Rainbarrow Studio

Purple Shutters (oil on canvas, 2011)

2011-12-04T20:25:00.002-05:00

This is a painting of an old house up on the Front Ridge here in Littleton. There's quite a steep hill behind the house, but from in front, you can look out over the trees well into Canada. I did several drawings of this house over the summer at different times of days and in different weather conditions (On one particularly windy day, a gust came up from over the crest of the hill behind me and sent my drawing board tumbling through the yard.) and the painting ended up being a composite of my favorite parts of each drawing. I've always loved that Adirondack chair sitting on the porch facing a million dollar view, just waiting for someone to come along and enjoy it. Sometimes it feels like there's a ghost sitting in that chair, surveying the landscape down the hill and remembering when the house was in better shape.

Quintet (oil on canvas, 2011)

2011-12-04T20:23:00.001-05:00

The Old Timer (pastel, 2011)

2011-11-08T15:45:00.006-05:00

(Private Collection)
I realize that I haven't been very diligent about posting images here lately. It's not because I haven't been busy working; on the contrary, I've been too busy working to keep up with photographing everything and posting it here. This is one of three drawings that I did of an old potato house, which looks as though it hasn't been in use for quite some time, on a farm in Presque Isle back in August. I had to walk quite a way from my car, through potato fields and woods, to get to this building, at least two miles, probably more. I always enjoy finding these subjects this way, after a long walk into unknown territory, rather than simply driving up to something with my car and I like to think that, somehow, the experience of the journey there ends up in the final artwork.

View From Keirstead Farm (2011, oil on canvas)

2011-10-28T09:11:00.003-04:00

(Private Collection)
I made four or five trips up to the Keirstead's potato farm in Presque Isle back in July, where I roamed around their 1200 acres of fields and woods with my back pack full of pastels, making two or three pastel drawings on each trip. I then spent most of the month of August working on this large painting which is based on three different drawings from the same view, looking south with the twin peaks of Quoggy Jo mountain in the distance, beyond the city of Presque Isle. On the first day that I was up there drawing, there was a big barn over towards the left. In fact, the first drawing that I did was of that barn, from much closer. When I returned for the second time, the barn was gone. Apparently, it got taken down by one of the severe wind storms that we had up here this past summer.

Road to Bernard II (pastel on paper, 2011)

2011-09-18T16:57:00.003-04:00

I did a small pastel drawing of this subject on location while in Southwest Harbor back in late June. I recently did this bigger version here in my studio and I've recently begun a large painting based on the same subject.

Presque Isle from Quoggy Joe North Peak (pastel on paper, 2011)

2011-09-01T11:49:00.006-04:00

(Private Collection)
This pastel drawing was also done for the Paint Presque Isle event at the end of August (see previous post). Quoggy Joe is a twin peaked mountain in Aroostook State Park. There are trails to both the north and south peaks from the parking lot, as well a trail that runs across the top, connecting both peaks, I hiked up the north peak trail with pastel gear and made this drawing looking out north towards the city of Presque Isle with the road leading into the park visible in the lower right corner. It was a bit of a challenge hiking up with all of my gear, but it was certainly more difficult coming back down while trying to protect the drawing from getting scratched by the multitude of branches that line the trail on both sides.

Houses on Chapman Street (oil on canvas, 2011)

2011-09-01T09:39:00.003-04:00

(Private Collection)
This was painted for the annual "Paint Presque Isle" event sponsored by the Aroostook Partners for the Arts. Artists create work in the city of Presque isle during the day and then the work is auctioned off in the evening to raise money for arts programs in local schools. I parked my car behind Maine Street, on the river side, and wandered around until I found this row of houses on Chapman Street, just behind the courthouse. At one point about half way throught the painting process, I gust of wind knocked my easel over and the painting landed face down in the gravel on the side of the road and I had to scrape the whole thing down and start over, which actually turned out to be a good thing as I think that having to repaint it improved the painting.

Sand Beach Seaweed (pastel on paper, 2011)

2011-07-22T22:43:00.002-04:00

While on vacation on Mount Desert Island my wife and kids and I went to Sand Beach one afternoon. I brought my pastels along and spent the entire time drawing. I did a view looking out over the water, but I'm not really happy with it and probably won't post it here. I think it's just too "picture postcard" for my taste. But the dunes in back of the beach with the seaweed on the ground and heavy clouds moving in – this I like.

