HAPPY NEW YEAR

MERRY CHRISTMAS

IRELAND

This painting was created for the VIRTUAL PAINTOUT.  I spent several pleasant hours cruising the back roads looking for just the right spot to set up my easel.  I could almost smell the grass in this spot in County Claire.

END OF THE SEASON

While finishing up a job for a show in Canada I happened upon this slide of an old painting.  I did this on site in my garden and it looks like an old asparagus plant.  Don't know where the painting is but I wish I did, as I think it captures the end of the season very well.

Sorry no paintings for a while.  I have been busy with holiday shopping, creating a family calendar and entertaining.  If you want to review some of my recent paintings you can go here and check them out.

MERION STATION IN THE RAIN #2

Another stab at painting through the windshield in the rain.  This time it's Merion Train Station and Post Office.  Here is the first version of Merion Station in the Rain, painted last March.

COME ON IN

Old houses have the most welcoming doors, in my opinion.  In this one in Bala Cynwyd you can see the arbor cheerily lit up in the front yard through the window of the storm door.  It may be cold outside but it's warm and cozy in here.

SOLD

PRINTS

You can order prints of paintings whether they are sold or not.  (Artist's own the copyright to their work unless that is specifically sold separately from the work itself).

PRINTS

THINK GIFTS!

For three days only I am offering prints of any painting on my blog for $25.00- (don't miss the older paintings, they go back to January).  I will print these myself on my Epson R1900 on Somerset Velvet paper.  This paper and the ink in the Epson is archival.  The paintings look great on this paper.  It is very soft, as the name implies.  They will be signed in a limited edition of 50.
This offer ends on and includes Saturday.  I am including a paypal button to pay for the prints.  Be sure to fill in the name of the print when you pay and also send me an email with the name of the print(s) you want and your name and address and I will get them out in a jiffy.

NAME OF PRINT

BROWN AND KETCHUP

This painting is brought to you by the Ketchup Advisory Council.  Click on the link for a chuckle.


SOLD

PORTRAIT OF A HOUSE

I love the way the light plays over the curved shapes of this house in Penn Valley.

SOLD

FULL MOON IN THE SWIMMING POOL

I rarely go out at night just to take in the scenery but this full moon brought me out with my camera.  This is the moon reflected in the swimming pool with my neighbor's house lights competing with the much bluer light of the moon.  Their house is not yellow but the lights make it seem so by contrast.

ANOTHER BLOG

Here is a link to another blog that I follow.  This entry is especially interesting and beautiful so I thought I would share it.
ART IN CONNO

AUTUMN ZINNIAS

Only a few days ago the trees were still full of leaves and the Zinnias, that this year were at least 6 feet tall, were still proudly showing their stuff.  Today we have frost and most of the leaves are down.  This fall so gloriously filled my head with color, I think I will be able to make it through the winter without too much regret.
SOLD

$125.00

RED MAPLES #2

Almost gone today, three days ago these beauties were lighting up my front yard.  "Sic transit gloria mundi" - "Thus passes the glory of the world"
$125.00

MORNING LIGHT

It's getting to be time to enjoy indoor pleasures.  I love to follow the light around my house as it creates compositions all day long.  Here I removed the furniture - not really - just for the painting, because the blue light was a key element.

$125.00

RED MAPLES

These BLOODGOOD maples are pulsing their color all over my front yard.  The final fairwell to summer.  This is from inside the tree looking out on an overcast day.

DOWN TO RIO

Early this week I spent time wandering the streets of Rio de Janeiro, courtesy of Google maps, looking for just the right place to paint for the Virtual Paintout.  I finally settled on this combination of bright sunlit colors and indoor revelry on the Rue Marechal Cantauria. And don't miss this choice few moments from FLYING DOWN TO RIO the 1933 film with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in their usual good form.

WHITE DAHLIA

These pristine white Dahlias are a stand out in my garden at this time of year when everything else is either brilliantly colored or fading into brown.

"White...is not a mere absence of colour; it is a shining and affirmative thing, as fierce as red, as definite as black..." -- G. K. Chesterton

SOLD

DOG DIGNITY

A foggy day, the autumn joy at its richest hue and Bay, my shy dog, finally taking his place in the picture as if to say, "This is where I belong".

KATSURA IN AUTUMN

Autumn would not be complete for me without an attempt to paint my Katsura trees.  This one, our big Daddy, is huge, with long pendulous limbs that seem impossible to sustain and yet they grow longer every year. It is about 150 years old.  Katsura trees are native to China and Japan.  There are males and females and we have a beautiful pair that creates babies that have populated our neighborhood and our friend's back yards.  In the fall as the leaves turn yellow they create a wonderful burnt sugar aroma making them a glorious sensual delight in every way.

