Late Summer at the Patapsco River

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

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

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

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

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

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

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"