Road to Bernard (pastel on paper, 2011)

2011-07-22T22:36:00.002-04:00

This drawing was done while on vacation in Southwest Harbor from a little bridge on the road that leads to the small town of Bernard on the quite side of the Mount Desert Island. To my left as I was working was a little inlet with boats visible in the distance but those types of postcard-like views really don't interest me at all. A woman actually pulled over and got out of her car and said that she had to see what I could possibly be drawing since I wasn't looking out towards the water at "that beautiful view". A policeman pulled up behind me at one point also, and parked right in front of that big pole on the left, obstructing my view for about 10 minutes. I was expecting him to get out and ask me questions about what I was doing, but he eventually just drove away. I'm no sure if he even realized that he was blocking my view.

Cable Crossing (pastel on paper, 2011)

2011-07-22T22:29:00.002-04:00

This was done early one morning while on vacation in Southwest Harbor. I wandered down a road called "Cable Crossing" which led from the Seawall Road to the water. It looks like the place where the power cables go under water out to the Cranberry Islands. This was a view looking to my left back towards Southwest Harbor. There are broken mussel shells everywhere on the shore and they give an interesting iridescent shine that contrasts with the dark brown rocks along the seawall.

The Narrows from Valley Peak (oil on canvas, 2011)

2011-07-22T22:22:00.002-04:00

I hiked up Valley Peak mountain on Mount Desert Island with my painting gear to do this one. No small task, climbing a steep, rocky trail with a 40lb. backpack, a portable easel, a canvas, an 18" x 24" piece of masonite that I use for a palette and a folding table to rest the palette on. Top add to the fun, I gashed open my left leg on rugged shrub near the top and was bleeding all over the place while I painted this and was continually harassed by a hornet. Nonetheless, I found a nice view of The Narrows at the mouth of Sommes Sound out on a rocky ledge. The biggest challenge of all turned out to be getting the wet painting back down the mountain without smudging it too much.

From Manset Town Landing (oil on canvas, 2011)

2011-07-22T22:18:00.003-04:00

(Private Collection)
This was painted from the town landing in Manset, looking out at the moorings in Southwest Harbor.

Seawall Grill (pastel on paper, 2011)

2011-07-22T22:12:00.003-04:00

(Private Collection)
This was done from the Seawall picnic area near Southwest Harbor late one afternoon. I wandered around the rocks for quite a while with my heavy backpack full of pastels looking for an interesting composition before I found this rusty old camp grill which I immediately fell in love with.

Seawall Boulder (oil on canvas, 2011)

2011-07-22T22:07:00.003-04:00

(Private Collection)
I painted this while in Southwest Harbor on the Seawall between Manset and Bass Harbor one morning as the fog was lifting. I believe that's the Cranberry Islands in the distance. I got quite a sunburn on my neck while working on this.

Red Cottage (oil on vanvas, 2011)

2011-07-22T21:59:00.003-04:00

We spent the last week of June in Southwest Harbor on Mount Desert Island at an absolutely wonderful and lovely cottage owned by the Lesters. It's for rent and you can learn more about it here. I spent a lot of the time there working (I actually told my wife before we left that the thing I was most looking forward to about vacation was being able to work!), but did get to see some great sights and go hiking with my kids. I did this small painting on the first day that we were there, behind the kitchen of the cottage. My son was zipping up and down the dirt driveway just behind that big tree the entire time that I was working and I can still hear him making his motorcycle noises whenever I look at this.

"Home (Wright House)" (2011, oil on canvas)

2011-07-14T20:41:00.003-04:00

(Private Collection)
This is painting I did in May of Nancy and Dana Wright's house, right here in Littleton. Nancy was retiring from her position as teaching principal at the Wellington School (see below) and Dana had asked me to do a painting of the school for her. A little while later, the faculty of the school approached me and asked if I would be interested in doing a painting of the school for Nancy. I explained that her husband had already asked me and that they should get together with him. A few days later they got back in touch with me and said that they decided they would like it if I did a painting of the house. They were worried about keeping it a surprise so I figured that the best time to work was while Nancy was at school. I checked with some of the staff to see if she ever goes home for lunch (Her house is just a couple of miles from the school.) and they assured me that she didn't. I went over to the house around noon on a day that the kids at school were performing the annual big play that they do in the spring, thinking that she had to be at school that day. I ran into a man working on their farm and let him know that I would be across the street painting and he also assured me that Nancy never came home during the school day. So I set up my easel and started to work and, sure enough, here comes Nancy driving right up to the house! I thought for certain that the surprise was ruined but it turned out that she was so used to seeing me all over town standing behind my easel, that she had no idea that I was doing a painting for her. She was even planning to buy it for her husband for Father's Day!

