The Autumn Glade

First Snowfall in the Smokies

2012-02-15T11:11:00.001-08:00

We haven't had much snow here on the east coast this winter, and so I figured I'd paint a scene somewhere in the Smoky Mountains where snowfall is more common, even in early winter. Enjoy!

Acrylic painting: 14" x 17"

Onondaga Lake with Snow

2012-01-18T10:55:00.001-08:00

There hasn't been an inch of snow here in Maryland all winter, so I had to turn to other parts of the country for inspiring winter scenery. This painting was based upon a photo I found along the shore of Onondaga Lake outside of Syracuse, New York. It's a beautiful part of the country, provided you like snow in the winter.

Acrylic painting: 14" x 17"

Cape May Lighthouse at Dusk

2011-12-09T12:48:00.000-08:00

Cape May is a well-known town at the southern end of New Jersey, and while growing up, my family and I would often visit its sunny beaches during the summer. The Cape May lighthouse is a regional landmark and presents a beautiful sight at sunrise and sunset. Here, we see it from afar as dusk settles across a calm ocean.

Acrylic painting: 14" x 17"

Autumn Road with Oaks

2011-11-02T10:50:00.001-07:00

Fall is in its full glory here in central Maryland, and it is a nice time of year to go for a hike through the woods or for a drive down a country road lined with colorful trees.

Acrylic painting: 14" x 17"

Sunset on Mountain Lake

2011-10-06T12:24:00.001-07:00

This painting was a rather bold one, at least for somebody who doesn't live anywhere near the mountains and thus has to paint them from photos. Here, we see the sun set past a lake in the mountains as the last rays of light turn the tips of the pine trees a golden copper hue.

Lessons from this painting: Renown artist Larry Seiler is currently teaching an online class on WetCanvas regarding composition. He commented on a previous painting of mine that I should work to achieve more dynamic and assymetrical compositions. So, I decided to give that a whirl in this painting. Another note: The water color is a mix of Cerulean Blue with a bit of Titanium White and Ultramarine. The result is more accurate than just Cerulean Blue. After applying the brighter water color, I went back and added some pure Cerulean Blue to tint the area a bit more.

Acrylic painting: 14" x 17"

Late Summer at the Patapsco River

2011-09-23T13:01:00.000-07:00

Fall is in the air after a scorching summer. Beneath the sycamores, leaves lie scattered amid the dried grass, and once spring greens are now dried yellow or bronze. The days are shorter and soon the trees will be robed in full autumn glory.

Acrylic painting: 14" x 17"

Sierra Nevadas in Spring

2011-09-01T11:06:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I will go back and improve an older painting that is almost, but not quite, where I want it. This painting (inspired by one of Bierstadt's works) is an example. Originally, the trees were darker and had almost no yellow or brown in the leaves - the grass was the same, and this resulted in a lack of color harmony. The water was painted before I knew how to add underwater rocks, and it needed more Cerulean Blue to reflect the sky. Finally, the clouds needed some improved contrast - I also added more wispy clouds to push back the distant cliffs and hills. The end result is an improved painting - thankfully, acrylic paintings are easy to rework!

Acrylic painting: 14" x 17"

The OLD version of the painting is shown below so that one can see the improvements - the original photo was also rather dark.

Redwoods by the River

2011-08-05T15:39:00.000-07:00

Redwood trees fascinate me. Both redwoods and giant sequoias (which are closely related) dwarf any other lifeform on the planet, and both species can live to incredible ages. It is not uncommon to find redwoods or sequoias that are over 1,000 years old. Unfortunately, for all of their incredible size and longevity, they are both somewhat picky in where they can grow, hence we won't be seeing ancient redwood forests here in Maryland any time soon.

