"View from the cliff walk"

"View from the cliff walk", 15x26 oil on linen

Well, I guess it is finished.  I was near completion at the last posting.  I merely added a few sea gulls and finished the vegetation at the lower right....adjusted a few values, and I will let this sit for a bit.  Not look at it for few days, and if it still looks ok, I will consider it done.

"A new marine painting on the Easel"

"View from the cliff walk"- 15x26- oil on linen is a work in progress.

I just returned from a week long trip involving gallery and workshop business. Had a wonderful visit to a beautiful part of the country that I had never seen before in Pa. Met some wonderful folks in Bucks county.

This painting was on the easel when I left....a painting interrupted. After leaving a painting in the middle of critical stages, it is sometimes difficult to just jump back in where one leaves off. I am always anxious to get back to finish a painting that I have some time invested in. The real danger for me is, losing my enthusiasm for the piece if it hangs around to long in the studio. If I'm really into the painting, this usually does not happen. In this case, I am happy with the way it is progressing, so I am looking forward to completing it.... and I really have not spent that much time on it. It is coming together to my satisfaction....thankfully! I have to finish the vegetation in the lower right corner and adjust a few values here and there.....a few sea gulls, and I will probably call this one done. I will post the finished painting later. Thanks for listening to my ramblings.

"The Dining Room Wall Test"

Since I have been doing some paintings lately that are a bit larger than usual….for me. We have been giving them a test run on our dining room wall. Anything seems to look OK there….to me, but it is interesting how some paintings kind of grow on you….by that I mean my wife, Marilyn. Marilyn has become a pretty good critic, and help to me over the years, so she would not like to have just anything stuck on her dining room wall. I’m sure many artists do this, but I have never rotated paintings on my home walls that were going to galleries eventually.

The painting above, “Le jardin de Le Village” 24x30 oil on linen, and the painting below are good examples of what I mean. When I first finished the garden painting, I felt she was luke warm in her enthusiasm for the piece. We put it up to try it for a while, and after she lived with it for a time, I sensed that she was a little disappointed when I told her it was going to The Travis gallery. I think it is a nice way to get a feeling of how someone else might co-exist with your work. We had the “Walking the Ladies” below on the wall since January….that was long enough, so it went to the RSHanna Gallery, and hopefully will end up on someone else‘s wall eventually….maybe the dining room! If Marilyn got so attached to a painting that she wanted it, or could not part with it, I certainly would not take it away. She likes selling paintings as much as I do….thankfully! I do not do this with all of the smaller pieces that I paint. I actually do not have a large body of my own work in our home…..the studio is another story of course! The dining room spot is being occupied by “The Basket Weaver”(bottom photo) temporarily.

This is obviously not something that one necessarily needs to do, but I find it interesting, and it is a good little test. The one aspect of this test that was not mentioned is, what if you grow to hate the painting. Well then, at least there would be no problem parting with it. Thanks for listening to more of my ramblings.

Since January, it's been "Walking the Ladies"

"The Basket Weaver"

Temporarily occupies the spot