"Home Away from Home" (2011, oil on canvas)

2011-07-13T21:02:00.004-04:00

(Private Collection)
This is a painting of the Wellington elementary school in Monticello. My son just finished first grade there and my daughter went there from pre-K through third grade before graduating to the Houlton Southside School last year. It's a wonderful little school and I spend a lot of time there, teaching art classes to the kids and volunteering for various things. A few years ago I painted a mural inside of Jack chopping down the beanstalk with the giant's feet coming down out of the ceiling. The school board threatened to close Wellington down this year but a large group of us parents, along with the Wellington staff, fought them and convinced them to keep the school open, at least for another year. My son's teacher, who was also the principal, retired this year and her husband asked me to paint a picture of the school. It was something that I'd always wanted to paint, anyway. The only difficulty was being able to get down there to work when the principal wasn't there, which was almost never. I went down on Mother's Day, figuring there was no way she'd be working that day and sure enough, she showed up to plant flowers out in front! Luckily, I'd brought my kids with me (giving my wife a couple of hours of peace and quiet) and they were riding their bikes around the parking lot so I had an excuse for being there.
At least half a dozen of the people who saw the painting pointed to the area on the hillside above the door and said "There's Tom Good's house." which I find interesting because it looks like this:

I like that people can look at what are essentially abstract swirls of paint and see something that they recognize.

Edge of the Wood (pastel, 2011)

2011-05-03T13:02:00.002-04:00

Of course, I finally have lots of time to work and now the weather forecast is calling for rain over the next five days. I drew this on Monday (before it started raining). It's done on Arches Cover that I painted a layer of acrylic medium on to. The paper has almost too smooth of a surface, and the acrylic medium gives it an interesting texture for the pastels to cling to and I like the way the brush strokes show through the drawing and prevent me from being too "descriptive".

I live in rural Maine and am surrounded by woods but I generally avoid this kind of subject because it's virtually impossible for me to stand in front of a bunch of trees with a box of pastels and not feel like I'm standing in the shadow of Wolf Kahn, whose work I have admired for many years. However, perhaps in striving to transcend the influence of the masters whose work we admire, it's better to take on similar subject matter, rather than avoiding it, and work through it until we find our own voice. I do know that as a subject, the woods, especially at this time of year when the snow is gone and the leaves haven't come in yet, provides a very alluring combination of deep, atmospheric space and gestural, linear elements that offer a wealth of possibilities to the artist. It also reminds me of my childhood, when I spent countless hours exploring the woods near my home in Massachusetts, all of which have been cut down to make room for suburban sprawl.

Spring in the Air (pastel, 2011)

2011-05-02T22:35:00.003-04:00

April was not a good month for making art. I had a 9 day trip to Disney World at the beginning of the month, caught bronchitis on the way back and spent a week in bed and then spent most of the past two weeks building and painting sets for the Houlton Children's Theatre's production this past weekend. Going out to draw on Sunday felt like drinking a big glass of ice water after spending a month in the desert.

Nice Day for a Walk (oil on canvas, 2011)

2011-02-26T14:09:00.004-05:00

Working from landscape motifs in the brutally cold weather of northern Maine presents a myriad of challenges. The strong, bitter, icy winds make setting an easel up outside almost impossible and I am usually forced to work quickly, standing with a sketchbook in one hand and a pencil or pastel stick in the other. Working without gloves on is very difficult, but sometime a necessity, but drawing with gloves on can force one to work more loosely, which isn't a bad thing. I've noticed that the colors are more apt to change, both throughout the course of a single day as well as from day to day. I think this is because all of the intense, saturated colors have been drained from the landscape and the many neutral grays and the white of the snow are more apt to appear different colors depending on the position of the sun. In the absence of the vivid greens of spring and summer, the sky takes on a greenish tint, having no stronger greens to compete with it. This painting is based on a view looking south on the Currier Road here in Littleton, where the big hills of Danforth and Orient, 50 or so miles away, are visible in the distance. I did a painting called "Mailbox" a few months ago looking back down this road from the opposite direction. I worked this out in my studio from about half a dozen pencil and pastel sketches that were done over the past few weeks, out in the freezing cold, clutching my drawing materials between purplish-blue, semi-numb fingertips.