Acrylic painting: 14" x 17"

Night Sky Outside of Town

2011-07-21T08:17:00.000-07:00

This is the first real nocturne painting I've ever created, aside from a few experiments many years ago. I think it turned out well, though it is very difficult ot get accurate photos of nocturnes - I either end up with ambient light reflecting off the paint, a shadow cast from myself on the painting, or there's not enough light and the photo becomes blurry.

The sky color was a real challenge here: I settled upon a mix primarily of Cerulean Blue and Raw Umber, and then a small amount of Titanium White was added (for opacity) with a tinge of Ultramarine Blue (to shift the color back towards blue since Cerulean Blue has very low tinting strength.) Note that no black was used in the sky since it muddied up the colors.

Acrylic Painting: 14" x 17"

Logan Utah in Summer

2011-06-30T14:21:00.000-07:00

Greetings!

My sister recently visited Logan, Utah and she sent me some photos of the scenary, which provided inspiration for this painting. The cabin was added to the scene - such old cabins are probably common out there in the West.

Acrylic painting 14" x 17"

Virginia Tech Storm Clouds

2011-06-06T10:00:00.001-07:00

Back in May of this year, my sister graduated from Virginia Tech, a university located in a beautiful part of the country in the mountains of Virginia. Scenes like this one were common as storm clouds rolled over the hills and mountains and sunlight peaked out upon the tree-filled plains.

Acrylic painting: 14" x 17"

Kinder Farms flowering trees

2011-05-08T13:47:00.000-07:00

The last of the flowering trees finished their spring display within the past few weeks; this painting captures that finale at Kinder Farms, a local park devoted to the history of farming in the area.

Acrylic painting: 14" x 17"

Hilltop shelter in Spring

2011-03-30T11:09:00.000-07:00

I probably took on more than I should have in this one: dense forest scene, a man-made structure, and it's all set in spring, so the greens are tricky to get right. That being said, I think it turned out reasonably well given the challenges.

Sadly, the little hilltop shelter in question was crushed flat by one of the trees on the left that snapped off in 2010 - it's a shame, since the view was nice from up there.

Acrylic painting: 14" x 17"

Patapsco River: Hint of Spring

2011-02-28T09:58:00.001-08:00

Well, I'm getting ahead of myself here - it's still February, and spring is many weeks away, but by April the trees in Patapsco State Park will have a hint of green amid the brown and grey winter branches, and then spring will almost be here.

Acrylic painting: 14" x 17"

Patapsco sycamores by the river

2011-01-19T13:39:00.000-08:00

Patapsco State Park is full of old sycamore trees, many of which grow down near the river bank. Here, we stand in a rocky part of the river, watching the water roll by as the sunlight filters through the rich greens of the sycamore tree leaves.

Acrylic painting: 14" x 17"

Towering Mountain Majesty

2011-01-02T11:26:00.001-08:00

This is my first painting of a mountain-focused landscape after being fortunate enough to participate in several weeks of online, interactive seminars taught live by well-known landscape artist Johannes Vloothuis. He taught about 100 students a night for several hours each night throughout December 2010, and each session was incredibly informative.

The focus upon proper composition through use of well-defined value planes, each designed in a pleasing abstract shape, was eye-opening, as were the little technical details, such as the proper way to paint underwater rocks, as shown in this painting.

Acrylic Painting: 14" x 17"

Rainstorm on the Open Plains

2010-12-14T13:28:00.000-08:00

A huge rainstorm sweeps across the open plains, leaving wind and puddles in its wake. Far away, the distant mountains await the storm even as the sun highlights the prairie between the clouds above.

Acrylic painting: 14" x 17"

Upstate New York snowy river

2010-12-03T12:03:00.000-08:00

This painting is based upon a photo from this month's Landscape Challenge on the Wet Canvas forum. The scene is of a snowy river somewhere in Upstate New York, a beautiful part of the country.

