Strawberries, 8 x 10 inches, oil, available, 800.

I have posted this one before, but just wanted to send it out again because it just received some very nice recognition. Strawberries won a very nice prize from the SmallWorks North America Show at the Greenwich Workshop Gallery in Connecticut. I am glad the Director there likes it as much as I do! When I was painting it, I felt that it is small, but mighty.

Pescadero Triptych, 3 panels, each panel is 24 x 36 inches.

I have been working on this large painting for quite a while now, and still can't decide if I am happy with it, or if it needs more work. I find that my sense of "doneness" fails me when I work in unusually large sizes... it is hard to tell where the overworking point has been reached.

Tangerines, 6 x 6 inches, oil on canvas, available from ebay, starting bid is $150.

CHARLES P. SOVEK
March 23, 1937 – June 8, 2007

I never got to meet Chuck, but his books (amazon link) were among the first I read about being a serious oil painter--I always meant to take a workshop from him, but just heard that it is too late. Mr. Sovek maintained a brilliant Web site as well, which is still up thanks to his kind family. It is one of the most comprehensive sites about painting that I know of. Here is one of his paintings from last spring.

"Back Porch Blossoms"

Avocados, 6 x 6 inches, oil, available on ebay.

Plum Trees, 11 x 14 inches, pastel, available.

Maybe I have been looking at Wolf Kahn paintings a little too much lately, but here is another color experiment/abstract inspired by his work.

Tangerines, 14 x 14 inches, oil, available.

Tangerines just arrived in the market next to my studio. This painting is done as a partner to the previous realism painting Two Pairs. I varied the method this time, though. Two Pears is done with lots of thin glazing, in the best classical tradition. This one is painted much more alla prima.

On another topic, I just returned from the bookstore with a new classical techniques textbook by Virgil Elliot called Traditional Oil Painting: Advanced techniques and concepts from the Renaissance tot he present. The book is dense and data rich--a true pleasure and reference for the scholarly artist, or artistic scholar.

Morning Barn, 24 x 36 inches, pastel, available.

Last week Kim Fancher and I went to Napa and Sonoma for a day of plein air painting. This painting, unfinished as it is, is done from photographs that I took of a decrepit beauty. We stopped by the COPIA center to see a fine exhibit of some of my favorite painters... Nancy MacDonald, Kevin Courter, Kim Fancher Lordier, Keith Wicks, Randall Sexton and someone new to me...Kristin Pallas--very nice paintings. Here are links to their work.

Kevin Courter

Kim Lordier

Nancy MacDonald

Kristine Pallas

Randall Sexton

Keith Wicks

Mayonnaise and Lemons, 6 x 6 inches, oil

Orange Landscape, 18 x 18 inches, pastel, available.

I just noticed that my blog features the color orange quite a lot lately...it must have something to do with fall. This painting is entirely made up, and painted on an used piece of paper. Working on a paper with the grain already partly filled resulted in an interesting scumble effect.