Most Recent Portrait

I have been working on Paint Rowlett Plein Air contest and than an image for a gala at the Warwick Melrose Hotel last night-it was a fashion/music/art gathering. As previously mentioned in a prior post-I stepped out of my comfort zone and completed the second portrait of my career. I actually loved the experience because it forced me to pay more attention to details and because the scope of what looked good was greatly reduced as a portrait doesn’t allow a wide latitude of realism.

First Portrait of Son

Another thing I learned is that I love to work with gold leaf-it was something I thought of as a way to heighten the texture of the Russian ttheatre-the name of the painting is a night at the opera. The gold leaf connected details and made the texture of the background become more finished and full of depth. I will definitely incorporate it in the future, including a painting I sketched three Christmas eves ago, it is an image of a rainy evening with people in blues and purples holding umbrellas outside a church, inside the light is warm and red in the decorations for the season and the gold leaf will heighten the intensity of the light inside. This image will be in the new series which although I have digressed, that is what this post is about.

I have finally finished other projects and can now devote my time to the new series. An exciting aspect is the fact that I am coming full circle painting larger canvases, something I used to do more when I was much younger. Just today I have underpainted four paintings and got back to a large canvas of the coast of Florida. I have much better focus in mind, I feel I am closer than I have ever been to the work I am doing probably because these images are all within the last few months instead of years. It is the closest thing to working Plein Air-you capture the image in your mind and than go home to paint while the image is still fresh, with photographs and sketches to support the details necessary to complete  the painting.

Source for Painting-the Forgotten Coast

I have sketched out seven paintings of the Florida coast-specifically, the forgotten coast of the panhandle of Florida. The paintings are all very large-at least thirty inches or so and the light and dark are dramatic. I want the viewer to look out of the darkness into the beauty of the ocean-one painting is a restaurant in afternoon where people are having lunch-you see the ocean but it is framed by the darkness looking out from a dark room, where people are eating. Another image is a storm coming in while terns suspend in the light around you. I have also gone back to an image of San Francisco with people spending the day at the beach. I believe it will be a very varied series with many aspects of water and the evening sky. Two images that I am very excited about but are a bit from the past is a painting of the fountains at the harbor in Rowlett at night with the lights shining through the water and a painting of fish at the surface of the water as I am forty feet down looking up at the moon-again this one is from a long time ago but I’m hoping to capture an amazing deep blue and a surreal feeling of being suspended in the darkness of Shark River Inlet in Belmar New Jersey.

I am really excited about this series and I feel like it perfect where the previous series left off. I finally have a great focus on the finished product and with the new skills I have recently adopted am excited about new paintings. Please stay tuned.