9" x 12" oil on board
Strickler Knob is a great but difficult hike that involves a lot of rock-hopping - not great for little kids or dogs, but the views are spectacular. The gap in the mountains is Route 211 near Luray, VA.
Would my paintings be better if I didn't do them on Friday night after a grueling week of teaching and little sleep? Maybe...
6" x 6" oil on board
I like this painting and it was fun to paint. I painted over an old painting, which is always satisfying, especially when it's a terrible painting as was the case here - a muddy old painting of sardines in a bowl.
It's tough not to fall into the trap of painting "things." Things, meaning trees, mountains, individual leaves, etc. When you're painting "things" a painting is much more likely to become muddy and dead.
What I like about this painting is that instead of painting "things" I suggested them with shapes, color temperature, and values. I'm always afraid that my judgement is completely wrong but to me, this reads mountains and trees with light on snow just as much or more than a photo-realistic painting does. The longer I paint and the more I study painting, the more I prefer paintings that are abstract and a little mysterious - paintings that force the viewer to make his or her own conclusions.
11" x 14" oil on board
These flowers were a Valentine's gift for my wife, Sarah, but I'll admit that I had this painting in mind when I bought them. I bought a nice bottle of wine and made a lobster dinner, too, so it wasn't totally selfish. I may still make some changes to this because the background colors distract a bit from the flowers.
One more thing: It seems I did not know how to spell bouquet before this post. In addition to making a dumb grammatical mistake on Instagram when I posted this involving duel vs. dual, I just realized that I spelled bouquet incorrectly.
12" x 12" oil on board
I like the way this turned out, considering how it started. This is another one from the Seldom Seen property that I visit out in Highland County, VA. To get to the hidden hollow, you have to hike up and over a small mountain. I did this with all my painting gear on my back - no big deal...this was during Virginia's first real cold snap back in early January and deep in the mountains with no urban radiational heating, it was cold! My poor dog Rainey, faithful as she is, sat by my side the entire time. I could tell she was getting cold and on top of that, she had munched down on some cow pies and wasn't feeling her best. I was getting cold too, so I reached a point where I thought I could head back to the cabin and touch it up there (although I forgot to take a reference photo). But, once I had everything packed up, I realized the painting wouldn't fit in my panel carrier. That meant I had to carry the painting back down the small mountain in my hands without dropping it, which I did...Until I got to the cabin door and a gust of wind blew it out of my hands and onto Rainey's back. Rainey was covered in paint and my painting was scratched up and covered with dog hair. I picked out the hair, but it took a few weeks to get around to fixing it up. I tried to build on the colors that were there and since I didn't have a reference photo, it was mostly by feel. I did leave a small patch of scratchiness in the lower left just because.
8" x 8" oil on board
The plan was to practice and explore with this one, but I wound up liking it, so here it is. One idea that I'm trying to keep in mind moving forward is that shadows are not opaque. When I look at some of my older paintings, the shadows are black, opaque (ugly), curtains and in real life, that's not the case - shadows are transparent. So I'm trying to build shadows through layers of transparent paint, allowing the lower layers and even the toned board to peek through. If I did anything right with this one, it's that. I particularly like the shadow in the lower right, which is my house.
12" x 12" oil on board
I had a day and night by myself at the cabin in McDowell, VA before my friends met me the next morning. It was glorious - I spent the day hiking around and painting. This is the second painting I completed. I'm still working on the other one but it should be up soon.
I painted the first draft of this as the sun was setting behind me to the left, and I had to quit before it got too dark. It was also the first really cold weather of the year and even though I was painting next to the fire and warming myself with bourbon, it was still damn cold.
The bourbon also tricked me into thinking the painting was finished, which led me to post it, prematurely, on Instagram. I took it down a couple of days later after I realized it needed some touching up. I've also had Jon Redmond's voice in my head, telling me to "finish" my paintings and make them more interesting, so I spent quite a bit of time on this at home. Of course, I forgot to take a reference photo, so I had to build on the colors that were there and do a lot of things by feel. I even pulled up the location on Google Earth to see if the shadows were created by ridges or clouds - I thought they were ridges, and they were. Here's the fire I painted beside and I posted the original just because. Painting by the fire with a cup of Knob Creek might be the ultimate freedom.
