Oil Painting
10 x 8 inches
Painted on-site along the Platte River in Colorado.  A pleasure to paint with the sound of the river so close by!

Oil Painting
10 x 8 inches
A white iris painted at a garden in Denver.  

The plein-air season has begun!  I had a great winter painting in the studio but now it's refreshing to paint outdoors again.  It's a little extra bother, with all of the packing/unpacking and transport to the painting location...but it is such good practice and so enjoyable that it's worth it.  I did a couple of iris studies on location, and this was my favorite.

Oil Painting
20 x 16 inches

A scene in Lyon, France.  In this view I was interested in the narrow slot at the bottom of this outdoor staircase between two old buildings.  Lyon is built between and along 2 rivers and on one side goes up a steep bluff.  This scene is at the bottom of one of the routes down the bluff.

Oil Painting
12 x 16 inches
A scene at the Flatirons in Boulder, Colorado

Oil Painting 20 x 16 inches. Drawing 6.25 x 5 inches. A street scene in Paris.

For the past couple of months I have re-introduced the habit of doing preliminary sketches before starting a painting. I had stopped doing them over a year ago because I was eager to get going with each painting and also because I didn't want to "over-think" a painting but rather keep it spontaneous.

I started back up again because in looking through the paintings in my studio I found too many that had to be scrapped because of fundamental design flaws which could have been prevented by studying the scene via a pencil sketch. Some of these paintings contained some beautiful paint...but if the design is bad then the painting has to go. (fortunately I found many more that did NOT have to be scrapped)

In my recent work I am finding that the sketches are helping me to avoid some of the worst problems and to focus on what each painting is about. The trick is to do this without getting too careful and "tight"...but then it wouldn't be painting without a little challenge!

So, I thought it might be interesting to show you both the painting and the sketch.

Oil Painting

20 x 16 inches

An early-morning Paris scene with Sacre Coeur in the background.

Oil Painting
30 x 40 inches
Breakfast at a cafe in Montmartre in Paris.

As this is my first post of 2012, I will wish everyone a happy new year! The above painting is one of my first of the year. As I reflect on what I'd like 2012 to be like, one of my goals is to take a little more time to contemplate the design of each painting before putting brush to canvas...i.e. the use of light, color, lines, the placement of shapes of various sizes, the overall story or idea to be conveyed in the painting, and so forth.

Another goal is to get myself over to the gym a little more often, but we'll consider that beyond the scope of this blog...