Before the Storm, Galveston

oil, 24x36" SOLD

A year ago, we spent a week in Galveston, TX, with family.  The week was great, though the weather was not.  It was foggy and rainy for much of the visit.  But that didn't stop the kids from wanting to play at the beach every day!  On our last day there, a storm came rolling in.  We watched the clouds gather as the kids ran in the tide and collected shells and other flotsam.

In this painting, I wanted to capture the setting sun as it cut through the fog, the turbulent clouds coming in, and the reflections of those clouds across the wet sand.

Spring Tulips and George Washington Statue, Boston Public Garden

oil, 54x36"

We lived in Boston for five years, across the street from the Boston Common and Public Garden.  I walked through each space nearly every day and now I miss seeing the swan boats, the statues, and how the landscape changed with the seasons.  The George Washington statue was always surrounded by tulips in the spring.  Some years they were white, some yellow.  This particular year (2006, I think) they were a stunning red.

At nearly five feet tall, this is my largest painting to date.  And my favorite.

Subiaco, Italy

oil, 20x10"

Five years ago, I had the opportunity to travel to Italy and Germany for two weeks to explore the history of St. Benedict and learn about the monastic order that founded St. John's University.  We stayed in the town of Subiaco, where the very first Benedictine monastery was formed.  The tower at the top of this painting encompasses the cave where Benedict lived as a hermit for three years 1500 years ago.  The structures surrounding the space have been built up over the centuries since.

It was a magical trip with a group that would quickly become dear friends.

Raspberry preserves

Oil on panel, 12x9"

I never thought that I would like raspberry jam, but this stuff makes a delicious PB&J.  

Red bell pepper

Sliced red bell pepper, oil 12x9" SOLD

Recently, my mom was over for dinner.  While making a salad, she sliced this red bell pepper in half. I loved the contrast of the white seeds against the red interior of the remaining half.   So I painted it.

Garlic

Oil on gessobord, 6x6" NFS

Right now I'm taking a drawing class at a little school called The Atelier in Minneapolis. The style of drawing and painting is Classical Realism, and getting a likeness is not the goal. It has to be perfect. At the end of the 10 week class, I will be lucky if I complete one drawing. So the pace is a little frustrating to me, though I think it will be a very good learning experience and the work that people create is truly amazing. This painting ended up much looser than a lot of other paintings I have done. But I like the simplicity of it. Perhaps it's a reaction to the very precise drawing that I'm doing in class!

Mona Lisa

oil and egg tempera on masonite, 6x6"

In Renaissance days (and today), recreating old masterpieces was a common way of learning to paint.  This is the final holdover from the Renaissance class I took a year ago, and it's the only one painted in the Italian Renaissance style.  The Italian Renaissance style isn't much different than the Dutch Renaissance style, well, at least not in how they built layers of paint.  The Dutch masters started with burnt sienna or a similar red-brown layer and built from there.  The Italians started with a green layer.  That's it.  

I haven't decided if this is entirely finished or not.  Then again, they say Leonardo kept dabbling at the original for a span of 20 years or more.  So I suppose I've got some time to make up my mind.

Here she is after the second layer went down--you can see the first green underpainting, a glaze of cerulean blue over the background, a glaze of fleshtones in the face, and white egg tempera on all the light spots.  

Chubs for Luck

oil and egg tempera on masonite, 6x6"

The first night of our honeymoon in Hawaii, we ate at an outdoor restaurant that was surrounded by chubby little statues just like this guy.  I took about a million photos on the trip--but I snapped a shot of this statue because I thought he could make a good painting.  I started this painting when we were still in Boston and I was taking the Renaissance painting class.  Now, almost a year later, I have finally finished it.  

If you wonder why I have done so little painting since we got here, here's one reason.  Someone doesn't like it when I paint because it means I'm not playing fetch with him.  So he climbs up on the sofa that backs up to the half-wall that separates my studio from the family room, hangs his feet over the wall just like this, and drops his ball into the studio.  He then barks and whimpers until I pick up the ball and throw it for him.  Then, he climbs back on the sofa to do it all again!  It's quite an exciting and unpredictable game, but it's hard to resist that fuzzy little face.

What's the cone for?  Well, to save money, a friend offered to groom him for us.  The nearly $300 vet bill that resulted from Hero getting his ear cut with the scissors really taught us that some things are better left to professionals.  He got his stitches out and the cone off today, and immediately got a professional haircut for $40 (which, it turns out, is a lot less than $300).  

