Brushes with the Landscape

Incoming Storm - Sebego Lake Acrylic 18"x 24" This acrylic was painted on location at Harmon's Beach Sebego Lake, Maine many falls ago.  I can remember the day like it was yesterday.  I used a heavy french easel which I had to prop against a tree to keep it from being knocked over by the strong wind gusts. It was so cold, that when I finished painting, I couldn't drop the paint brush, I needed to remove it from my right hand with my left. I was focused on the water and sky, amazed at all the colors that we often think of a simply a grey day.  Like any painting I look at later, there are some things that I would do differently now, but i was and still am pleased with the effort.  I captured things that I could never have imagined because it was painted start to finish on location (en plein air). When I look at this today, I am transported back to that moment in time.  I can hear the crashing windblown surf, and feel and hear the howl of the wind and the s

Androscoggin River Sketch 2 Acrylic on Paper This sketch was executed rapidly, like most of my paintings.  A pattern in most of my on location work or series studio work is a trend toward abstraction in my third or later paintings in a day.  Sometimes caused by vanishing light.  At other times caused by the beauty of the abstract patterns and color combinations in nature itself. My preference is toward the impressionistic, but more often than not, I'm simply trying to capture the emotion or mood of a moment in time.  The shadows of the trees on the far shore juxtaposed with the light reflections and color patterns in the water were what drew me to this scene.  I also enjoyed experimenting with different blues to achieve warmer and cooler shadows and greens on the far bank and in the reflections. Below are two other abstractions - the one immediately below done on location more than twenty years ago.  This was executed at the end of a day of exploring in and a