Our trip from upstate Pa

We had a good week even with the overcast weather all week except for Friday. We lucked out and had no rain except for Monday night. We caught fish at every stream we fished so that was good.

We visited our old campsite when we arrived.

There was still some fall color left along the streams.

The colors of the trout matched the colors of the landscape.

I did some painting in the mornings before we headed out to the streams.
This is a sketch from a small section of a Kousa dogwood tree with its spiked red fruits.

A quick sketch of the maple tree out back.

The one night there was a lull in the action spotting wildlife so I grabbed a knife block and set up a still life.

This painting I worked on over a couple of nights, it was from a painting trip with my brother Chris at a local park.

I couldn't forget about our nightly visitors.

A couple days outside

I got out a couple days last week to do some plein air painting but the weather has not cooperated lately. It seems like we have had our share of leaden skies and rainy weather and these two days were no different.

I settled on a view of a farmhouse at the end of a field because it made a good focal point because of the contrast it provided on this overcast day.

8x10  oil


I stopped off at Core Creek Park to look around and spotted some egrets in a backwater section of the lake. I pulled over where the best view is ( on the bridge) but traffic is buzzing by right next to you so I set up the easel on the passenger seat and did a quick 5x7 sketch

I did this 11x14 painting in the studio the next day.

My brother and I are going on our annual fly fishing trip this week to upstate Pa.
Here are some images from past trips.

Tom and jumping trout

Photographing the night sky

Spring Creek reflections

early morning

our campsite for the first 18 years

the walk back to the cabin after a day of fishing

Autumn oil painting

The Island 6"x6" oil

Maria and I went up the Poconos last weekend to view the autumn colors and do a little fishing at Promised Land State Park. This is a little island that sits in shallow water at the one end of the lake.

Autumn is approaching

Heavy Overcast  5"x7", oil

I stopped off at the park after work looking for something interesting to paint. The skies were heavily overcast all day with breaks in the clouds for the sun to sneak thru.
 I wanted to try to capture the mood of this cloudy day.

The sky kept changing as a new set of clouds came in to replace the one's that were just there. I waited till a good set came by that had some good contrast, fixed it in my mind and painted the clouds from memory.
The whole tree line looked dark with a few individual trees standing out from the rest.
I was supposed to be concentrating on the sky but got caught up in the tree line with a hint of autumn color.
It was great being out.