Painting at Eugene Leake's Farm

MAPAPA (Mid Atlantic Plein air Painters Assoc) hosted a very rainy day of painting at Eugene Leake's farm in Baltimore Co.Eugene "Bud" Leake was the much revered president of MICA in the '70's and a formidable landscape painter who sought to tie together both the Impressionist landscape with the  modern Expressionist world. He passed in his 90's a few years ago but his studio and house look like he just stepped out for a coffee. I met Mr. Leake many years ago at a workshop he gave on his farm and he influenced me profoundly. His brushwork was bold. Details did not exist and he took scenery as it was, leaving street signs, poles and wires. He didn't "pretty them up".   He came at the landscape with a moderinst sensibility but  honoring the traditions of the Barbazon painters (pre- Impressionists) and his hero Corot.  

Eugene Leake (detail) 

Leake's Easel 

                                                                     his studio space 

Eugene Leake

                                                               photo by Robert Stark

                                               the down jacket he always wore in the field

                                                                         living with art

              MAPAPA members Michael Gaudreau, Bruno Baran, David Diaz

My work on the easel during a drenching rainstorm. I kept thinking "What would Bud Leake do?" He would just keep painting away and so I did , thanks to a great Utrecht umbrella.   

                                                                my pallete after the storm