Still Painting

I'm still working on this one.  This landscape painting is definitely challenging (I think I'm getting lost in the clouds), but after adding some sharp lines to the river and clouds, I am getting more comfortable with it.  I'm also working on another one simultaneously.  My goal is to have them both done by Monday.  Then I will be working on finishing up some other ones before the year ends and doing a review of my paintings in 2010, many of which I have never posted.  Stay tuned!

Studio Session- New Painting, Potomac River Skyscape

Here is a new painting I started last night on a large toned canvas.  I am using photographs I took recently (while in the passenger's seat) of the Potomac River looking at Washington DC.  The painting is going well so far, but I'm obviously not done yet.  I worked really fast, probably due to the fact that I had an unusual amount of coffee for that time of night for me.  Usually I work in the morning, so I needed help painting at night.

I am thinking about "passages" while painting this one, especially as I complete it.  I want to make sure the blue sky can flow through the clouds easily so it does not get caught in them and that the viewer has a place where they can "enter" the painting.

New Painting: Skyscape from the Highway

Here is the painting I did this week, still working on a title.  This landscape painting is inspired by photos I took while driving (I know, it's a bad habit...) on 295 to see my sister a few weeks ago.  The clouds were so beautiful all along the way I just couldn't help but stare at them the whole way to Baltimore.  I always feel like the sky is talking to me, urging me to paint it.  It seems to automatically arrange itself in such a perfect composition when I happen to be looking at it.  A lot of the time it is when I am driving, so I always pray for traffic when it is especially beautiful so I can stop and stare.  And maybe take some pictures for later...

Recent Happenings

Sunset Over the Rooftops, Portsmouth, 2009, oil
Recent painting exhibited in Celebrating Movement

I just bought a new camera and have lots of new work to show.  This week, I had a small painting of mine in a show, "Celebrating Movement" at The Del Ray Artisans Gallery in Alexandria, Virginia.  The show just ended Sunday, but I found out my painting sold (my first!).  November 2010 I had the privilege of participating in another show, "Blue", also at the DRA, and I painted 3 large paintings.  I just finished one this past Monday and I am feeling really good about them.  I can feel myself developing as an artist, really finding my niche.  You will see the difference in my style when I put up photographs of my paintings in the next few days.  Thanks for  reading!

Current Work- Website

These past couple of months I have been making art, but I am trying to set up a website for myself and somehow embed the blog into it, and it is still in progress. I will post here until the site is completed. Lately I have been busy with new painting projects and sending off my work to different exhibition opportunities.

The Newport Paintings: Part II

This one I painted during the day. Again, this landscape painting features Newport Harbor, and is 5 x 7" done in oil on canvas board. This is another view from where I stayed looking to the bridge and Goat Island. The U.S. Naval War College is on the other side of the bridge. I would sleep with my windows cracked, although it was cool at night. This way I could hear them play the National Anthem at dawn, and Taps at night. I did not mind waking up so early. It was beautiful the way the water was so deserted that the sound carried over the Harbor. I chose analogous shades of green and blue to represent the brightness and crispness of the day in Newport.

Check back on Monday for my third painting in this series.

The Newport Paintings: Part I

Here is the first of the 3 landscape paintings I painted entirely en plein air while I was in Newport, Rhode Island a few weeks ago. This one is an Impressionist 5 x 7" small oil painting on canvas board. In all three, I featured Newport Harbor as my subject, as we were staying right on the edge of it, and it was quite comfortable to sit outside and paint these small ones.

This painting was done at dusk on my first day in Newport. I felt relaxed, but filled with anticipation as I thought of all the beauty I would be sure to see in the next week. The sun slid behind the other side of the harbor, turning the sky orange, and lit up the harbor water until it turned a very light yellow. The homes across the way at Goat Island are deserted until the season begins. A lone sailboat is docked in the harbor, waiting patiently for its owner to come back as the day slips away with the sun.

Check back tomorrow for my next painting in the Newport series.

New Painting: Semi-Abstract Landscape of Sunset

Here is what I've been working on this past week. This oil painting is yet another view of the Newark, Delaware Reservoir. It is 18 x 24 inches on stretched canvas, part of the series I am currently working on every day.


I chose Cadmium Red and Alizarin Crimson to be the stars of this painting. It seems like the brighter springtime weather in DC calls for a brighter color palette.

This painting was giving me a lot of trouble at first. I wanted to try something new and it just did not satisfy the painting in my head, so I left it when I went to Newport and returned to it when I got home. Now I am very happy with the result because it incorporates how I am feeling now and how the Delaware landscape made an impact on me 4 years ago when I took these reference photographs.

Newport, RI Cliff Walk and Childe Hassam

Here are some photographs from the Cliff Walk in Newport I took a few days ago. The Cliff Walk is a great path on the Atlantic Ocean side of Newport, that parallels the mansions. Though the mansions were stunning, I was more interested in the rocky coastline. I had never seen anything like it in New England, let alone the East Coast. It looked like something from another country, or the West Coast.




Now I understand better what American Impressionist Childe Hassam painted. He was constantly painting the rock ledges of New England.


I adore the way Hassam paints. He is one of my favorite artists of all time. I wrote a paper on him in college in which I suggested that the rocks he painted were symbols of the permanence of American tradition. They are massive and unchanging to me, although the landscape is always changing around them.


You will be sure to see future paintings inspired by the Newport Cliff Walk and the rock ledges on the coast. I have been working on 3 small paintings on canvas board here, all of the Newport Harbor. I will post them soon after I return to Virginia.

Newport, Rhode Island

I am currently visiting Newport, RI for Easter weekend and for the next couple of days. Although I heard the weather in Washington was amazing this past weekend, I wanted to get away with my family for a bit to explore a new place.



April is the off-season, so as you can see from the photographs of Newport Harbor, the docks are empty of of seafaring folks. Despite this fact, Newport is beautiful this time of year. Every day has brought good weather, with different skies and dazzling colors each day.

Beautiful Landscape: Cherry Blossoms in Washington DC

I took the Metro in and spent Saturday at the Tidal Basin in Washington DC, for the first day of the 98th Annual National Cherry Blossom Festival. Every year I go and it is more beautiful (and a lot colder) than I remember from previous years. I don't spend enough time appreciating the landscape of DC, so this is always a great opportunity to take a look around and appreciate the beauty all around me. I think I walked about 5 miles all over the city. Every time I go I get a renewed sense of pride in being from the DC area. It really is a nice city, but I believe it is under appreciated. While I love to travel and adore all the different landscapes that make up America, I do love home.

Here are some more photographs I shot for inspiration, maybe even for future semi-abstracted landscape paintings:

Dreaming of Old Lyme

Everyone here in the DC area has Spring Fever! Like them, I'm waiting with great anticipation for the cherry blossoms to bloom, but I am also dreaming of the summer in Old Lyme, Connecticut. During a meeting I was doodling some of my favorite scenes that I have committed to memory:

Current Paintings in Progress

I'm coming back on my hiatus from my first year of teaching art, and have several works in progress. Though I am busy as ever, I am trying to get on a regular painting and posting schedule again. Here is a glimpse of what I am working on now: