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Snowy Sunset in the Mountains

 As winter strengthens, I start wanting to paint snow, even though we don’t have any on the ground here. It has been many years since we took our children skiing, but this is the type of scene that remains in my memory from those days. Evening comes early and it’s time to go back to…

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Intrepid Artist

 I am honored to have been asked by the Annapolis Watercolor Club to be the demonstrator at their meeting in September. I’m going to show one of my favorite ways of playing with color, Imaginative Color. I usually use three transparent pigments; for this picture I chose new gamboge (a yellow), quinacridone magenta, and cobalt…

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Dragonfly

 We took the boat out a couple of days ago. While we were in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay we received a visit from this guy. We have been visited by butterflies and biting flies while far from shore, but this was the first time for a dragonfly. After I told him he was…

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Deale Beach

 This little slip of a beach on the Chesapeake Bay is hidden at the end of a neighborhood street. My friend and I stopped here early one morning with our painting and drawing gear. The overnight clouds soon cleared away and left us with some early morning sunshine, facilitating some good shadows.

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Flying the Colors

 Here in the United States, we celebrated the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence last week. Since the holiday was Thursday, the festivities started Wednesday evening with cookouts and early fireworks. Thursday was a federal holiday and many people were off work on Friday, too, which made for a wonderful long weekend.…

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Summer

 Friday was the summer solstice in the northern hemisphere and the days are starting to get shorter. The farmers’ markets are starting to fill up with delicious produce: red juicy tomatoes, tender sweet corn on the cob, blueberries and strawberries, and fuzzy peaches. Our garden is producing enough basil that I made pesto with it…

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Feeling Whimsical

 I send out a weekly newsletter which arrives in my subscribers’ inboxes on Monday mornings. It includes a picture I have painted and some words of encouragement as a happy way to start the week. In order to keep it fresh, I like to change the header every couple of months. I was feeling whimsical this week and came up with this:

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A Good Day for Fishing

 My walking and painting buddy and I did another early morning “sit and paint” instead of exercising. This time we ended up at a cove near Fairhaven Cliffs. I haven’t been able to find an official name for this tidal “lake” but locals say that there was once a building nearby called the Cove Club…

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Franklin Point State Park

 Hidden away on the coast of the Chesapeake Bay not far from where I live is a little-known preserved area of woodlands, wetlands, and a few trails called Franklin Point State Park. My walking buddy, who is a fellow artist, found it last year, and we have explored the trails a couple of times. We found on our first trip that we either needed to go armed with a good bug repellent or when the weather was too cold to encourage flying by little creatures. On our morning exercise walks we frequently encounter scenic sites, and we have often commented that we should come back with our materials to paint…

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The View from my Studio

 We’re on the cusp of summer in the northern hemisphere. The long evenings mean that sunset no longer happens while I am cooking dinner and I can sit in my studio or on the deck and watch the sun and clouds paint the sky wonderful colors.

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