A Personal Victory!

A partly sunny and 72 degree day proved to be a winner for me at Kent County Tourism's first-ever Plein Air Paint Out held at Old Dover Days on May 6!  I quickly found a view of a beautiful historic residence, and took a corner perspective that showed glimpses of a lovely side patio as well as a front view of the classical home, doppled with sunlight and surrounded by spring foliage.  Using pen/ink & watercolor, I thoroughly enjoyed capturing this view, while talking with passersby.  I was thrilled to learn that the end result was a second place win in the Paint Out!  The painting was part of the First Friday exhibit at the Dover Art League.

More Plein Air - Spring 2012!

April 27 - 29 proved to be another exciting outdoor painting experience, with eight pen and ink/watercolor paintings completed!  Cool weather pervaded Saturday but a sunny Sunday morning rounded the experience out with a 2 hour "Quick Draw", drawing to framing in just two hours.  "Against The Grain" bakery was the site I chose for the Quick Draw, as both the bakery - and the building - are personal favorites of mine.  Several personal and professional victories resulted from this meaningful weekend, including the opportunity to paint in Laura Drons' beautiful yard and garden in Chestertown.  See images of several of the paintings completed on this weekend in may Gallery of Paintings.  Another outdoor painting opportunity is planned for this morning at Old Dover Days - stay tuned!

Multi-Media Approach

At its best, watercolor alone by a skilled artist can be beautiful, transparent, and colorful!  At the same time, the addition of watercolor pencil and pen and ink mediums to some images can add boldness of line and strength of color that can be hard to achieve by watercolor alone.  While I have explored watercolor painting to move myself away from rigidity, this multi-media approach is quite a natural extention of my background in architectural rendering.  If it works better for some paintings and adds variety to my work...why fight it?

Plein Air Paint Out

I recently participated in Chestertown Art League's "Plen Aire Paint Out" - a thoroughly engaging outdoor painting experience!  All four completed paintings were displayed at the Saturday evening exhibition, with several of my pieces selling...just hours after completion and framing! Perhaps next year, you will join me at the exhibition of completed work?

Come Along With Me!

I anticipate a wide variety of colorful images and subject matter in the coming months on this website, as I share with you my journey in painting. This will make for a very interesting "gallery of work" over time, offering the viewer a very good reason to visit often!  Perhaps one day, you will even find a custom watercolor painting, completed just for you, displayed here. I certainly hope so!