Leaving Russell Rock (oil on canvas, 2011)

2011-02-26T14:05:00.003-05:00

I took my kids sledding about three weeks ago. We initially went to the big hill behind the Wellington School, which offered some great sledding. My son Damien talked me into going down with him on his sled and I reluctantly agreed. I enjoy sledding, but wasn't dressed for it. I had been out in my studio all day and was wearing my "painting" jeans, unlike my kids who had water-resistant winter coveralls on. So, of course, the sled turned around half way down the hill and we ended up crashing backwards into 18 inches of powdered snow and I ended up with quite a bit of it up under the back of my shirt and down the back of my jeans, giving me more than a bit of a chill. The kids wanted to continue sledding so I told them I was going to wait in the car and warm up. We left about 15 minutes later. I was ready to go home, but they wanted to check out the hill on the road to Russell Rock, which we had heard offered good sledding as well. I agreed to drive over and just have a look, but once we got there, they begged me to let them take a run down the sled trails. I conceded that they could take one quick run down while I turned the car around. As soon as I turned the car around, I found myself looking at this view. Having a sketch book and pencils on the passenger seat, I yelled out to the kids to sled as much as they wanted and then proceeded to draw. I finished this painting a couple of weeks ago, but had some difficulties photographing it.

Homecoming (oil on canvas, 2011)

2011-02-21T18:58:00.002-05:00

I spent all day a week ago this past Saturday working – finishing up another painting (I had intended to post it before this one, but the photos came out very grainy for some reason), doing some drawings out on the Currier Road for the painting that I'm working on now, and stretching and priming a canvas. At the end of the day I went for a much-needed run and saw this view on the way back home, on the corner of the Framingham Road and the Shaw Road. I hurried back to the studio and did a quick pastel sketch of the color scheme from memory and then I went back to the location the next day and did a pencil drawing to work out the composition and the structures of the buildings before heading back to the studio and doing this small (10 x 12) painting. I spent about an hour and a half mixing the colors but once I started painting, it came together very quickly. I wanted to avoid over-working the cloud shapes while maintaining a sense of their transparency and I found the solution was to just slap the paint on and push it around a little. The little pastel sketch that I had done the day before, although done very quickly (a minute or so) and very abstract, was quite effective and I wanted to maintain the same type of energy in this painting.

Blanket of Snow (oil on canvas, 2011)

2011-01-23T16:22:00.003-05:00

(Private Collection)
I painted this view of the old Schools barn, across the field behind my studio, last Saturday, January 15th, which I just realized was the five year anniversary of the day that we moved into our house here in northern Maine. Coincidentally, the first art that I did after moving in was a pastel drawing of the same subject. I can see this barn out of the window over my kitchen sink (where I probably spend more time, washing dishes, than I'd care to...) and it amazes how different it looks every time I see it. At different times of the day and during different seasons of the year and depending on the ever-changing northern Maine weather, the sky and field take on a multitude of different color combinations. I had some paintings in the house yesterday, preparing them for an upcoming show, and my daughter asked me what I'm going to do when I run out of things to paint. I pointed out that many of my paintings are based on the same subjects and that I could quite easily spend my whole life painting any one of them.

View from Ross Ridge (oil on canvas, 2011)

2011-01-20T12:51:00.004-05:00

This painting is based on some drawings that I did standing in the snow at the top of Ross Ridge, looking east over northern Littleton and on into New Brunswick. I haven't had heat in my studio for the past week and working in the cold has forced me to work at a much faster pace, more akin to when I'm actually working outside and have to capture the image before the light changes. Not that I enjoy working with frozen hands, but the process of working in the cold gives the work an urgency, causing me to focus on the essential and minimizing the temptation to overwork the painting and fill it with unnecessary descriptive information.

Misty Morning, Clouds in the Sky (Pastel, 2010)

2010-12-23T11:14:00.003-05:00

(Private Collection)
I did this a couple of weeks ago but have been too busy with holiday activities to get it posted.This was done in a field not far from my house on a Saturday morning after a couple of warm days and lots of rain washed away all of the snow (which has since come back). Working in the cold is never very comfortable, but the urgency to finish before I can't feel my fingers anymore always seems to give the work an energy that I like. I was standing in quite a bit of mud while I drew this and I learned that I should add a small tarp to my backpack that I can lay on the ground for working in such conditions, to keep all of my pastel boxes from getting covered in mud.