CONDENSATION

A few days ago it was very warm and wet and the windows were covered with this condensation.  The condensation condensed the fall colors so beautifully I had to try and capture it.

SOLD

CARRIAGE HOUSE

There seem to be many more carriage houses than there are stables.  If these places actually held horse drawn carriages, where did they put the horses when they weren't pulling the carriage?  Was there a central stables, where horses were kept for any given neighborhood?  Anybody know?

SOLD

NARBERTH AVENUE GLORY

You don't have to go far from home to experience beauty these last days of autumn.  It is like being in a warm mist of color, as if the trees are saying a sweet 'Farewell til we meet again.'

SEASONS' END

One last memory of the ocean.  These two huddle together pondering eternity, the winter to come?...or maybe what's for dinner.

BRAHMS RHAPSODY (eight measures)

Today is INTERNATIONAL ARTIST DAY.  You won't be hearing much about this except from other artists perhaps, but some of us are celebrating by honoring another artist who was an inspiration.

In 1973  I had the great good fortune of taking Josef Albers' course on the INTERACTION OF COLOR which was taught at the University of Pennsylvania at that time.   

In that course and another Bauhaus course that was given at the same time, having to do with finding the natural order in any given set of materials, I learned more about how to think about making art than in all my other studies combined.  From that time until the present I have been working on translating music to color.  It was seeing the way one color changes another when they are juxtaposed that ignited my enthusiasm to work on this idea as that interaction seemed to contain the same kind of energy that I experience when listening to music.  This is an example of my 'translations' of music to color in two dimensions and you can check out all my animations of music with this link.  Here is also a link to my book about the process IF C IS RED.

EIGHT MEASURES OF BRAHM'S RHAPSODY IN G MINOR

72" X 36"

signed limited edition digital print on archival paper with archival inks

RAINY NIGHT IN BRYN MAWR

Rain creates a whole new image of life.  Here there are 3 versions of reality.  The usual solid version, the one created by the rain puddles on the street and pavement and the one created by the windshield.  How much of our perception is distorted in just this way as we look at the world through the prism of our prejudices, past experience and just plain ignorance?

KIDS' NIGHT OUT

October is cider, spiced wafers and Halloween.  It is a wonderful holiday as it gives kids a chance to experience life in a new light.  Two things I remember as a child at Halloween.  First when I was 7 or 8 ringing doorbells and running away to hide in the bushes on Mischief night.  The police arrived with search lights and we got away just in the nick of time but I still remember the panic and have been a law abiding citizen ever since.    The second is when I lived in the country and was around 13 going out on Halloween dressed up as a hobo. Two friends and I walked down a long dark lane to a house way off the road to trick or treat.  The people who answered the door obviously did not anticipate anyone but were game enough to offer us hot chocolate.  They had a very run down establishment and were not given to casual chatter.  We of course had to accept their 'treat'.  So there I sat, dressed as a hobo with people who were close to that state themselves, drinking their hot chocolate.  It was food for thought to say the least.

SQUIRREL CROSSING

At this time of year I have noticed more squirrels seem to be caught by traffic than usual.  I assume it is because they are in a frenzy to store up for the winter.  I got to wondering while painting how squirrels communicate the danger of crossing the street to their buddies since those who don't make it have little to tell.  This and other questions, about these creatures who manage to share our lives better than most, remain unanswered after a quick look on line.  I did find that some squirrels actually cross with people at a crosswalk and at least one was spotted crossing alone on a crosswalk. Here is an interesting article about squirrel facts if you too are curious about the little guys.  SQUIRRELS THE ANIMAL ANSWER GUIDE And for those who would just like a good laugh there is this on youtube: SQUIRRELS AND CRACKHEADS CROSS THE STREET

PUDDLE IN THE RAIN

No, I have not turned into an abstract expressionist over night.  This is actually a pretty realistic painting of a puddle in the rain.  They are definitely worth looking at, as they hold two levels of reality.  One level is upside down. Like the water, the artist reflects an image back to the viewer and in doing so (hopefully) allows it to be seen anew.

DOGS

Dogs, lying in the sun, staring into space.  What are they thinking?  Or should I say what are they smelling.  Do all those complex odors that they are able to experience tell them more about the world than all our complicated abstract thinking?  They certainly know something about love that is so compelling that we take care of them for no other reason than to have them near and remind us.

SAN MIGUEL DE ALLENDE

I have been busy traveling in Mexico via google maps the past few days.  This is 20 Principal Street in San Miguel de Allende.  There were lots of interesting spots to paint, but I finally settled on this one because of the lovely time of day and the biker looking at me from Mexico.  It is my latest contribution to the very interesting blog VIRTUAL PAINT OUT.