Ely Road at Dusk

 

oil on aluminum panel, 6" x 6"

This little landscape painting is a loose interpretation of a view from Denman Ranch to a knoll that Ely Road cuts through.  I wanted to paint that pink sky I saw over Ely Road a while back, and I particularly like the color pairing of that light magenta sky with the neon light green in the foreground.  

Denman Cottage View

oil on panel, 11" x 14"

This palette knife painting is a somewhat idealized interpretation of the view from my cottage on the Denman property.  I painted it from a photo and not from life because, while my camera was off with the colors of the background hills, I quite liked its skewed version, and yet the values were not far off the real thing.  

Backlit Lola by the Barn

oil on canvas, 10" x 10"

Here's my little dog Lola sitting by the big barn on the property where my art studio resides.  She loves it there!

Supermoon

oil on gessoboard panel, 6" x 8" 

This is my first attempt at a nocturnal plein air painting, again using only a palette knife.  I really wanted to capture that big round ball of a moon from the vicinity of my art studio, so I tried to work fast and furious as it was rising in the east over the hills of Sonoma.  While my lighting setup enabled me to see the panel well enough (the light source was set on a chair), my palette was in shadow throughout, and so I had to later adjust the values in the studio.  What a challenge!  

Ely Road

iPad painting, 10" x 14"

The property where I have my art studio sits at the top of a knoll, and I've always liked the view south beyond the vineyard to the hill that shows Ely Road climbing up and over another knoll.  This was the view I had from my former art studio and as beautiful as it is, I still haven't gotten around to painting it with actual paint.  I see beauty everywhere, though, so to narrow the choice down is always a difficult one for me.

Robert's Barn

acrylic on canvas, 12" x 12"

This was done half en plein air, half in the studio.  It took some doing to get the colors and values right on the distant hills.

The Swimming Hole

acrylic on canvas, 6" x 12"

A plein air sketch that I started tweaking in the studio, then stopped because it all started to go pear-shaped.  I couldn't remember how I mixed the colors that day by the pond, and once you start in with a slightly different palette, there's no end to the changes that ensue.  I liked some things about this effort sufficiently to want to preserve them.  So, I chalk this one up to a successful learning experience.  Onward!

View from Denman Studio

oil on panel, 6" x 6"

This is a quick little palette knife sketch of the view from my studio in Penngrove in the early morning.  I'll be doing a larger version of this scene at some point this summer.

Davis Lane

acrylic on canvas, 10" x 20"

Another barn painting, this time on Davis Lane in Penngrove.  The two sheep were hunkered down against this beautiful barn, perhaps awaiting a storm.  The sheep, the gorgeous barn, the sunlight on the distant hills and that neon yellow mustard field in the mid-ground all begged to be painted!