Over the Hills and Far Away (oil on canvas, 2009)

(Private Collection)
This is a view looking west into New Brunswick from a recently combined grain field in Monticello.

Above the Treetops (oil on canvas, 2009)

(Private Collection)
I have been working on this for the past couple of weeks, based on the view from the Front Ridge Road looking east over the town where I live, Littleton, and beyond into New Brunswick. I have been listening to a lot of Pat Metheny music lately and, since it was his birthday yesterday, it seemed fitting that I borrow the title from one of his songs...

Acres Wild (oil on canvas, 2009)

(Private Collection)
I painted this on Sunday afternoon, in a field north of the Ingraham Road, looking east towards New Brunswick. There were some quite large bear tracks in the path that I walked to get to this spot which, I must admit, made me a little nervous. This is a very small painting, 8 x 10 inches. I like the way that the large size of my brushes and knife, relative to the size of the canvas, force a kind of looseness, limit my ability to become overly "descriptive" and allow me to work without worrying about how much paint I am using.

Potato Field in Blossom (pastel, 2009)

I was in my studio teaching from 9:00 am until 5:00 yesterday and was a little burnt out, but it was such a beautiful day (FINALLY!) that I couldn't allow myself not to go outside and do some work. I hiked up the road with my pastel bag and was planning to do a drawing of the house that is in the distance of this picture, but I decided, once I got there, to hike further down the trail and stumbled into this potato field. I really liked the way the afternoon shadows fell on the barn, but I had no idea how I was going to deal with the potato plants in the foreground. I thought about just cropping them out, but I didn't really want to do a "barn" picture and, besides, that would have been taking the easy way, which rarely is the right way.

Posted Field at Sunset (oil on canvas, 2009)

(Private Collection)
I finished this a couple of weeks ago, but I have had a great deal of difficulty photographing it, I think because the foreground is so dark and sky much lighter. I did many drawings of this view, which is off of the Carmicheal Road near my house, over the past couple of months and this composition was based on elements from several of them and then, as is usually the case, things changed once I started working on the painting. It wasn't intentional, but now that it is done, it reminds me a bit of the work of George Inness, whom I admire not only for his work, but for his philosophies about art.