White Iris  12"x4" oil on canvas.

This is one of the Iris's in my wife's garden.  I like the way they grow and wanted to balance their form within the canvas. I  thought about the 4"x12" canvas I had on the shelf and decided to try that.

I  painted this in the yard but lost the sunlight as I got a quarter of the way into it. I was not happy with the result so I took it inside and did some experimenting with the background and then adjusted the shades of white on the iris.

Nature Photographer

I painted in the tripod for Phil's camera and can call this painting finished. I toyed with the idea of putting deer in the fields but decided against it.  This is a 11"x14" oil painting.

Moonlit Nocturne

This was painted from sketches done from one of our trips upstate. What interested me was the cloud formations passing in front of the moon. The original scene was a wet gravel road leading into the park. The damp road had a barely visible reflection of the moon on it. I switched a small stream (which I have an addiction to)  for the road so the reflection would read better.

We have no cell phone service up there but there is a pay phone at the entrance to the park so we arrange with our wives to call at a certain time at night so we can talk about each others day and make sure everything is ok at home.  While I was waiting for my turn at the phone it gave me time to look around and sketch this scene.

My brother and I have been going up there for the last twenty four years and never tire of this place. And as an artist there is always something new to catch my interest because nothing is ever the same. A brief rain shower before we came down to the phone provided a scene that stimulated my senses.

On The Easel

This is a painting of Phil, one of my brothers. We like going to Valley Forge National Park to  photograph the wildlife and the diverse landscapes found there. Our day usually starts right before sunrise as we set up waiting for the sun to rise. After getting photos of the sky we head out looking for wildlife.
This area of the park we were up on a hill looking down at the big expanse of fields that are sometimes filled with deer.
I like to step back and watch Phil in action as he goes thru the motions of selecting lenses, figuring out exposures and looking for the right shot.
I still have to put in his tripod, but I wanted to wait for the background fields to dry a little.

The top photo of Phil is a favorite of mine, we saw this big buck on the way in and had to work our way around to position ourselves to get a photo of him.