Summer House

Summer House
8" by 8'
Oil with a palette knife on cradled panel
SOLD

It's not our summer home, but some lucky people are enjoying this house in Wellfleet on Cape Cod right now. I took some liberties here, exaggerating the angles and wanting to keep the style loose to give some personality to this cute little yellow house. Yeah summer!

Nantucket Painting Getaway

Monomoy Harbor
8" by 8"
Oil with a palette knife on cradled panel
SOLD

Our painting group, The Neponset Valley Artists, went on a 3 day excursion to Nantucket this past weekend. As part of our new membership to The Arts Foundation of Cape Cod, we each received a round trip ticket on Cape Air so of course we had to take advantage of that wonderful opportunity. It turned out that we picked the perfect 3 days to be away from the crazy hot heat wave going on back home~"off island" as the natives say on Nantucket.

The painting above was done at a friend of a friend's place that had incredible views of Monomoy Harbor. Our generous hosts allowed us to invade their property and paint whatever and wherever we wanted. What a treat. And everyone painted something a little bit different. Here are the fruits of our labor on painting day 1:

We then took a ride out to Sconset. While we didn't do any plein air painting there, every where we turned there was inspiration and our cameras were busy capturing as much as possible.

Our next painting location was the front porch of this incredible family home on the channel. There was so much to watch, observe, and paint.
I forgot to take a photo of my painting before I left ( I had to leave it behind to dry for awhile), but this was my view. The frames of the porch helped me with my composition.

Haydi and Nancy in action.

Kim hard at work on some more lovely pastels.

Some were just content to observe through the binoculars.

Isn't this a wonderful spot? And a fun trivia fact: This house was Helen Chapel's home on the TV show Wings.

Below is the group photo and some departing shots. On the way home, we filled up the whole plane. It was like we chartered the flight!

Thanks Arts Foundation of Cape Cod and our hostess for the weekend, Haydi for such a wonderful three days. It could not have been any better.

Blue Hydrangea Heaven

Blue Hydrangea Heaven
8" by 8"
Oil with a palette knife on cradled board
SOLD

We were staying at a great house on Cape Cod last week that had the most beautiful hydrangea garden in the front yard. All the shades of blues and purples were just calling to be captured with my palette knife.
There was a very daring chipmunk that kept checking us out. I think he was living somewhere in the hydrangea bush. He wouldn't sit still for me, but I decided to add him into the bottom right of the painting anyway.

Here are a few more chunky delicious close ups.

After I completed the painting above, I did these three quick little paintings that I figure I can turn into greeting cards once they dry. These are each about 3" square more or less.

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Tumbles

Tumbles

6" by 6"

Oil with a palette knife on cradled board
SOLD

Cindy asked me to paint this kitty portrait in memory of her family's dearly departed friend, Tumbles. He was a member of their family for many years and had a long and happy life. This was really fun to paint and Cindy said that I captured his personality. That is the greatest compliment of all-Tumbles approval!

Beacon Hill

60 Beacon Hill
Oil with a palette knife on cradled board
36" by 12"
SOLD

I painted this large painting while working at The Art Studio and Gallery at Patriot Place this past weekend. It was nice to have the space and the time to do a large piece. The canvas was so big it wouldn't fit on my plein air easel so I had to create a makeshift easel using a chair for stability.

Below are a few photos of the painting in progress.

I sketched the composition in pencil first, which is unusual for me but I wanted to make sure to get the whole brownstone in the paintings.
I planned out the red brick area first, then I pretty much just worked from top to bottom, adding layers of colors and window detailing.
My vision for this series is to paint several of these brownstones, so typical of Beacon Hill, and line them all up next to one another, like the view you see looking at The Hill from Boston Common.

We are heading into Boston today to see the Red Sox play and enjoy the excitement of downtown. Happy Fourth of July everyone!