Wading

A new landscape, begun last summer as a plein air sketch and completed in the studio. The setting is a river in southwest Virginia. 

"Wading," oil on panel, 9x12

 

Art Center Sketch

This is a sketch of the Des Moines Art Center, from the northeast. Last Saturday many of our sketch group stayed at Greenwood Park, which is home of the Art Center. Architectural subjects are an interest of mine, and I've done a number of views of the buildings, mostly from the rose garden and other southern spots. 

"Des Moines Art Center," wc/ink on paper, ~13x5

You can see the Richard Meier building on the right side and the Saarinen building to the left. The latter was completed in 1948 and the Meier in the 1980s. I like the contrast and the seeming zoom of sidewalk into the center.

 

Morning, Afternoon, Evening

Painters in the past have done series of the same subject in order to delve into color, value and lighting--think, Monet's haystacks. A few years back I tried a few small series of sketches--usually three--in an attempt to do the same kind of study. The main point was to capture the light--color, intensity, shadow effects and all that--at different times of day, in oil paint. These were 6x8 gesso panels and there was a time limit of an hour, start to finish.

Ink

A bottle of pale blue ink fell on its side one day, so I painted it.
 

Silver Creamer

This casein sketch is one of a series of studies I did to learn the handling and other properties of casein paint. A silver creamer on a windowsill.
 

Clock and Two Bottles

And a Clock," casein on panel

This small still life is one of my first studio works using casein paint. Casein is a wonderful painting medium. This one enetered a private collection years ago.
 

Diner

"Nathans'," oil on illustration board

This oil is a view of a diner in Minneapolis.

Study and Finish

Like many painters, many of my studio works develop through a combination of observation, photos, on the spot studies, and so on. 

"MacDougal Street." digital sketch

Here's a digital study I did of  a street in New York. It's an intersection along Macdougal Street in Manhattan's West Village. The two places with signs are both famous for their clientele over the decades, including beatniks in the 1950s, and Bob Dylan a few years later. This digital study was done using Sketchbook and a Wacom tablet to explore colors, compositions, and so on. 

The resultant oil painting is considerably different, but clearly is a result of the study. The final oil is a tall and large work on canvas. As you can see, the color palette is considerably different, and the sky, background and pavement have been changed to suggest twilight. And of course the three figures have been significantly modified and repositioned.

"MacDougal Street," oil on canvas, 36x18