A Nectarine

Oil on gessoed paper, 3.5x3.75"

So we made the move to Minnesota, of course. With all the excitement of moving into a new house, starting a new job, and getting settled in, there has been almost no time for painting. But I did manage to sit down the other day in my new studio with my brushes and a nectarine to do some work. After a few months away from painting, I wasn't sure how it would turn out. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I hadn't forgotten everything I've learned.

As if moving halfway across the country and starting a job weren't enough, Laura and I decided to adopt a puppy! We've been debating about this for, well, always. And a sweet, fuzzy, one year old cockapoo was offered to us free of charge. We weren't sure about it, but after puppysitting him for a weekend we found that he had suckered us in. So we kept him. He's housebroken, which is wonderful. And he loves attention, which I don't think will make it very easy to increase the time I get to spend painting. But he's a sweetheart and we are so thankful to have the little furball.

So I present to you, Hero the Cockapoo.

Prosperity

Oil on gessobord, 7x5"

After Christmas break, one of the students that I have worked with for the last couple years brought a gift for me from Malaysia, where his parents live. The gift was three statuettes, representing Luck, Long Life, and Prosperity. Since then I've been itching to paint them. I started this one a couple weeks ago, and built up several layers of paint to bring out the shadows and highlights. Hopefully it won't be too long before I paint the other two.

My wife and I are leaving Thursday for Minnesota! The apartment is a maze of boxes and assorted treasures that we have collected over the years and there is a still a lot of packing left to be done. We arrive at our new house on Saturday. Of course, this means that it could be a while before we get settled in enough for me to get back to painting and posting on the blog. We are making one detour on our trip: As we pass through Ohio we'll head down to Cincinnati to see my painting in the show at Manifest Gallery. Should be fun.

Commission-Maple Leaf in Mische

Oil and egg tempera on masonite, 6x6"

This fall a colleague gave me a maple leaf and said she wanted to commission a painting of it. I made a couple attempts that I wasn't satisfied with, and then our wedding and honeymoon pushed the painting to the back burner. Once I learned the mische technique, I thought it would be a great way to capture the depth of colors within the leaf. Thankfully, the client was patient and I had a photo of the original leaf to work from. So here it is, my first commission.

Pensive

Oil and egg tempera on masonite, 6x6"

This is another painting done in the mische technique. It is based on a photo of my wife sitting in front of a window. This is actually the second mische painting that I started, but waiting for all the layers to dry made it take months to complete.

Baby Roma Tomato

Mixed media (oil and acrylic) on canvas panel, 6x6"

I tried something a little different with this one. I don't typically do underpaintings, but with all I'm learning from the Renaissance painting class, I thought I'd see what I could incorporate into a more direct painting. I first did a layer of burnt umber acrylic paint for the darkest parts of the background and some of the shading on the tomato. That dried while I cleaned out my brushes. Then I went in with my oils and painted the whole thing the way I normally would. The background is the same color of green throughout, but the bottom layer of dark brown resulted in some dramatic shadows. It made for a rather neat effect, something I'll keep in mind for future paintings. Waiting fifteen minutes for an acrylic underpainting to dry certainly beats waiting several days for the same underpainting to dry in oils!

Acorn Squash

Oil and egg tempera on masonite, 6x6"

Here’s another painting done in the mische technique. It might be my favorite one so far. When you see it in real life, it’s amazing how much it seems to pop off the panel. It looks like you could reach into the painting, grab the stem, and run off to make some squash soup. If you were into squash soup, that is. Unfortunately, the photo has a bit of glare, but hopefully you can still get the point.

Continuing the steady stream of life updates, our house-hunting trip to Minnesota proved fruitful: we got a house! We worked with a fantastic realtor (who happens to be my dad) and did a whirlwind tour of available homes in the northwest suburbs of Minneapolis. We found a great one with lots of space and a big yard just at the top of our price range (turns out the great houses are never at the bottom of your price range). We made an offer on Monday, they counter-offered on Tuesday, we counter-counter-offered that night, and they accepted our offer on Wednesday! So now we just have to wait for home inspections and everything else that goes into closing the sale. We haven't decided yet which room will be my studio, but there's lots of space so we shouldn't have any trouble finding a spot.

Apple in Mische Technique

Oil and egg tempera on masonite, 6x6" NFS

Here is the very first Renaissance style painting that I started. I know, you already saw a couple of them a while ago. But this was the first one that we started back in January, it just took longer than the others. There are at least ten layers of paint in this piece, starting with earth red and ending with cadmium red--with many other colors in between. I really like the way that the apple comes out from the background. The apple I was painting from had very strange markings on it, as you can see. But by the fourth week of painting, it was definitely getting brown all over. So I took a photo of the apple and had to use that to finish the painting. Unfortunately, none of the photos that I took of the painting came out very well. As with the other Renaissance style paintings, there is a touch of medium (a mixture of varnish, linseed oil, and paint thinner) mixed in with the paint to make it a little more translucent for glazing, so it has a bit more sheen than paintings that don’t have any medium. That sheen makes it difficult to photograph without there being a glare. I’ll try to get a better photo sometime soon.

