Stoping off in Charleston SC is a must for an artist traveling I 95 it's an hour off the highway but so well worth it.

When I was young I had a drawing book that the artist drew this scene, St Phillips Church. I found it and took some time to paint it.

There are many art galleries and a wonderful museum called the Gibbes Museum of Art. Check it out you will love visiting Charleston.

Sophie's Big Adventure

On the way north we decided to take a break from the road and just enjoy nature.

When you go out to paint leave the dog and the phone at home.

In my case I left the phone in the car and chained the dog next to my easel. She was a good girl and let me paint the whole time without critique. "Praise God"! Yes and those are the blocks on the picnic table. No I'm not gonna do a block study but I do like to decorate!

The block are the brightest thing out there. Nature is subtle we see color in the neutrals. Color green Warm green, ochers and reds.

Sketches

Here are my last two oil sketches of florida. They are studies to see if the composition has a good design. These two landscape scenes had a lot of green in them. Green is so hard because you can make the painting look unnatural by using green in the wrong way. Green has a lot of earth in it and it must express sunlight.

Portrait and color study

This winter I took a portrait weekend workshop with John Ebersberger. The one on the right was the color study. The left is the finished portrait. We first studied the color then we began constructing the head. Good thing we had only an hour to study the color otherwise I would have put all the features in and destroyed the color. I am no portrait artist that's for sure. I think studying the head is so helpful to understanding the forms we see in the landscape. The same way we study the head we can study trees, water and sky.

For some reason I was so busy drawing and studying the forms of the head I lost control of the color in the finished painting. When you are studying and drawing you loose somethings and gain something else. I guess that's why Charles Hawthorne told his students to separate the drawing from the painting. Oh well, I really enjoyed learning more about constructing the portrait and getting to know everyone in the class. It's lonely being a landscape painter it's something you do mostly alone.

Coconut Creek

Here is my Sketch from today. It has a circular compositional arrangement which I love. I also limited my pallet so that I can get more of a harmony in the greens. I am experimenting with limiting the pallet for my upcoming Yarmouth Port Art Guild workshop in April.

Here are two paintings I started this weekend they are sketches, done with a brush

Here we are Painting the outside portrait. Charles Hawthorne had his students paint children on the beach. They affectionally called Mudhead, due to the fact most of the children where Portuguese and had dark skin. Hawthorne wanted his student's to study them as big silhouettes against the sky. So that they would see the fundamental thing of the big color shape, without rendering eyes nose lips and the planes of the head.

Great exercise for color and you don't need to be a portrait painter to do it!

I studied painting with Joanette and Cedric Egeli they are very good for learning this procedure.

I think I will set up some of these for my workshop this summer. It will be fun and helpful way to see the big darks and lights.

Elgin Lane

Two different painting approaches

Here are two examples of different painting approaches. The first of the Stock Island at Hogfish, is an example of "notan" (laying in the dark passages first, Then painting the middle tone, and then last is the shock of light.

The second is a typical "Cape School" approach. This approach is massing in one color next to the other color and developing the painting by color notes and their variations.

The first one of the boats is also done with brushes. The painting of the conch house is done strictly with a painting knife.

I find it helpful to try painting with different approaches as an exercise and hopefully growing in my ability to paint.

There I am in the top right with my vicious guard dog Sophie. She make friends with everyone, even if they don't like my painting we are still friends because she wins the day by rolling on her back and showing us her belly!

Poorhouse Lane

Mike Rooney, has a very effective way of laying in the darks and setting up a value painting based on the "Notan". Here is the painting I did using Mike's method. I think it's very effective and it really gives the painting a strong design. This is different than the cape school approach that I have been using for years. I feel that growth is inevitable when you try new things and open yourself up to new ways of seeing.

Here is a simple block Study.

I love to paint blocks because they are simple and you can study the color without worry of judging it too harshly. It's something I do for me to help me be a better painter.

Usually I set up the blocks and then put one color down on the board. Then I might mix another color into that mass on the board. Always remember to keep your painting knife clean and mix on the board never on the pallet. It will help your study and keep good clean pure color notes.

Key West Morning and Afternoon Paintings

These are two paintings I'm currently working on. The first is on Georgia street and is an afternoon painting. The second is a morning painting on a little lane called Eligan Lane.

These are more developed paintings that I have decided to take my time, exploring the variations of the color masses.

When we learn blocks at the Cape Cod School of Art we learned mostly how to do starts. I recommend starts to everyone the more starts you have the better your color and design is going to be. After a while you will want to carry your study further.

Henry Hensche taught about the variations of the mass. This was the way the painting develops by taking the simple color masses and developing them. Hensche said the time to stop working on your study is when you can't see anymore color changes or you can't see more variations within the mass.

For many years I struggled with maybe working on a painting two maybe three times. Mostly because I wanted to hurry up and sell the damn thing.

I'm still broke, but I take my time working on the masses of color because I know this is the only way to get better color and improve the painting. I learned a lot about this from John Ebersberger, who comes to Provincetown for a few weeks in the summer.