As many of you know,  I came to Apalachicola, Florida on Dec. 21.  I painted two paintings before I developed some serious health problems.  I'll spare you the ins and outs of how they eventually found out what was causing them and go straight to the sequence of events. In late January, I developed breathing problems, and on Jan. 29th went to the emergency room in Apalach.  They decided to send me by ambulance to a hospital in Tallahassee.  I was admitted in critical condition. They discovered I had a blood infection in my heart.  They back=tracked my symptoms and eventually traced it all b ..read more

I'm back in my winter location, Apalachicola, Florida.  With packing, driving, unpacking, and Christmas,  I haven't had much time to think about painting.  But now things are starting to slow down.  To ease back into it, I did what I always do:  I got out my sketchbook.  Since it was Christmas, I thought it appropriate to sketch a church.  The Catholic church has an interesting bell tower, so here is the result. Merry Christmas to all!  And a Happy New Year ..read more

                                      "Assisi Hillside"  I was browsing through old slides of my trips to Europe, and found this view of Assisi, Italy.  I was struck by two things:  the obliques in the scene and the towers that interrupted the obliques.  Three towers and one dome interrupt the dark line of the background hillside.  The light shape formed by the buildings are also surrounded by midtones that highlight the building shapes.   I also considered the colors of the buildings and decided to contrast them with the quieter areas of foliage.  Since I knew that much of the foliage woul ..read more

                                     "Woodpile" Lately I've returned to a favorite subject of mine:  trees.  I found an old photo of a woodpile in my neighbor's woods in Maine.  Color became the primary challenge.   The color choices are mainly the complementary colors of yellow and violet.   Note the shadows on the cut side of the logs.  In the past, I might have chosen one value for all of them.  By making half of the shadows darks and the other half midtones, there is more variety.  There is also a chance to gradate the colors to indicate the reflected light.   I'm out of paper (on ord ..read more

A friend in Maine takes a daily walk and posts photos of her surroundings.  In her photo of a marsh, there was only one lone pine tree.  Also there was no mountain range behind the trees.  I also needed something added to give a little life to the scene.  I considered a canoe or rowboat, but decided that would bring attention to the water.  I wanted the viewer to look at the pine tree.  I added a couple more trees for balance and then decided that some hawks would add some interest to the trees. A very simple scene.  Study the background trees for changes in value and color.  Also avoid a ..read more

In composing this painting, I looked through my photos of Florida for more material to continue my tree series.  I found a photo of a banyan tree in Naples, Florida.  I liked the tree, but as you can see, it was in a parking lot.  So I went back to my photo file of Selby Gardens in Sarasota, Florida to look for another element to include.  The thatched hut seemed like an interesting choice.  It provided a balancing feature in the background without detracting from the main subject which is the tree. The figures added a bit of animation to the scene as well. When using photos, you are unli ..read more

Most painters of watercolors adhere to the notion of painting from light values to darker values.  There is a special concentration on saving the lightest values.  This leads some to believe that the darker tones can be applied directly on white paper since the first light washes would be covered up anyway. This painting illustrates my approach to getting to the darks by building up layers of color.  The first wash influences the second wash and the second wash influences the third wash, thus creating something in common throughout the shape.   This approach involves some patience because ..read more

As I've said many times, I look for ways to frame my focal point.  Foreground shadows are often the answer.   In my previous post, I explained the combination of several photos to arrive at the final composition.  When I started to paint this though, I wanted to emphasize the shadowy foreground.  The mid-ground uses a spotlight effect with its light values and warmer tones.  I kept the sky and distant trees cooler and a bit darker to contrast the narrow strip of light, warm values. All of the textures are in the foreground as well.  The sky and background trees are preserved as shapes and ..read more

On a trip to Selby Gardens in Sarasota, Florida with my friend and playwright Connie Schindewolf, I fell in love with this gumbo limbo tree.  I took several photos of it and the surrounding area.  In one, I liked the photo of the tree.  In another, I saw some tourists posing.  And finally I liked the house in the background.  I borrowed something from all three photos, and came up with this composition. My point is, don't feel bound by one photo.  Use elements from several shots to form a composition that works ..read more

                                   "Wharfside #3" After a month of not painting and re-adjusting to life in St. Louis, I finally got my brushes wet again.  It's a bit intimidating after such a long break, and there's a bit of fear that maybe I've lost my mojo.  How to solve that problem? I decided that I would pick up where I left off with a dockside scene.  Familiarity breeds confidence! Color choice became my first and major concern.  I resorted to a tried and true process that I used many times this summer.  I chose to make my focal point a warm pinkish tone.  That meant that my first w ..read more