Acrylic painting: 14" x 17"

Istanbul Sunset with storm clouds

2010-11-17T10:21:00.000-08:00

This painting is a variation of one painted over a year ago. The original was based upon a sunset my family and I saw over the Bosphorus in Istanbul while looking westwards towards the Hagia Sofia. Some interest was expressed in a copy of this painting in portrait format, so I created this version of the original. Enjoy!

Acrylic painting: 14" x 17"

Early Autumn Prairie

2010-11-08T12:59:00.001-08:00

Here's my latest: autumn comes to the prairie, turning the cottonwoods yellow amid the dying grass of summer. Enjoy!

Acrylic Painting: 14" x 17"

Autumn Oaks on a Hillside

2010-10-18T13:28:00.001-07:00

Yep, it's autumn, and that is a good reason to paint trees clad in copper, red, and gold. This image of a hill covered mostly by large oak trees on a sunny fall day. A cool breeze blows through the rustling leaves, offset by the low angle sun.

Acrylic painting: 14" x 17"

Patapsco Park: Autumn Shadows

2010-10-01T10:55:00.001-07:00

Well, this photo is technically from late last October, but autumn is on its way, so it seems natural to paint a fall scene. This one was based on a photo taken near the railroad tracks - the incline on the left leads to the railroad bed, though you can't really see anything of the tracks themselves from this area.

Acrylic Painting: 17" x 14"

Grand Canyon Storm

2010-09-12T10:57:00.001-07:00

This one was inspired by one of the photos in the monthly Landscape Challenge on the WetCanvas web forums. The original photo was of the Grand Canyon on a gloomy day, so I decided to zoom out a bit and add some drama with a storm explaining the gloomy appearance.

Acrylic Painting: 17" x 14"

Rainy Hillside Evening

2010-08-29T16:07:00.000-07:00

Here we see evening come to a hilltop clearing somewhere in the mountains; the rain still beats down on the ridge of hills in the distance, and puddles cover the foreground. Night is swiftly coming to this quiet corner of the world, and more rain may be on the way - but, for now, enjoy the colors of sunset.

Acrylic painting: 14" x 17"

Stepping Stones to the Stars

2010-08-07T07:54:00.000-07:00

One of my other hobbies is creating digital space art; while I've focused more on acrylic paintings in the past few years, this other form of art I also enjoy. Most of my space art was up on another website, but I felt I should bring some of it over here to present a consolidated collection of my artwork.

The road to the stars is represented in this image: life starts on the Earth-like world and eventually realizes the nature of the heavens above. Then, life moves on to the planet's moon, and eventually to other worlds in the star system. Someday, the bright star cluster beyond will be within reach...

A Brief Review of the Winsor and Newton Artist's Acrylic Series

2010-07-18T09:23:00.000-07:00

About one year ago, Winsor and Newton replaced their venerable, top of the line Finity series of acrylic paint with the new Artist's Acrylic paint series. I've used exclusively Finity acrylic paints ever since I started painting since they performed well and were commonly available, so the discontinuation of my favorite paint brought some concern. As supplies of the old Finity paint dwindled in American hobby and craft stores, I bought up what I could and started to use the Liquitex line of acrylic paints for some colors. While the Liquitex paint performs well, I was eager to see how the new Artist's Acrylic paint would compare to the Finity series.

For whatever reason, it took close to a year since the release of the new paint series for it to show up in local hobby and craft stores - yet another advantage of online ordering is that one can get new products much quicker! Now, I finally have tubes of both the Artist's and Finity paint series to compare to each other. I've seen very few reviews of this new series online, so I figured I'd use this opportunity to test the new product myself and share my results.

Packaging and appearance: Both the Finity Series and the Artist's series paints come in 60 mL (2 Oz) squeeze tubes that are similar to toothpaste tubes. Unfortunately, the new series kept the small cap used on the Finity series; these small caps tend to gum up with paint easily, so keep them clean or they'll require a strong twist to open.