In other news, remember that job I was interviewing for in Minnesota? Well I got it! My wife and I have decided to make the move to the Midwest and we’re actually flying back to Minnesota this weekend to look at houses. Wish us luck!

Petrov

Oil on canvas panel, 6x6"

My wife used to live in Cambridge, just off Massachusetts Avenue. There was a cute little Asian crafts shop on Mass Ave that we were always curious about. We went in one evening, and discovered that their main product was an amazing line of handmade lamps. They looked like something you would find growing in a forest, but with a light inside. There was a little white dog living in the store who was very cute. But his tongue was too big, and about a fourth of it hung out of his mouth at all times. In typical dog fashion, he didn't seem to mind, and was still very generous with his kisses to strangers. Suffice to say, the lamps were all pretty expensive for our budget, but we wanted to support the local business. We found this little terra cotta statuette that reminded us of the white dog with the funny tongue. So we bought it, and my wife named him Petrov. And little Petrov has been with us ever since, sometimes traveling with us when we go on vacation.

Speaking of travel, I'll be in Minnesota most of this coming week, interviewing for a job. So there likely won't be any new posts till next weekend. But I should be finishing some of my Renaissance style paintings soon, so there will be more paintings to share before long. By the way, Petrov will be staying here. Someone has to protect my wife while I'm away.

Do you think he likes it?

Sagittarius

Oil on masonite, 6x6"

The instructor of my Renaissance Painting class has said several times that it's a great technique for painting night skies. Intrigued, I thought I'd give it a try. First I looked up the constellation Sagittarius online to find a star pattern (it's my birth sign). From there, the painting started out in the same way as others: A layer of transparent earth red with white egg tempera in the lightest areas. Then a layer of yellow ochre went over the whole painting, with more tempera for the stars and astral clouds. Over this layer, patches of red and green were painted in thinly, with more tempera in the brightest stars and lightest parts of the nebula clouds. At this point, the painting looked like some crazy galactic Christmas story. Finally, two layers of ultramarine blue with more tempera went on. And that's when it really started to look like a night sky. Even though the "distant" stars are only behind a fraction of a millimeter of paint, they do appear to recede by light years. The tempera got a little too thick in the middle section, but the overall effect came out pretty neat and now I have a funky new (but very old) approach to painting a night sky!

Full Glass, Empty Bottle

Oil on gessobord, 5x7"

I started this one about a week ago and worked on it for an hour or two at a time since then. I haven’t done many paintings of glass before, so it was an interesting challenge. Of course, this was a pretty simple glass. Because I worked on it over the course of about a week, I was able to paint in layers and build the color up over time. This was helpful for making some of the reflections in the bottle and in the light shining through the wine.

Hawaiian Glow

Oil on canvas panel, 10x8"

While on our honeymoon, we took a helicopter tour of the island of Kauai. It was pretty cool, flying over the tops of mountains and into the depths of valleys. It had been quite rainy, so there were waterfalls everywhere as the rainwater made it's way back to the sea. Also thanks to the recent rain, the air was pretty misty. So as the sun got lower in the sky, it created quite a glow through the valleys. That's what I tried to capture with this painting. The lush green in the foreground shadows and the misty glow as sunlight hit the mountains in the distance. Not sure how successful I was, but one thing about this blog is that I post all my paintings, the hits and the misses.

Three Clems, Two Stems

Oil on masonite, 6x6" SOLD

My wife was out of town last weekend so I filled my time with a bunch of painting. I worked on a couple layers for paintings for my Renaissance class and did a couple complete paintings, too. Sadly, it's taken me till today to start getting anything posted. As the title suggests, two of these clementines had stubby little stems, but the third must have been a divine creation. When I was about 90% done, I put the painting up on a shelf so I could step back and see what needed some tweaking. Well, the masking tape that held it to a larger support board decided to quit it's job, causing the painting to fall onto the ironing board, then onto my shirt, then my pants, then onto a button down that was hanging on the ironing board, before it finally came to rest on my foot. Wet paint clearly marked each step of this path. Needless to say, the painting was not looking so good, either. But the funny thing about oil paint is that it is a forgiving medium, if you ask for it. Not one to give up, I went back to work (with stronger tape) and managed to smooth out the smudges and recover what was left of my painting. That button down shirt, however...