Grizzly and Salmon

Grizzly and Salmon 6"x6" oil painting.

I had watched a documentary recently on the life cycle of the salmon but was always amazed at the dexterity the bears have at skinning and eating certain parts of the salmon.
 This bear shows his catch off just like a fisherman does.

Kistler Run, Pocono Mnts.

Kistler Run  5x7 oil

My brother Tom and I went to the Pocono's to do some fly fishing for trout. After all the rains we had the streams were running hard and high. The first stream (our primary stream) was to fast for safe wading with all the big rocks you have to traverse.

We went to out backup stream Tobyhanna Creek that was also running quick and high. Tom caught a nice brook trout but you could only wade so far, so we went to a smaller feeder stream that empties into the Tobyhanna.
Tom caught 3 or 4 brook trout from this area that a beaver had dammed up.

We went a little deeper into the forested section of the stream where I had caught 2 trout from one of the deeper pools. It was tight casting in this section of the stream.

I wanted to capture the filtered light that was present in the woods that day.That is what the painting is about.

Wild Turkey, Spring Gobbler oil painting

Wild Turkey  Long beard 6" x6" oil painting.  (SOLD)

I had shot video of this turkey at a bird feeder in a state park in the Pocono mountains.
In this painting I wanted to experiment with trying to capture the iridescence's of the turkeys feathers.

I  changed the lighting so it would show off the iridescence of the feathers and I also changed the setting to make it look like he wandered out of the woods to feed in  the field.

Fly fishing art,

I haven't posted anything in a while, I have been painting…. just not posting anything.
I find myself looking at finished paintings (or what I thought was finished) and seeing things that could be improved.
The painting below went through three different changes, I think this is the final version. This is one of the streams we fish in upsate Pa.

Young Womans Creek 11x14 oil

Still Life painting, Strawberries 6"x6"

Still Life Strawberries 6"x6" acrylic

I wanted to move away from the drab colors of winter and do something with a little punch for a change of pace.

Winter Fields at Tyler State Park

Winter Fields,Tyler State Park 16x20 oil

This is one of the local parks I like painting at. It has numerous trails you can walk that take you thru different habitat from open fields to areas of woods with a creek running thru.
This is that in-between time from late winter with the last remaining patches of snow and right before spring.

A cure for cabin fever

We had a break in the weather with temps in the 50's today so it gave me a chance to get out and enjoy the outdoors. I had tried getting out a few times when it was in the teens a few weeks back but it was just too cold. I didn't even get the sketches halfway done and my fingers were numb.
Today was pleasant compared to that so I walked the trails at Neshaminy State Park and found a couple compositions to paint.

It was great to be out again.

Red Roses repainted

8x10 oil

I repainted this piece recently hopefully for the better. Each year I learn a little more about painting which gives you the knowledge and confidence to tackle problems you face.

This painting I had for a few years and I thought it was ok at the time, but as time went on the more I looked at it the more I thought it could use some brighting up but I just didn't know what to do.  So I thought what does it hurt to experiment.
I made a middle value grey for the background from the red and the green I used in the roses and replaced a white cloth for the dark brown table top.
Now I think the painting has better color harmony to it.

Autumn nocturne

                   8x10 oil

This is one of the few painting I did this year with fall colors. I just painted it recently even though fall is long gone.This tree sits on the other side of our fence, I would see this tree lit under the street light and what caught my attention was how well you could see the colors in the tree at night.

This is the third try at getting this painting to look and feel the way I wanted it to.
 I wanted to keep the values close together but with just enough light to barely make out the other objects in the scene.

One night I did this quick 5x7 sketch looking out my window and left it out on the bookshelf to look at to help me plan the painting. It just took a few months to get the courage to do it (fear of failure).

Winter Landscape, Core Creek Park

We had some snow in early December so one day after work I stopped off at the park to see what it looked like in a blanket of snow.  I had about a half an hour before sunset and hoped to catch the last bit of sunlight on the snow. I used my camera phone to capture some scenes before the sun disappeared.
Its almost a game with me sometimes to try to find a paintable scene in a limited amount of time. Sometimes (a lot of times) I come up empty but when you hit it right its rewarding.

Winter landscape Core Creek Park 8x10 oil painting

Dusk Christmas Eve

Dusk Christmas Eve  8x10 oil painting

I wanted to capture a quiet peaceful mood of Christmas Eve. After weeks of the hustle and bustle of getting ready for Christmas a feeling of relief comes,  now its time to relax and enjoy Christmas.
Wishing everyone a safe and wonderful holiday season.

Pat and Maria

Sunrise Valley Forge National Historic Park.

I painted this from photos I took a couple years ago. I wanted to try to capture the feeling of the sun slowly rising lighting up the landscape.
I used a 12"x24" canvas to emphasize the long rolling fields found here.
The moon was setting as the sun came up.

