"Laughter in the Sun" 24"x24" oil

Poppies have become my new favorite investigation since they bloomed in Riverside this past spring. I first started by quick little 5"x7" oil sketches created on the the sidewalks in front of my neighbors front gardens. Now I've been recreating them in various invented compositions in my studio. This is the latest. I wanted the "look at me" impression poppies give to really sing in this piece so I pushed a vista view. Since working larger and larger in my studio, I find I'm going through huge quantities of paint. In the middle of this piece I ran out of Cadmium Reds but mixing Cad. Orange and Alizarin gave me the various reds I needed for the poppies. Once again, created with a palette knife, my best friend. ($1148.)

Mountains in Chicago?

"Private Interiors"
"Along the Grove"
"Mountains in Chicago"
6"x8" oil on linen mounted on archival board
This was one of those lovely mornings when all you had to do was turn slightly to see something new to paint. My intention when I set myself in these Savana Oaks forest preserve was to focus on how to paint dense greenery. But it quickly became evident that at what seems to be green leaves and grass is so much more. The dark shadows were very warm and rather orangish. The bright morning light filtering through and back lighting, created rather coolish lime-y appearances.

On the last painting,
I planned on painting over one of my pieces from our winter plein air trip to Sedona when we were either painting in a hail storm or heavy rains. As I started I thought maybe I could leave the mountains and work a meadow into the foreground. I think I should have been more sensitive to the foreground. I may go back and tweak that area so that it looks more meadow-like.
($99. each)

Reeds and Rocks

We're still having spring storms although I guess I should call them summer storms. Although the flooding is a pain the results make interesting subjects to paint. Once again I returned to our rivers edge as my muse but it is the abstract concepts of capturing the dazzling light on moving water, rocks, and weeds that fascinate me and make this painting a very fun challenge. Basically I feel light is relatively cool and shadows are warm (relative to my painting)so why the yellowish highlights on the rocks? They looked yellow although a cool yellow. It's been interesting reading different blogs on this concept of warm shadows and cool lights.
($95. 6"x8" oil w/ palette knife)