Poconos Hillside in Winter

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

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" (framed, SOLD)

Snowy Field with Trees

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

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

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

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" (framed, SOLD)

Ahwahnee Meadow, sunrise

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"