Left Pine Right

I can't remember the actual size, but this is near 24" x 34" oil on stretched canvas, and is the largest plein-air painting I've done yet. I have tried to make these larger onsite paintings before and always feel I am sacrificing the element of immediacy and intimacy that occur naturally with the smaller work. Those of you you have read the archives also know of my struggle to make larger studio work directly from the smaller paintings. There is a breakthrough of sorts with this one. Although there certainly are elements that trouble me, on the whole I believe I am heading in a good direction. I had the sash out of the studio window and the space heater cooking away at my feet, although it was only about 30 degrees out. This took about three hours. The first hour the sky was completely overcast. The second hour the sun broke through and was directly in my eyes, at which point I closed the window and worked from memory until the sun set enough to fall behind the trees on the right hand side. The last hour was spent again looking out the open window. The sky in this painting is somewhat more active than I was able to capture on my digital camera.

I hope to get outside next week sometime. Early last spring I went to a large beaver pond near the Millers River in Erving, MA and started a large painting on panel that I never finished. Back in the studio, I sanded it down with a random orbit sander after it dried. It must be a spectacular place under a blanket of snow. Its a short hike in, but shoudn't be too bad as the snow is not deep yet. It's about the same size as this one and I now feel ready to try it again.

Happy Holidays to the Frequents

I don't want to scare anyone away from visiting, but I am curious about a few of you. Sitemeter is a free hit counter I use that also provides a small amount of information about each hit to a website. It's all very interesting, but far from George Bush nosing around. The free version I have provides the location of the ISP of the visitor, the ISP itself, the time and length of the visit, and the referring URL if any. I filter my own hits so they don't count as I check my site a few times a day, but if I didn't it would tell me I'm from Quincy MA even though I live 90 miles away as that is the location of my ISP, that my ISP is Verizon.net, that I visited for x number of minutes at x o'clock, and if I came to the site from, for example, a Google search, the referring URL would be the Google search page the visitor hit from. It's probably some cardinal sin of the blogging world, but I'm reaching out to you frequent visitors to drop me a line and say hi and maybe why your interested enough in my site that you visit at least once a day and sometimes several times a day. I appreciate your visits and it certainly keeps the pressure up to update this thing fairly regularly... and please don't be scared away, if you choose not to identify yourselves, that's ok to. I hope you all have a happy holiday season, especially you two in Hartlepool and Rochester.

Selected!

Now & Then & Now & When has been selected! There is still a bureaucratic maze to negotiate before a contract is signed, but this is par for the course with any government contract. This will now be redesigned to include images from their collection of historic photos. I have seen several that are on display, and there really are some intriguing images.

They have also reissued the RFP for another site in the building that I was hoping to make a proposal for last time around, but ran out of time. This other site would be a stretch for me, as they are looking for a hanging kinetic sculpture, and I do not have any large scale pieces in my portfolio. I have made several small to medium scale, and simply for my own curiosity and enjoyment. I have also made proposals in other states and venues for such things but so far have not been selected for any 3d work. Look for my proposal soon.

Studio Tour and Elf Time

The Mill Street Artworks studio tour held this past weekend was a resounding success. There was a consistant stream of people milling through my studio, which depending upon your route was the last stop on the tour. The group of us have yet to meet to discuss the results, but from a sheer numbers standpoint, there were many more people than I had expected. In fact I was ill prepared for the turnout. I sold four paintings, two wrapped and gone, one future sale because I did not want to let it go yet, and one time payment (yes I have a payment plan, I will encourage anyone who wants to buy artwork.) I know Greg Aubin did well with his pinch pots as his studio is right next to mine. I am sure we will do this again.

With Christmas coming it's time to wear the elf hat again. Green River Frameworks has become a fairly busy shop these days, so I probably will not be posting any new paintings until the new year. I am going to be taking in framing orders for Christmas right up until December 23 this year. It can be an awful lot of work, but sorely needed as business has been down significantly from last year. Many people are more concerned with heating their homes now than decorating them. I stock a lot of matboards and moldings making this possible. It can actually be fun too, as long as the work flows efficiently through the shop.