have rigged up a backpack with my new small paint box and brushes and everything else I might need, so I might hike in to places where my pick-up truck won't or can't go. So this is a first - this painting was made just a short hike down our dirt road to a little section of a farm that borders a tangle of undergrowth and wild cherry, oak, and maple trees. The cedars scattered along the fence line are deep green against the red and gray and tans of the just starting to bud woods. I carried my whole kit in my pack and it worked out nicely - the little 9" x 12" Guerilla Paintbox performed well.  Can't wait to hit the trails along the Blue Ridge Mountains with my new set-up.

Fence Line, March 22

March Fence Line

 oil on panel  7" x 10"

Just an overgrown fence line at the edge of the woods on the first day of spring. The rain was approaching and the trees in the background were beginning to show signs of budding. I'm pretty sure the vines on the fence greened up during the time it took to make the painting.

Early Spring Sunset

 

Early Spring Sunset

 oil on panel 6" x 8"

A fallow field just beginning to show some green and the rain storm starting to be pushed off by a brisk northwest wind - all these elements conspired to give me a brief chance at bringing the space and structure within my grasp. The wondrous thing about such an image is that it requires absolute speed and focus without any of the devilish analysis that can paralyze.  These kinds of paintings must be a leap of faith, just trust your instincts and go for it. 

Wood Pile

Wood Pile

 oil on panel  8" x 11"

The hard slanted light of early March falling across the sections of a downed tree - a jumbled line of shadow and light that seems to catch the essence of this day. Spring is coming despite a call for snow this coming Monday - we're hoping for the crocus to show any time now.