8″x20″ Oil on Panel
Thought I would try a larger painting of the dunes. I’ve really gotten use to using the smaller brushes. I felt like I was putting paint on with a shovel on this one. The painting will be available at the Kentuck Festival in Northport Alabama in October.
14′x11″ Oil on Canvas
This scene is from the Westervelt Gardens here in Tuscaloosa Alabama. The gardens are beautiful and start on the top of a bluff and work their way down through arbors and arches to the lake below (Lake Tuscaloosa). I have done four paintings of the gardens and have found them to be very difficult to paint due to the abundance of shapes and colors and the difficulty on deciding on which portion of the abundant subject matter to portray. Jack Warner owns the garden and has been very gracious over the years to allow painters to come and paint there. As most of you may also know, Jack Warner has put together one of the finest collections of American art in the world. It is now housed in the Westervelt Warner Museum.
6″x8″ Oil on Raymar Panel
Well, I unwillingly took a week off of painting. I was just a little under the weather but it made it very difficult to paint. Hopefully I will be able to spend some extended time in the studio this week. This is the first fall that I have planned to take several outdoor painting days but we have been smothered in rainy days. You can certainly paint a rainy day but it’s hard to do it without getting wet. Anyway, I can’t remember the last time we had this much rain in August and September. It seems like it has been non-stop since I came home from the beach. I should probably just go back!
6″ x 8″ Oil Painting on Raymar Panel
I have always been fascinated by the colors in Palmettos. When I went to the beach this past month I had wanted to paint at least one but didn’t get the chance. So here is my first shot at it and I will hopefully be able to do more of these in the future.
6″ x 14′ Oil on Panel
This is the last one in this series of three. Once again I am finding myself frustrated with the limits of the camera. I spend a day trying to develop subtle color variations and the camera records it all as one color and value. This is why paintings are better!
6″ x 14″ Oil on Panel
Due to the haze, on the morning I saw these dunes, the values on this one were very close, but it seems to have worked out alright. I had to rely more heavily on color to communicate the form. As with the previous post, this painting will be set aside for the galleries unless it is claimed before it dries. 
6″x14″ Oil on Panel SOLD
After you have done five or six “dune” paintings what is an appropriate title? “Sandy” seemed better than “grassy”. These dunes really lend themselves toward an elongated size so I have hand made my own panel to fit the subject. They took much longer than I thought they would (why is it always this way?) but I’m very pleased with the result. This painting will most likely go to one of my galleries but it will be available until it dries and I ship it back to where it belongs… the beach.
14″ x 16″ Oil on Canvas
This painting is still in progress but I thought I would give you a peek at what I’ve been working on today. The clouds are still a little too blue and some of the grass elements need to be dealt with. I have only painted a few sunrises and I always discover the same thing. This motif always seems to be about an extreme change in values but really it’s more about accurate subtle changes in color. When this painting is done it will most likely go to one of my galleries.
6″x8″ Oil on Panel - SOLD
I remember reading an article, when I first began to paint full time, that was written by a professional artist who was bemoaning the amount of time he spent doing things other than painting. At the time I couldn’t imagine what an artist HAD to do that would conflict with his painting… Needless to say, I now understand. But the business side of painting just makes painting all that more enjoyable when you get back to it!
This is another study from the Grayton Beach series. I’m hoping that when I go back down there I will be able to take one of these dunes and do an early morning, mid afternoon and late afternoon view. You could hang them together on a wall and enjoy an entire day at the beach without being there!
6″x8″ Oil on Panel SOLD
After a couple of days off I have jumped back into these small dune paintings. As you can see below this painting was done with the help of a reference painting I did on location and a photograph that I took while in Grayton Beach. Other than the area of “drawing” the photo was not much help. It is amazing how much the camera misses.
The photo shows my digital photo on the left (not much help), my on site study (a lot of help) and the final painting (done with the help of the other two and the memory of walking on the beach at 7:00 in the morning). I have not made any of these paintings available for sale because they are already spoken for.
