Brushes with the Landscape

Here is the current state of the large charcoal of a nearby farm.  Below is the on location watercolor sketch and the very beginnings of this charcoal.  This drawing is relatively complete.  I'll do a little more work on the grass in the foreground, the sky,  and the pond in the mid ground but very few small adjustments. I've added the pond and the rock wall to the composition.  Not original to the location, but as I worked on the sketch the idea occurred to me and is something I've seen throughout many New England Farms - including one in my hometown of Westbrook, Maine, at a classmates family farm (Wormell's).  I hope to go back to paint the farm pond there sometime soon if it is even still in existance.   The pond in this drawing is another example of something that isn't there in reality, but is not so far out of place to be totally fictional or unrealistic. I'll set this aside once completed but later use it as the basis for an oil pai

I go through periods of time when, for a variety of reasons, I am not able to spend time out on location painting.  I crave it.   I can return to on location paintings from decades ago and be just as inspired today as I was at the time I painted it. Here is my latest on location sketch.  Last fathers day, I sneaked out in the morning and came upon this scene.  The light was very striking I did a quick pencil sketch in a larger fomat (pictured below) and painted this on a watercolor block. (note: The line you see on the right side of this sketch is simply the side of the paper that I'd squared out in advance... more important for works I plan to finish and frame) I did some quick experimentation in the studio this afternoon.  I began outlining the broad strokes of a large charcoal drawing of this scene utilizing the sketches made on location. Then I utilized tracing paper to try the placement of a tree sketched on location to this scene (The actual placement of th