From The Sick Ward--

First Light, Fresh Snow

Truth be told, I've always disliked the type of people who are always blathering on about how sick they are, and how their cold was so much worse than yours, or their flu wasn't the ordinary flu, but the super-duper flu bug.

So I'm filled with a sense of self-loathing right now...


Honest to God-- I've had an upper respiratory, walking pneumonia with the boogy-woogy flu for almost a solid month, and man has it gotten old!  That last week it was near 60 degrees, and this morning the thermometer rests at 3 below zero hasn't helped.  But painting needs to be done, dammit!


So the picture above was done this year.  It's a scene from my old neighborhood in Cundy's Harbor, Maine.  We rented a small cottage there for about three years, and this was the view from the front lawn.  I love where I am now, but I have to admit-- it sure was pretty there.


I mentioned in my last post how I was going to glaze this in a slightly different manner in that I was changing my palette for every color pass.  That meant if I used Ultramarine Blue and Alizarin Crimson for a purple color on one go, I'd go over it with a purple made from Cobalt Blue and Cad Red on the next.  These would be very thin, transparent glazes, so it would allow both colors to shine through.  I did the same thing for all the other passages.  I had no reason to do this, other than the age old-- "why not?"  I kept in mind to keep the temperature of the colors the same.  It is possible to have a warm blue, or a cool red, and I didn't want them fighting with each other.  In some areas it worked, others not, and had to be re-painted.  But the fun was in the trying.


Outside of my opinion that maybe I keyed the whole thing down a smidge much, I'm okay with it.  I really enjoyed the color mixing challenge it presented.  Quite often, I get stuck in mixing my colors the same way, and this got me out of that rut.

River's Edge

After a few weeks of painting bright yellows and pinks, I then banged this one out.  This is another scene from my property.  We were having a "January Thaw".  In Maine, that means gray skies and fog.  As I was out stumbling around, I saw this scene.  I liked how the only spot of color was the dead marsh grass we let grow up on the river bank.  If you see this picture in person, you'll notice the trees on the right are much more subdued than what this photo shows--- but what can you do?  That's photos for you.


I've two more paintings on the easel.  One is another snow scene, and the other is an interior.  This super flu bug isn't keeping me down! 

Even though it is alot worse than anybody else's...


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