The Artist's series now displays a stripe of the actual paint on the tube's label so you know exactly what you are getting. IMHO, all paint should packaged in such a way since it gets past limitations of trying to represent the color through a picture on the label. This method also makes it obvious how transparent or opaque the color is; I have yet to see any series of artist's paint in which the colors have their opacity all accurately listed. This case is no exception to that rule. Cerulean Blue is typically listed as "opaque" even though from what I've seen it is "semi-opaque" in that it does not fully cover whatever is below it. For examples of truly "opaque" paint, look at Titanium White, any of the various opaque "Mars" colors (all forms of iron oxide), or any of the Cadmium based paints.

While not all of the paint colors translated directly over from the Finity series to the Artist's series, most did, and the pigments are all still accurately labeled and reflected on the label. Both the Finity and Artist's paints in this case have Cobalt Stannate (PB35) as the pigment. Neither one is a "hue" - a mix of other, often less expensive colors used for convenience. Hues of most expensive colors are still available in the new series, though each artist will have to see if those mixes meet their needs.

One odd note: the new Cerulean Blue is listed as Series 5 paint (the most expensive), while the older Cerulean Blue is listed as Series 4 paint. I've usually seen the Series 4 and 5 sold at the same price, but be careful of this; any of the Cobalt or Cadmium based paints are expensive, so keep your eye open for sales.

Performance: I performed two simple tests to compare the Finity series with the Artist's series. The first was to take a bead of paint from each tube and draw it out across a white piece of paper to check the color of the paint both in thick and thin layers and to see how quickly it dried. Both colors appeared basically identical, and both handled on the brush in the same fashion. The Artist's paint did take a bit longer to dry (maybe a minute or so), but not long enough to significantly change it's properties. In short, the new series still behaves in the traditional, quick-drying acrylic fashion, though you do have a bit longer to work with it. For artist's seeking truly "open" paints - ones that dry much slower and thus allow wet-on-wet techniques, you'll want to consider other series.

The second test was to mix the Cerulean Blue with Titanium White (Finity series) in a ratio that would approximate a sky blue color - painting skies is perhaps the biggest use of Cerulean Blue, at least in landscape art, so this seemed a good test. I was checking to see how well the new paint series would mix with the old one and if it would produce a good sky blue.

The Artist's paint worked fine with the older Finity line, producing a nice sky blue color that was about the same as the results of mixing the Finity series Cerulean Blue with Finity series Titanium White. The two colors displayed are not exactly the same, but since the mix ratios were approximated, this is not surprising. Note that the Artist's series is advertised as darkening less upon drying than other acrylic paints; this may be the case, but I haven't seen much darkening from my other acrylic paints, so it's difficult for me to see this improvement.

Summary: Based upon these straightforward tests, the new Artist's line of acrylic paints is a fine replacement for the Finity series and, of equal importance, should work fine with the older Finity paints.

Summer Field in Tennessee

2010-06-13T18:02:00.000-07:00

This painting is based on one of the photos for the monthly Landscape Challenge over on the Wet Canvas web forums. It's of a sunny, summer field in the rolling hills of eastern Tennessee, probably not far from the Smoky Mountains. It's a beautiful part of the country and an area of great inspiration for painting.

Acrylic painting: 14" x 17"

Storm on the Chesapeake Bay

2010-05-23T13:30:00.000-07:00

This one was inspired by the storms that sweep over the land in late spring and early summer. Here, we see a cloud-tossed sky late in the afternoon on a sunny, warm day down by the Chesapeake Bay. The landscape was based upon Down's Memorial Park; the two small pillars in the water are navigation beacons, which are quite common sights on the Chesapeake Bay.

