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Lift          Oil on birch panel    9 x 12″    unframed but ready to hang $250

Not long ago I did a cloud painting from our porch.  When I’d finished it I thought it wasn’t very interesting and then I remembered that I had (pre-digital) photos  from the Quechee balloon festival about 17 years ago.  So I just painted the balloons on top of the clouds.  The background clouds in the photo actually looked a lot like the clouds I’d already painted.

Inspired by Monty Python

Larches and Lupines  oil on masonite   unframed   $100

Here’s a painting of the back slope behind our house.  I painted the larches  (“The Larch” <)  and then remembered that there was also a reference to lupines in a MP episode (“Give me all your lupines!”).  So I tucked in a few lupines growing further up the hill.   Well, it amused me…..

In the Garden

Ned’s Garden   oil on birch panel  9 x 12″  unframed but ready to hang  $200

The garden of a house on the Strafford green looks out over beautiful fields.  A friend and I parked ourselves under a huge  tree and spent a lovely morning in the shade.  We don’t have a long growing season here but in the summer growth and bloom are explosive.

And here in California we spent a day at the Getty Museum–wonderful collection and gorgeous site.  We went years ago right after it opened and didn’t remember that there were so many good paintings.  They  have several by wonderful  Chardin as well as enchanting works of Oudry, Tissot and Sweerts who’ve never made much of an impression on me before. And of course the many Rembrandts were amazing.   I would have liked to see more contemporary work but apparently there are restrictions.    The Dutch landscapes gave me  a  chance to study clouds as well.    We also went on an interesting local “art crawl.”  At a gallery that has shown David Hockney we saw huge pieces that were highly textured monochromes.  Maybe someday I’ll get some acrylic gel and play around with heaping up mounds and valleys.  I do approach museums and galleries very selfishly, looking for ideas I can use.

Morning Clouds

Morning Clouds  oil on birch panel 9 x 12″ unframed but ready to hang  $250

Here’s the second painting I did this season when a friend and I went to a spot high above the village.  I was mainly after clouds and to my great delight there were plenty.  Often in the summer  clouds don’t appear until late morning but this time they were there at 9:00 and stayed until I left a couple of hours later.   Clouds are constantly moving so the best you can do is to slap down some basic shapes and use similar forms as the painting proceeds.  I really like the green patches in a vista like this, the combination of trees and open fields.

First Day Out

Cottage and Barn  oil on birch panel 9 x 12″  unframed but ready to hang   $200

I’ve been working and reworking some very large cloud paintings for a show next summer so I haven’t had much to blog.  Finally the weather warmed up enough to get outside and this is the first plein air piece I did this season.  Now we’re visiting our son, daughter-in-law  and handsome new grandson in California.     At last have a fast connection for the next 10 days and can post more easily.

The painting is of a cottage and barn situated on a stream behind the Strafford townhouse.  The morning was beautiful and once I got set up in the shade I had a good time  working on it.