Bryce Canyon Blizzard

This was an odd painting that sort of drifted all over the place until I figured out what I wanted to do with it. Painting canyons is very difficult since they are frighteningly complex structures, and the snow just made it even more challenging. After a lot of muddling around and wondering if the painting was going to turn out, I was able to get some meaningful structure and contrast into the scene. I think the result is acceptable, though somewhat more abstract than most of my paintings. 

Acrylic painting: 14" x 17"

2020 in Hindsight

2020 has not been a good year: catastrophic, climate-change driven wildfires from the western US to Australia, a deadly pandemic, and disturbing assaults on democracy. This painting is as much symbolic as it is artistic - a fitting scene for a terrible year, and an attempt to find some beauty in the wreckage left behind. A burnt forest, a discarded face mask, and clearing skies with a hope for a better future.

Acrylic painting: 14" x 17"

Reflecting on Autumn

Along the shores of a slow-moving stream, fiery leaves of autumn glow on the trees on a clear, cool day. Their colors reflect in the water as the leaves fall like sparks, each slowly extinguished. 

Acrylic painting: 14" x 17"

Untamed Wilds

In the rolling mountains and wild forests, a cool autumn breezes whips through the trees. Limbs creak with age, and leaves are tossed on the wind, each a spark of fiery color that floats through the air. This painting was inspired by a mix of things, including fall in the mountains of the eastern United States to the artwork on an old Magic card by the same title as this painting. 

Acrylic painting: 14" x 17"

Corn Maze Adventure

An autumn tradition in much of the eastern US (and probably anywhere with cornfields) is the corn maze. These mazes can take many forms, from simple ones for young kids and their parents, to complex patterns that change every year with hidden secrets within the maze. Either way, they are a great opportunity to get some exercise while walking amid the glowing, golden corn under the blue skies of early autumn. 

Acrylic painting: 14" x 17"

Tribute - Cycles of Fire

The last in this series of tribute paintings to the 1980's science fiction artwork classic, "Cycles of Fire," this painting is my interpretation of that book's cover painting. The original piece, create by William K. Hartmann, depicted a barred spiral galaxy in the background with a binary pair of a red giant and white dwarf looming close in the foreground. My version has the same basic composition, but I moved the foreground stars off into the distance since I chose to focus more on the sheer scale of the scene vs. the stars themselves. As with an earlier painting, the technique of flicking water-diluted paint with a toothbrush was used to create the sparkling stars; finally, like most nocturns, this painting was very difficult to photograph, but I think it turned out well.

Acrylic painting: 14" x 17"

Tribute - Comet Storm

Another tribute painting based on a classic piece in the late 1980's "Cycles of Fire" science fiction artbook. One of the paintings that I found most striking among so many great ones was one painted by Ron Miller; the scene was that of a young, alien world of fiery colors with numerous comets filling the sunset sky. When I first ventured into landscape painting, I tried to recreate that image, but never succeeded; 25+ years later, I decided to give it a whirl again, and this is my version of that scene. Along the wet sands of a large lake, above the rocky spires and far-away hills, comets hang in the blazing sky.

Acrylic painting: 14" x 17"