(SOLD)

Falls Twp Park quick sketch before work

I had to be in work at 7:00 this morning so I had time for a 15-20 minute sketch. I used a 3.5"x5" piece of 300lb watercolor paper that was primed with grey gesso. I have a box of these in different sizes just for this purpose. At 6:30  I had paintable light even with the heavily overcast  sky, and it helps that this park is only 5 minutes from work so it makes it convenient to get a quick sketch in before heading to work.
The lights from the parking lot in the background added a bit of sparkle to the scene.

                                                                                           

Falls Twp. Park  11x14 oil 

This is the finished painting using the sketch and what I remember from this morning.

A little side story from this morning, when I arrived in the parking lot a white duck came running over looking for food from me which I didn't have.  I'm trying to hurry taking the paintbox and supplies out of my bag and all the while he is nipping at my hand and has his head buried in the bag looking for food. 

Moonlit Nocturne, Core Creek Park, 11x14 oil painting

                                       
Moon Over the Lake 11x14 oil

This was painted from one of the sketches I did on Sept 20 at Core Creek Park during the Harvest Moon.

  When attempting to paint at night a lot of my time  on location is spent just looking at and memorizing what is in front of me. After I lay out my paint and have brushes and everything ready I turn the light out on my easel and let my eyes adjust to the dark.  When my eyes have adjusted I start comparing the values of each object in the scene to see what is darker, lighter or the same value. I'm actually painting the scene in my mind before I pick up a brush, so when I start to paint I have the confidence to paint what I already know.

Back from upstate Pa.

My brother and I returned from our yearly flyfishing trip to upstate Pa.  We enjoyed some good trout fishing at the four streams we visited.

 I took my acrylics with me so I didn't have to worry about wet paintings up there.

The one set up I made was a piece of masonite with holes drilled in the four sides which I tape a piece of canvas to and a bungee cord for wrapping around a tree or in this case a clothes line pole, this takes the place of a tripod The moon was minutes from disappearing over the mountain at dawn and I had to hurry to catch some of it.

We had the full moon at night so I wanted to sketch the shadow pattens thrown by the trees

The temps were in the low 30s at night so we had the fire place going and it gave me a chance to sketch it.

I started a painting of the cabin we stay in, I'm going to put it aside for a bit and look at it with fresh eyes before finishing it.

And last,a video of a friend we see each year, Whitey the skunk. This guy is so friendly, we have seen him the last four years and always wonder if he made it thru another winter up there.

Night Painting the Harvest Moon, Core Creek Park

I went out to the park right before sunset to wait for the harvest moon to rise. I used two  8x10  reused (gessoed over) panels.

In the first sketch I still had a little bit of light left in the landscape where you could just make out colors. My concern though was capturing the values of the scene the best I could.

                                                                                          

                                                                                             

For the second sketch I went around to a different part of the park that would give me a view of  some water and the moons reflection.

As you can see in the picture I had my Mighty Bright light clamped on to my easel giving me enough light to see with.

Now I have some reference material to use for studio paintings that I have confidence in. I had taken photos too but they were useless, they just don't capture what the eyes really see.

Still Life Ice Tea and Lemon

Ice Tea and Lemon 5"x7" oil

I painted this during one of the the heat waves we had this year, I found it in one of the drying racks which are just dish racks, but work perfectly for keeping wet paintings separated. I have one rack for small paintings 5x7 to 8x10 and another for larger paintings 11x14 and up.

This started out as a practice piece to see if I could capture the barely recognizable tea bags sitting in the ice tea, then I became interested in the shadow and reflected light from the tea. I think I painted the lemon 3 or 4 times before it looked like a lemon.

The reason I found it is I periodically go thru paintings after they have been out of sight for a while and when I see them with fresh eyes the mistakes seem to stand out. I'll try to repaint them, if that doesn't work they get the gesso treatment. The paintings not good enough get coats of grey gesso made by mixing some black with the gesso, now I have panels ready for outdoor sketching, these plein air sketches  capture the essence of the scene when painting on location. Recycling the panels like this also  helps save money on buying panels for sketching.

Early Morning at the Lake

Maria Fishing 8x10 oil

This was from the same morning as the last post, I had just finished photographing the tree and as I was walking by I looked over to see how Maria was doing and noticed the way the light was hitting her from the left side making her stand out from the background.
I try to be inconspicuous when getting reference photos, sometimes it works and sometimes.......

I wonder if she knew what I was doing?

Tree of Love

6"x6" oil

I saw this tree while Maria and I were fishing Saturday morning. I can't tell you how many times I passed this tree and never noticed or wondered anything before but Sat. morning seeing the light reflecting off the grass and hitting the trunk made me take notice and suddenly I was aware of the multitude of initials carved into the trunk over the years.
I painted this from photos I shot, I was careful to get the right exposure for the shadowed area showing the reflected light and the carved initials.

Still Life oil painting

Scallions and Knife 6x8 oil

 I had an itch to do a still life this afternoon/ evening so the scallions I bought yesterday helped to complete the story.