Acrylic Painting: 14" x 17"

Bacon Ridge Natural Area: Forest Edge

2010-04-18T14:25:00.000-07:00

In Crownsville, Maryland, there's a wilderness conservation area that is destined to become over 1,000 acres of parkland. Most of the park is still wild forest, and though it is usually closed to the public (until it officially becomes a park with proper trails, facilities, etc.), it is open a couple of times to anyone who enjoys hiking. Saturday was one of these "walks in the woods" and the weather was perfect. This is view is based on a photo taken at the edge of the forest looking towards an old meadow. It was a chaotic scene of spring greens, leaning trees, vines, and bushes - beautiful, but complex to paint. I hope the painting captures this jumble of life under the glow of a spring sun with a gentle breeze in the field beyond.

The organization that hosts these events and who has pushed for the conservation of this large tract of wilderness is the Scenic River Land Trust. They've done a good job, and I look forward to the day when this park is open to the public.

Cherry Tree and Pines

2010-03-28T12:04:00.001-07:00

This one continues the spring theme of flowering trees - can you tell I'm sick of winter? Here's an old cherry tree growing near the edge of a scrubby border near two big pine trees. The mix of light and shadow makes the composition in this painting, while the cherry tree holds the viewer's attention. The cherry blossoms are echoed in the distant cherries and the petals on the ground.

Acrylic painting: 14" x 17"

Cherry Tree on a Windy Day

2010-03-21T13:06:00.000-07:00

Well, it is FINALLY spring!

So, I figured I'll paint spring-time scene, and flowering trees are the perfect choice. Here, we see an old cherry tree in flower on a breezy, spring day. You can see the shed petals blowing in the wind and scattered along the ground. In the background on the left are some smaller, young cherry trees. The trees were tricky in this one since I wanted to give the impression that they had almost finished leafing out, which is not easy to do, but I think it turned out pretty well.

Acrylic painting: 14" x 17"

Sunlit Hillside and Storm Clouds

2010-02-14T10:40:00.001-08:00

I've decided to paint something that is about as "opposite" as one can get from the unending blizzards and snow that have hammered the region this winter. This scene, taken from a reference image in this month's Landscape Challenge on the Wetcanvas forums, is of a bunch of small trees on a sunlit hillside moments before a late afternoon thunderstorm unleashes a torrent of rain over the lands. The cloudscape was inspired by one of Bierstadt's works, though his scene was of a similar storm over a small farm. Either way, I think most of us would welcome rain vs. snow and ice at this point!

Acrylic painting 14" x 17"

Poconos Hillside in Winter

2010-01-24T15:10:00.000-08:00

This painting was inspired by a photo in the monthly Landscape Challenge on the Wetcanvas art forum. The original photo was taken somewhere in Canada, but it reminds me a lot of the snow-covered forests in the rocky hills of the Poconos mountains of northern PA. It was an interesting challenge to produce realistic snow while not also making the painting feel cold or uninviting.

Acrylic painting: 14" x 17"

Redwood Path

2009-12-30T11:40:00.001-08:00

Here's my latest painting, inspired by the article about redwood trees in the October 2009 issue of the National Geographic. While I've never been to the redwood forests, I'd like to go there someday and walk in the shadows of the huge, ancient trees that stretch to the sky. The path in this painting wanders amid the giants, leading one through a silent forest that has stood for thousands of years.

Acrylic painting, 14" x 17"

Snowy Field with Trees

2009-12-06T11:49:00.000-08:00

Here's a tribute to the first snowfall of the year! An inch of slushy snow is still enough to inspire one to paint a wintery field in the gleaming light of a cold day.

The trees were particularly tricky to paint, since they were bare of leaves (or almost bare since some trees, like oaks, hold on to some browned leaves until deep into winter.) That, and the subdued colors made for a challenging painting, but I think it turned out pretty well.

Acrylic ainting: 14" x 17"

Field of Sycamores in Autumn

2009-11-15T16:41:00.000-08:00

This painting was inspired by the monthly challenge in the Landscape forum of the Wetcanvas artist's website. One of the photos has an open field with dry grass with some hills and trees on the right and a smaller, closer tree on the left. I tweaked it a bit, making the trees more distinctive; the larger trees on the left are sycamores (with their distinctive bright and mottled bark), while the distant trees have a mix of red and yellow to draw the eye into the painting.

