An Idle mind

This winter has been weird--almost no winter at all, hence fewer opportunities to paint it. In a "dead period," I went back into my files and retrieved some tearsheets of fashion ads that I had saved. Now don't get the wrong idea. I use images of figures and faces in ads to work on painting figures and faces. Models in ads are posed and dressed (for the most part) so I can use them as models, instead of the real thing. If I can find some way to paint them to "comment," I do. Here are a couple of them:


Lady in Red
oil on canvas 9X12
This allowed me to work on gesture and facial expression. The "meaning" I intended is resting in my subconscious somewhere. I love the colors and I made her complexion very pale for contrast.

Model Levitating
oil on canvas 16X20
I was fascinated by the impact of this image. It was spread across two pages I imagine to shock the viewer. The shiny leather outfit was challenging to work with as was the unusual pose. I simplified it a bit, but I added the shadow underneath to make it seem as if she was floating in air. Perhaps Freud could explain it.

But in a sane moment I did come across this which caught my eye:

Looking Up Preble Street
oil on canvas 16X20
This is right down the street from where I live in the Willard Square area. I liked the houses "stacked" one after the other. Also, I tried to capture the low winter light and I am always attracted to bare trees in winter.

Baby Blue House on Beach Street

Oil on Canvas 11 X 14
You know how you can walk by a place day after day and not give it a thought, then all of a sudden it jumps out at you and says "Paint me!" I must have walked by this house 200 times in the past couple of years. One day I looked up and knew that I should paint it. So I did! It's on a street one block from my house that goes down to Willard Beach, here in South Portland. The light just suited my style that day. I titled it so because I love alliterative names. It's my past as a copywriter haunting me.

Return to the blogosphere

I've been gone for 5 months, the result of a nerve problem in my right arm excerbated by working at computers. Things have improved enough for me to get back to blogging (and some other things), so I hope to recover the good friends I made before. I was able to continue to paint and that's a very good thing even though it was at a slower pace which gave me time for more thought and study. Here are some recent pieces.



Fern Glade in Sprague Woods
Oil on Canvas 18" X 25"
I've painted this before--the location is on the Sprague Estate land in Cape Elizabeth Maine, a few miles from where I live. The very wealthy Sprague family has set aside a large parcel of land for preservation. Much of it is mature woodland, and a portion is also used for farming. There are many treasures here. This is one of my favorite spots especially in low light. My first painting was in landscape format, but a slightly different location inspired me to make a vertical piece in which I could show some sky.



Low Tide at Ferry Beach
Oil on Canvas 20" X 16"
This is a small beach in Scarborough, Maine a few miles from my house. It's on the road to Prout's Neck, a section of town in which winslow Homer lived for many years. The beach is quite flat and at low tide is very wide (not so at high tide however). So the little dinghy in the foreground just sits flat in the exposed sand. But right at the waterline a good-sized lobster boat lies on its side. I asked an old guy there how come the boat was left like this. He said, "Time to scrape the hull." I guess at the next low tide the boat will be lying on its other side for the same reason. The afternoon light produced a pink glow on the sand and in the shallow water. That's Pine Point across the way and the ocean beyond.


Street on Higgins Beach
Oil on Canvas 11" 14"

Higgins Beach is a small beach enclave in Scarborough. It's another shallow water beach that's more than a hundred yards wide at low tide and non-existent at high tide. But it has warmish water for Maine and the surfing is great all year. The community was a bit funky but now is becoming gentrified with real estate prices through the roof. Nonetheless, good light yields some nice inspiration which I hope has produced an attractive painting here.
More soon, I promise!