New Work: Just After the Sun Has Set, oil on canvas 36 x 36 inches

Just After the Sun Has Set
Oil on canvas, 36 x 36 inches $5100 framed
Saks Galleries, Denver

This is a scene from Castle Rock, CO near where I lived until recently. There were so many good sunsets looking west and I painted a good number of them. For this oil, the focus was split between the sky and land forms below.

Rather than focusing all of the color in the sky, I saturated the bottom half of the painting with the purples, reds, mauves and greens. The dark trees on the right set up a soft contrast as well as a border between the foreground and all that happens beyond,

It has a soft richness that I like. The water on the left was added last to create even more light effects, an improvement over the actual highway there.

Grateful Notices: Red Wall at the Lake Pastel on paper, 17 5/8 x 23 3/8 inches

Red Wall at the Lake
Pastel on paper, 17 5/8 x 23 3/8  Sold, private collection
Exhibited,: Madelyn Jordan Fine Art, Scarsdale, NY
Also available as a limited edition giclee print

The trees are an excuse to make a red pattern and the pattern is a device for the yellow trees and blues of the lake to to emerge from the background. All the colors and compositional elements work together toward a common goal - to make the reds as bright as possible.

The plan was a simple one, to set up the depth like screens in a stage play and to have horizontal bands of colors dancing across. It was a straightforward enough idea but it took hundreds of pastel strokes to make it come to life. I had a lot of joy in the creation of it and hopefully it comes through in the work.

My thanks to the collector and Madelyn Jordan Fine Art!

Happy Holidays 2019

Grateful Notices: Last Snow I, pastel, 8 3/8 x 12 3/8 inches

LAST SNOW I
Pastel 8 3/8 X 12 3/8   private collection
Exhibited: Dominique Boisjoli Fine Art, Santa Fe, NM

When I first moved to Colorado many years ago, I was living in a snow climate for the first time. This pastel was done soon after my arrival and I had kept it in my own collection for over 20 years. Creating snow scenes was a bit of a rarity for me and because this was my view almost every day when I lived in Castle Rock, Colorado, I felt compelled to make a pastel of the scene.

Now that I'm living in Steamboat Springs and surrounded by snowy landscapes for many months of the year, I am creating more winter artworks rather than the one or two in each of the past years.

When Dominique told me that a Denver collector added this work to their collection I was delighted and encouraged to create more. Thank you!

New Work: Last Sun over the Snow Fields, oil on canvas, 40 x 40 inches

Last Sun over the Snow Fields, oil on canvas, 40 x 40 inches
Saks Galleries, Denver    $6650 framed

The last light is setting up a very subtle, but colorful effect. When we really examine it, snow on the ground is much more than just white. Besides, there are so many ways to represent a scene like this.

How about a Delft blue in the line of trees and why not create a predominately purple sky with touches of pinks, greens and pale cobalt?

Once it was done, the piece comes off looking simple but that was not the case with this one. Sometimes it's the austere compositions that challenge me further to try out new ideas. The simple composition is very responsive to small or large changes on the canvas and it dares you to keep pushing things around.

After all of the work and the parade of changes, the gentle calm still comes through.