Purple Meadow Dreams

It's the waning days of summer here in Maryland, and natural beauty abounds. In a field under a sunny blue sky, wildflowers bloom in purple, pink, and red. A gentle, warm breeze blows, jostling the flowers, as butterflies drift lazily about. It's a place of peace far away from the bustle of everyday life.

Acrylic painting; 14" x 17"

Sunset Storms at 30,000 Feet

Inspired by some of the storms I've seen out airplane windows over the years, here we look over some summer thunderstorms in the warm sunset glow. Lightning flashes silently from our perspective as rain falls on the land below.

Acrylic painting: 14" x 17"

Yosemite Tunnel View

Back in 2018 I painted a landscape of the famous Tunnel View in Yosemite National Park. I soon framed the painting and displayed it, but I was never fully satisfied with it. This month, I had the framing store swap out that painting for one that celebrates the Chesapeake Bay, which gave me a chance to touch up this painting to higher standards.

Improvements include adding more contrast and color range, fixing the waterfall and mountains on the right, adding a suggested tree line to the foreground of the painting, and cleaning up the sky by adding a subtle gradient and eliminating the excessive sky texture in the original. The end result is a significant improvement - there's more light and texture, better details, and it just feels more lively and real.

Acrylic painting: 14" x 17"

Link to original: The Autumn Glade: Yosemite Tunnel View - OLD

Rocky Bay Sunrise

Sunrise shines through parting clouds on the Chesapeake Bay, illuminating its peaceful waters. Waves no larger than ripples lap at the old rocks of a forgotten, submerged jetty at high tide on this beautiful morning.

Acrylic painting: 14" x 17" (framed)

Patuxent Research Refuge in Spring

The Patuxent Research Refuge is a beautiful swath of nature in the megapolis between Baltimore and DC. Composed of about 20 square miles of forests, marshlands, and small lakes, it's a crucial area for waterfowl and other animals in the region. Unlike many of our nation's national parks, this refuge has also thankfully not been completely overrun by tourists, nor has it been threatened by wildfires or other devastating effects of climate change. Here, we look through the trees, some still flowering, at one of the Refuge's lakes on a sunny day in late April.

Acrylic painting; 14" x 17"

Valley Forge - Spring Clouds

Last weekend, some friends and I went on a road trip up to Valley Forge National Battlefield, which is outside of western Philadelphia. The weather was great, which is unusual for March, and we enjoyed our walk around the perimeter trail. Like most eastern US battlefield parks, Valley Forge is steeped in history and has a quiet dignity to it. You can also get great open views across the rolling fields and scattered trees, which is a rarity in the densely populated and forested parts of the country. 

Acrylic painting: 14" x 17"

Storm over Ukraine

I don't usually mix politics with painting, but some situations call for it. In the past week, the Russia army started the largest war in Europe since the end of WW2 with an unprovoked invasion of the independent democracy of Ukraine. This war is symbolized in this painting; the composition and colors are drawn from the Ukrainian flag, and the sunflowers - the national flower of Ukraine - stand in defiance of the storm. There's another message here as well; how hateful, grasping tyrants cannot enjoy even the simple beauty of nature, such as a storm passing over a field of flowers. All they can do is destroy and then wonder why they are still empty.

Acrylic painting: 14" x 17"