Harvest Time (pastel, 2008)

Field at Sunset (oil on canvas, 2008)

This was a painting that I did last summer which, at the time at least, I was very pleased with. However, as the year went on I began to have misgivings about it. It was hanging in the window of a gallery in downtown Houlton over the summer and when I saw it there I was horrified and realized that I had completely missed the mood that I was trying to capture so I took it home, sanded it down and repainted the whole thing over the past two weeks. I am much happier with it now. The sanding down and repainting has given the surface a very dense texture that reminds me of some of JWM Turner's paintings that I love so much and I am eager to explore this kind of textural surface build up some more in the future.

Littleton, Maine (oil on canvas, 2008)

This is from a view looking south on the Framingham Road in early September. I had done a pastel of this view, which I liked, so I took my easel out to the location and began the painting there, finishing it up in the studio. It is a wonderful time of year here for color. The potato fields, almost ready for harvest, are a brilliant green and they often neighbor fields of wheat which have an intense golden yellow color. By early October the potatoes will all have been dug up and the wheat mowed down and the landscape will take on a radically different color. Of course, not long afterwards it will all be covered with three feet of snow (but let's not think about that!).