The Three Graces

 This one came purely from the unconscious.  I had been painting all day and felt truely alive and charged up. I had finished my work and had a palette full of paint and instead of putting things away I picked up a blank canvas and started covering it with the leftover color (or non- color in this case I had been working on the River Walker painting) I was inspired by Robert Stark and the small landscapes he constructs from memory when he has paints from his palette leftovers. I thought maybe a landscape would emerge. Instead these three figures emerged. They started out as cedar trees but were more like figures so I went with it and these three female forms emerged. I added the Moon tto complete the feeling of the godesses walking throught the night of the imagination. 12x12in oil on canvas

Night Church

  I have painted this church before only in daylight , never through the windshield of my car at night. This little  Methodist church is a roadside icon on a hairpin turn in Baltimore Co. It is always lit like a beacon in the dark. 6x6in oil on birch panel

River Walker

Keene Valley NY in the Adks is a town where artists have painted since the 1800's, most notably Winslow Homer. Pat Kirmer is a contemporary artist still painting into his 80's. He is a  very tall gentle- man who is often seen walking with his wide brim hat to and from his painting sojourns on Johns Brook. He does wild linear abstractions based on the patterns and colors he observes in the water as it cascades over the rocks. He was a student of Diebenkorn's who told him to "never underestimate the element of suprise " in a painting. I placed Mr. Kirmer in one of his own drawings. It was great fun to try to reproduce "Kirmer-like" marks on the painting.Every great painter has his own "handwriting" and Kirmer definately has his.     

Mt Carmel Chapel

 For some reason I am drawn to old churches.Is it the simple timeless architecture or the remnants of my  Catholic faith finding expression in the elements of sun and shadow?    This 100 year old stone church is behind the supemarket on a busy highway near my house. The low winter sun turned the cedar tree a color that when mixed on the palette looked almost pure orange. I loved the shadow cast on the church.  12x12in oil on panel

Dawn on the Severn

 Finally finished this pastel last night after putting it aside for months.This was started on a very warm early summer dawn when the rising sun was slightly overcast and the colors of the morning were pinkish and yellowish whites. I finished the background in about an hour. It was the sails in the foreground that gave me such trouble,  but think I finally resolved it by working from some reference photos. My style is so linear and the sails needed to be softer. It was a magical moment on the river.You think river =blue but the color range at different times is emmence. Well, I haven't  tackled cloth before in pastel so there it is.18x24in.  pastel on sanded paper  

Henry and Gus

This little painting was done on commission for one of my dog walker friends. On weekend mornings as many as 12 dogs (and their owners) go romping through the woods in Bel Air. Only one thing more fun than watching one dog run is watching two. 12x12in  oil on birch panel

Sleeping Kate

18x26in pastel

A pastel that I have recently brought to completion. My goal was to paint the figure with the same layers of color linework and crosshatched color as I paint my rocks and most importantly I wanted to achieve a likeness. That's the technical side. I also wanted to paint a portrait of my wife who is always moving about when she finally found peace at the end of a stressful day curled up in the living room chair. I started from a sketch and some photo references(she never woke) and finished it up in the studio.   I haven't painted alot of figures let alone portraits over the years. I lost interest after hundreds of drawings in college. But lately the figure has been creeping back into my landscape painting and after seeing the MPS show  I thought it was time to tackle it again. I recently finished a unit on the figure with my students. They did not want to draw from the model, mostly because of a fear of failure. The figure and portraits can be very intimidating. This began a discussion on risk. I often tell them that without risk there can be no art and finding and facing that moment of risk is a constant struggle for artists.      I was recently reading a great book called "How to be a Graphic Artist and not Lose Your Soul" by Adrian Shaughnessy and he came up with an equation that defines creativity in the best way. RISK+DISCOMFORT+SWEAT(+-INSPIRATION)= CREATIVITY

He says that there can be no creativity without risk and he goes on to say that "We have to flirt with failure if we are to produce anything with genius in it."

Now, I'm not saying  this is any work of genius but it is an excursion out of my comfort zone into new territory.