Acrylic painting 14" x 17"

Forest Path in Autumn

2009-10-26T17:45:00.000-07:00

Here's another autumn scene: a quiet path through the woods as the leaves change colors in the crisp fall air. When painting this, I thought of the red-orange trees as some species of oak, while the yellow ones are hickories, though most any trees of the right autumn colors would work. This is a timely painting since the autumn colors are peaking about now as they do most years from the end of October into early November. The color is quite good this year, though the rainy weekends have cut down on how often I can get out into the woods. Thankfully, this past Sunday was beautiful and perfect for a walk down a path like this one.

"Forest Path in Autumn"

Acrylic painting, 14" x 17"

Autumn Barn by the Road

2009-10-12T15:51:00.000-07:00

Here's my latest painting, based upon one of the photographs for the October Landscape Challenge at the WetCanvas Landscape forum. The original barn is somewhere in Upstate New York, I believe, which is a beautiful part of the country.

The key to this painting was the multiple layers of color glazed over each other to create variegated autumn foliage on the trees and even in the grass. Distance regression - where the far away trees and barn have lower contrast and fewer details - was also important since there's a lot of open space in this painting between the background woods and the foreground trees.

I had another pleasant surprise while painting this one, as my brother and sister-in- law visited me on their way back from a wedding in Virginia. The painting still needed the last highlights and shadows added in when they arrived, but they liked it anyway, and even took a few of my other paintings back home with them. Publicity is good, and what's the point in painting if you can't share the results with others! Thank heavens for the internet since that makes it a lot easier.

"Autumn Barn by the Road"

Acrylic Painting 14" x 17"

Ahwahnee Meadow, sunrise

2009-09-27T11:28:00.014-07:00

A few years back, while wandering around the internet, I happened to find an amazing webcam in Yosemite National Park. This webcam looks out across Ahwahnee Meadow, towards the mountains and typically provides a clear view of a beautiful region of the park.

One morning, I was fortune enough to visit the webcam during a golden sunrise, with clouds rolling down and through the shadowed mountains and mist in the field. I knew I had to paint this image at some point, and here it is. The foreground trees - large, old conifers of some sort - were added in to give a sense of scale to the meadow through use of an interesting foreground. They also let me get in some dark values to balance out the glowing sky. Enjoy!

"Ahwahnee Meadow at Sunrise"

Acrylic painting, 14" x 17"

Storm over a Mountain Lake

2009-09-06T13:30:00.000-07:00

Here's another summer scene - storm clouds pass between distant mountains while sunlight falls on old conifers by a large lake. The weather in the mountains can be violent and unpredictable, but also beautiful.

Painting mountains is still a challenge, as are exposed rocks. It may be a case of "paint what you know" in that there are no mountains or exposed cliff faces here in Maryland, so I only have photos to use as a reference. Still, I think this one turned out pretty well.

"Storm Over a Mountain Lake"

Acrylic painting 14" x 17"

After the summer rain...

2009-08-09T12:35:00.001-07:00

Here's my latest landscape painting - it's a view across the far-away plains near a grove of trees. In the distance, storm clouds can be seen, and they've already passed overheard, leaving behind puddles in the marshy area beneath the hillside.

This painting had a few new experiments: the raised foreground hill and low horizon make the sky the key aspect of the painting. It also has a lot of "nothing" in it that goes all the way to the horizon; this can be challenging to paint since the regression must be done correctly (colors and details fade away, etc.) Also, this is the first time I've tried rain puddles - I think they turned out well. The key thing is to make sure the puddles (which can be treated like small lakes) are in a muddy-looking part of the ground. Otherwise, they look strange sitting in the middle of green grass.

