Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Two on a Summer Afternoon





I painted these two on a warm June afternoon, trying to capture that unique summer sunlight. Notice the thunderhead peeking up over the trees in the top one. It turned into one of those intense summer storms with hail. You know, the ones that show up as a red blob on weather.com's satellite image.

The top image is 12" x 9" and the bottom is 6" x 6", oil on archival panel. If you are interested in purchasing either, email me or go to my Daily Paintworks gallery (see icon at top of this page).

Friday, June 15, 2012

Lucky




Carvin's Cove again. I'm lucky to be living near this beautiful lake.  

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Plein Air Still Lifes



Plein air still lifes are my favorite because of the challenge of creating a sensation of sunlight. I'm trying to create more casual arrangements, instead of formal compositions to give a feeling of the viewer being present.  This one is 12" x 12", oil on cradled hardboard, which means it does not necessarily need a frame.

Monday, March 26, 2012

Plein Air Workshop with Lee Boynton


I'm excited to be hosting artist Lee Boynton when he presents a 3-day Color and Light plein air workshop here in Roanoke in late June. Lee studied with Henry Henshe at Cape Cod School of Art and I thoroughly enjoyed taking one of his workshops last summer in Maine. Email me for printable copies of this flyer and an additional brochure, and if you have any questions And please spread the word about the workshop. Open to all levels. For more information, go to http://leeboynton.com/workshops.


About Lee Boynton:

The sea was the spawning ground for Lee’s art. He spent a lot of his childhood and youth “messing
around in boats” on Long Island Sound and along the coast of Maine. For fun, he would study the
works of Winslow Homer, Frederick Waugh and N.C. Wyeth, and yearned to paint the beauty and
drama of the natural world around him like his artistic heroes.

As an emerging artist, Lee spent hours sketching and painting the lobstermen and boatbuilders in
Maine. He saw these men, their boats and the sea as an intricate and colorful tapestry, just begging to
be painted. One of his first painting instructor gave him a copy of Hawthorne on Painting when he was sixteen years old. This was his first connection to the Cape School of Art in Provincetown, MA, where
he later studied with the renowned Impressionist Henry Hensche.

Henry introduced Lee to the idea that light has color and that the color of light changes hourly during the day as well as seasonally through the months of year. He impressed upon Lee the importance of painting convenient block studies in order to learn these effects. 

As a student of color, Lee began to discipline himself to paint the truth of what he saw before him. This exciting approach to seeing and painting color revolutionized his artistic direction. He took what he had learned in oil at the Cape School of Art and applied it to watercolor. In2004, Watson Guptill published Painting the Impressionist Watercolor, a book Lee co-authored with Linda Gottlieb, one of his longtime students. 

Lee is one of the founders of the Mid Atlantic Plein Air Painters Association. His oil and watercolor paintings have received top awards in east coats plein air painting competitions.

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Another High Key Still Life


White teapot on white fabric with clear glass...always fun. 8" x 8" on Ampersand gesso board.

High Key Still Life


One of my favorite challenges is a high-key composition, which means most of the values lean towards the light end of the scale, creating a sensation of strong light bouncing around, like sun coming through a kitchen window, or hitting objects on a table outside.  14" x 11" oil on Ampersand gesso board.

Another Small One


This was a lot of fun because of the transparency of the yellow bowl and the wonderful color combinations. 6"x 6" oil on Ampersand gesso board.