New Work: Cadmium Running Through, oil on canvas, 36 x 60 inches

    

Exhibiting: Dominique Boisjoli Fine Art, Santa Fe, NM, $8500 framed

This painting, like many of my works, went through several transformations. I started it about a year ago with a similar composition but an entirely different color palette. Eventually, I hit a creative roadblock and set it aside to focus on other projects that felt more manageable at the time.

Fast forward to a recent paint-along session I was hosting with another artist. I pulled this piece out as an example to make a teaching point. The goal? To shake things up and push the painting forward. With leftover colors from a previous session, I dove in without overthinking—just grabbed my brush and started reworking the trees in the center.

It was impulsive, even theatrical, and we had a good laugh about it. But that bold move completely shifted the direction of the painting.

Suddenly, it all clicked. The new approach simplified the composition, emphasizing three glowing bands of color while stripping away unnecessary details. It was one of those moments where taking a risk paid off in unexpected ways.

As my mentor Wolf Kahn used to say, “Sometimes you have to do violence to the picture,” and this time, that bit of creative chaos led me somewhere exciting.

New Work: Bright Flow II, oil on canvas, 24 x 48 inches

 

Bright Flow II, oil on canvas, 24 x 48 inches
$4750 framed
 
 
About this oil:
I was very intrigued by the idea of a stand of bright, yellow trees fading into the shadows. Moving from bright to dark is also an opportunity to use an array of colors to make it happen and I looked forward to watching it play out.
 
The accuracy of the tree forms is secondary to the color and possible combinations. It’s all about making that yellow form glow and move. The tree on the right creates a stage of sorts and the stream below is useful to amplify the yellows and to provide the surprising reds on the lower left.
 
It all sounds simple enough but I started on this oil about a year ago, working on it on and off during that time. Sometimes the simple must have its season.

New Work: Yellow Day, oil on canvas, 30 x 40 inches

Exhibiting: Saks Galleries
$5250. framed
 
One of the joys of being an artist, particularly one that loves color, is the freedom to make chromatic arrangements and let the colors go where they lead.
 
I do like this line of trees and the arrangement is very useful for a variety of color experiments. For this oil, the idea was to create a yellow line of trees, but what of the other elements and  their contribution to the finished work? 
 
As this piece evolved, I put in hints of blues behind the trees to make something happen. It  created an immediate statement and it was as if the blues were insisting on more. So to make a more interesting subject, I laid in purples on the right and to create an interesting flow and separation, aquas were added at the center.
 
After a break of a couple of days, I was considering the idea of making this a soft, poetic piece but I pushed on with a stronger yellow for the field. Once everything was in place, it was a matter of how bright to make the oil. With each successive studio session, small accidents were added, with the sky as a combination of very pale colors. The idea was to turn the yellows loose against that bright sky and wedge the blues in between the trees and field. With that, all the colors would be at their maximum intensity, but somehow making a believable forest. 
 
In the end, it was a happy, yellow day in the studio.

New Work: Winter Overlook, oil on canvas, 36 x 36 inches

Exhibiting: Saks Galleries, Denver, Colorado

To purchase

About this oil:

Sometimes, making a canvas is a pleasure and this is one of those pieces. I do my share of driving in the Colorado winters and my attention is continually drawn to the bright and dark patterns of the landscape.

The temptation is to replicate that idea but for this oil my intention was to create a compelling, snowy landscape with variations of blue. Instead of the high-contrast approach, everything is softened and atmospheric. The light on the snow is made purposely brighter in a couple of places and it carries the eye outward.

There is much to see compositionally and to create more interest, hundreds of trees are represented here in groups and individually, each represented to create a variety of looks and colors.

The trees, hills and snow make a calming combination of complexity and simplicity.

New Work: Lake Haze - Yellow, oil on canvas, 36 x 36 inches

Exhibiting: Sorelle Gallery

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About this oil:

As a colorist, sometimes I just want to use color in a simple and unbounded way. Since it’s currently fall, the yellow trees in abundance compelled me to begin a canvas with those trees as a focus.

The painting began with a much more complicated background of three, bright colored hills and they remained there as I worked out the lake patterns, increasing the complexity. 
After a few days of considering what to do next, a solution never presented itself. I was stuck.

The painting had real potential but it as if a key was stuck in the lock. That’s when I realized the original idea of simply expressing color had been overtaken by all of that detail in the background.

So the paints came out, brushes were loaded and the hills were merged into one mass. Detail was kept to a minimum and the background became a wall of light and subtly blended color.

Everything supports and enhances the yellow trees and the large band of color in the back adds drama and power to the work. It was an elegant and colorful solution.