"After the Summer Rain"

Acrylic painting, 14" x 17"

Downs Memorial Park by the Bay

2009-07-26T11:04:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite local parks to visit is Downs Memorial Park, which lies on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay. This park has over 200 acres of forests and trails, as well as a large shore along the Bay with grassy areas and benches available so one can spend an afternoon looking out across the Bay, watching ships pass by in the distance.

Autumn is one of the best times to visit this park since it is full of trees that change interesting colors: chestnut oaks turn bronze, sweetgums change from orange to wine or rust red, and hickories turn golden hues. A good number of trees grow right down by the water on small raised embankments. From these areas, one can stand in the shade and look out across the water, as seen in this painting looking southward from the water's edge under a group of trees. In the distance, you can make out the far shore of the Bay across the waters.

"Downs Park in Fall by the Bay"

Acrylic painting, 14" x 17"

Summer in the Park

2009-07-20T15:24:00.000-07:00

Here's a new painting based upon a reference photo for the monthly Landscape Challenge on the Wetcanvas forums. The photo reminded me a lot of a local farm park that has a lot of open, prairie regions with some woods mixed in along its edges. If you walk the paved perimeter trail, you'll see lots of cleared meadows between the trees - in some places, if you take a photo at the right angle, you can get an effect like that of the Great Plains.

This painting was an experiment in dappled light filtering through the edge of the woods. The mix of shadows and scattered highlights, particularly along the grass and road, add an almost Impressionist quality to the painting. I added the flowers on the right and in the grass beyond (the white tufts are Queen Ann's Lace) since it summer, and what is summer without wildflowers?

Acrylic Painting 14" x 17"

An Autumn Glade for the Autumn Glade

2009-06-28T15:52:00.000-07:00

Well, I named this blog "The Autumn Glade" since I love the woods, particularly in autumn. Then, I realized I didn't actually have any really good paintings of a clearing in a forest in autumn! That lead to my latest painting, which is of an open area in an mostly oak forest near a hilltop somewhere in the mountains (probably the Smoky Mountains or Blueridge Mountains.)

It was an interesting challenge to add enough color to the autumn leaves without making them look fake and over saturated. I particularly like how well the depth regression turned out in this painting - there are multiple "layers" in the painting of landscape features, each further away from the viewer. The hole in the treeline leading to the far-away clouds and mountains worked out well; the clouds are on the colorful side, but I find that I like to paint them with stronger colors to add more depth and interest to them vs. "chalky white clouds."

Acrylic Painting 14" x 17"

Return from Istanbul!

2009-06-08T16:00:00.000-07:00

The last week of May, my family and I visited Istanbul, Turkey for a wonderful vacation amid a city full of history and culture. My brother-in-law is from this city, and he and my sister were kind enough to take care of the details for the trip. Amid the excellent food and amazing sights, I also was able to get some photographs that would make great ideas for paintings.

This painting is based upon a sunset over the Bosphorus that we saw from the Asian side (Kadikoy region) early in the week. We went on a relaxing ferry tour of the Bosphorus before getting off on the Asian side of Istanbul to get dinner at a restaurant that serves a variety of authentic Turkish food (more than just kabobs!) While there, we picked up some Turkish Delight candy for our friends and family back in America, and then, as the sun set, we headed back to the water to catch a ferry back.

In this painting, I captured the last glow of light as the sun set behind the Hagia Sofia on the other side of the Bosphorus straight. Another ferry boat, its lights on for the evening, quietly passes by in the growing shadows.

"Istanbul: Sunset on the Bosphorus" Acrylic Painting, 14" x 17"

First Post

2009-05-20T15:56:00.000-07:00

My most recent landscape painting that was inspired by the works of Asher Durand, a member of the Hudson River School of landscape artists. I got to see a few of his works for the first time at the National Art Museum in D.C. in April. He was a master of painting forest interiors with accurate trees, which gave me incentive to improve my own tree-painting ability in my landscapes.

Acrylic Painting 14" x 17"