My second video on the progress of working on a 4.5' x 6' canvas one brush stroke at a time.

There has been so much rain these past two months that it has been nearly impossible to set-up an easel along the river bank in order to paint the seasonal changes.  But I was able to jump a few rocks and make my way to a warm, sunny ledge in order to do a couple of quick watercolor studies of the fast moving water.

The camera has become quite an amazing tool for the plein air painter.  It is especially handy when nature rolls in a dramatic atmospheric sky that can change within seconds.  Driving through these wetlands, I was able to snap a few pictures before the storm clouds closed in on the last bit of sunlight.  I now have these photographs as reference material for future work.

Photo of the artist at work taken by Grace Trofa Photography

For this year's Wet Paint 2018, I set up my canvas along the seawall so that I could watch the storm clouds form on the distant horizon while incorporating the rocky New England coastline.

This year's Wet Paint 2018 sponsored by the Newport Art Museum, RI, was just that, a wet-wet painting experience!  
I set my paints up along the seawall with a fantastic view of the ocean which incorporated beautiful color combinations of  rock, water, seaweed and wildflowers. By the final hour of painting, a warm steady rain fell and I found myself fighting back spots of water droplets which continued to land in the middle of my progress. Thankfully, with umbrella in hand, I was able to repaint this beautiful seascape over and over again until the last minute before returning my work into the NAM for the preview party and open bidding event.
Working in a water-based paint such as acrylic may not have been the best choice for this year's Wet Paint, but I had a wonderful time and truly enjoyed the painting challenge!

     Storm Clouds on the Horizon                                                 Acrylic on canvas 8" x 10"

This winter on a trip to Florida, I found that there were many bird feathers scattered all over the beach.  With so many different seabirds and other land birds that reside in this region, I simply could not identify who's feather belonged to who?  Each day there, I would sit down in the sand to do an hour study in watercolor on paper or in acrylic on canvas board.  Below are a mix of photographs and six of my painting studies.

In this series of photographs, I am trying to keep my sidewalk and top left building lines from ending directly into each corner where I feel my eye travels off the frame on the left top and bottom.  Because of this, I spend little time observing the distance and right side of walkway, loosing the overall landscape of the picture  What I have here are four frames taken of the same view and below I have cropped each piece for a better composition.

Below are the four images which I have cropped in my attempt to get the best composition out of this group of pictures....please let me know what one of these you feel is the best composition.

Sometimes I come upon a structure or building that reminds me of a famous work of art, like this building I happened to walk past that reminded me of Edward Hopper's painting, Early Sunday Morning, 1930.  It became clear to me that once on inspecting the original painting, my photograph captured a three story building and not a two....http://collection.whitney.org/object/46345

The difference between a winter white and a springtime white is that one I can observe for only a few minutes while the other I can sit in a warm sunny spot to admire.

While I love the snowy white of winter and spring, there is only a small window of opportunity to also enjoy the soft pale pinks on their showy limbs....