New Work: Rain Coming Through, oil on panel, 24 x 24 inches

Oil on panel, 24 x 24 inches, unframed and ready to hang.

Sold: Private collection

Exhibited: Dominique Boisjoli Fine Art, Santa Fe, NM To purchase

About this oil:

Rain coming down in veils always holds a fascination for me and I’m encouraged to pass those feelings on. This oil isn’t a portrait of a place or time, but instead, it is my way of expressing the spirit of what I experienced.

I wanted the rainfall to be the most important part of this composition, so everything else in the painting, the background sky and land elements are purposely simplified. A number of color combinations were tried and as those ideas came and went, it became apparent that the clouds look best with their own, unique color combination.

The piece was strengthened when I increased the brightness of the other colors. It is a day of rain after all, so they are moderately bright but more than enough to accentuate the subtleties of the rain gently falling as it passes through the landscape.

New Work: Late Day, Light Effects, oil on canvas, 30 x 48 inches

Oil on canvas, 30 x 48 inches

In the studio, $6400 framed

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About this oil:

It is a task and real joy to come across something simple and transform it into something more beautiful, even memorable. That is one of the joys of painting landscapes.

I set out to saturate the light and have it envelop every part of this scene. The rooftops and the snow are an obvious part of that, but for this painting everything else had to be affected as well.

All of the trees are collecting light and the snow on the small hill is refracting it. The large hill in the back and the tops of the barns are each reflecting light in their own way and as a counter point, the trees in the middle are more opaque, adding more mass and new colors to the center.

This oil presented a number of options for entirely different looks, but I held to the idea of a light-infused snow field that would dramatize this cluster of barns and out buildings. That made my decision of how to do the sky extremely important. As soon as I put down a pale, yellow wash, I could see the entire scene jump to life. By adding pinks and blues to the sky, the yellow receded to the left where its visual power increased.

Those same sky colors are repeated in the snow, tinting the whites and adding to the overall glow. The strip in the middle is bordered top and bottom in a pale radiance, and that contrast amplifies every detail of the buildings, trees and shadows. It all made for a very satisfying and colorful result.

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

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

Exhibiting: Breckenridge Gallery, Breckenridge, CO

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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 mauve 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.