Home Before the Monsters Come Out (oil on canvas, 2010)

2010-11-16T18:55:00.005-05:00

This is the old Henderson barn, on the ITS trail where it crosses the Wiley Road. I've drawn and painted this subject several times over the years. I was out for a run one evening about 4 weeks ago and, having failed to anticipate how much shorter the days were getting, I found myself with three miles still to go before reaching home and darkness quickly approaching. (Since moving to northern Maine from suburban Massachusetts, I have developed a strong dislike for running in the dark - way too many wildlife encounters, including several skunks and a large bull moose!) As I approached this old barn, it was silhouetted by an amazing pink and orange sky. I never saw skies like these in Massachusetts. I've drawn the barn itself so many times that I could easily do it from memory. I did several unsuccessful color studies in pastel – I think the problem was that they had too many colors and the barn wasn't dark enough. Then, one evening last week, I was walking out to my studio from the house and looked out across the street and saw a similar pink and orange sky behind my neighbors field, with a row of trees in back. The trees were almost black and the field was barely discernable. I grabbed my pastels and a scrap of paper and did a quick little drawing, which became the impetus for the color scheme in this painting.

The Light Is On, But Nobody's Home (oil on canvas, 2010)

2010-11-16T18:40:00.006-05:00

(Private Collection)
I was out walking on the trail that goes through the woods around Deep Lake, where I have been numerous times before. I ended up staying straight where the trail turned left to circumvent the lake and ended up at the base of Front Ridge. I climbed the steep ridge and came out across the street from this old house. I did several drawings and a couple of color studies in watercolor before embarking on this painting. I've driven by this house many. many times, but never noticed it. That's why I prefer to go out looking for subject matter on foot rather than in a car, which is the reason that most of the subjects of my paintings are within walking distance of my house. It's evident that nobody lives in this house (In reality, those reddish plants in front of the door extend all the way up the facade to the second story windows, but I "trimmed them back" for compositional reasons.) but, interestingly, that big light that sticks out from the top of the garage comes on every night when it gets dark.

We've Met Before (pastel, 2010)

2010-11-16T18:22:00.002-05:00

We had some very nice weather towards the end of last week. Of course, it's been raining all day today and the weatherman is calling for temperatures in the 20's by the end of the week and maybe some snow on Saturday. If I had any sense, I'd have spent the weekend raking up all of the leaves in my yard instead of wandering around in the woods making pastel drawings.

Vacant House (pastel, 2010)

2010-11-16T18:03:00.002-05:00

I would love to know the story behind this house. It's about 2.5 miles down the road from where I live. Last year a crew came and dug out beneath the entire house. I used to run by it sometimes and the house was up on cement blocks with a hole about 6 feet deep dug underneath the entire house. I thought maybe they were putting in a septic system or something. The hole got filled in, the construction vehicles left and the house has sat there empty ever since. I drive by this house almost every day and the section on the left always casts interesting shadow patterns on the section on the right. I've been wanting to draw it for a while, but it's right on US Hwy 1 and there's no place to park or set up an easel. Last Friday I stopped in at the house next door and the nice folks who live there were kind enough to let me set up on their property and make this drawing.

Mailbox (oil on canvas, 2010)

2010-11-16T16:32:00.003-05:00

(Private Collection)
Some paintings come together fairly quickly; when I'm working outside from direct observation, they have to. Not this one. I started this back in early October. I went out to paint on the first day, but it was too windy and cold to set up, so I sat in my car and did a pencil drawing and then a pastel. I went back the following day, in similar high winds, armed with several plastic shopping bags with big rocks in them that I used to anchor my easel and the little folding table that I set my palette on. It was bitterly cold and very windy, I but proceeded to work anyway, blocking in my composition and then mixing some colors. I turned around for a second and the wind lifted my palette, covered with piles of paint, right off the table and sent it flying over the fence to my right, eventually landing about 15 feet away, face down of course, in the horse pasture. I capitulated and packed my stuff up and brought everything back to the studio where I proceeded to labor over this painting for the next two weeks, making several trips back to the site. I was trying to capture an interesting sort of diffused light as the sky was mostly overcast with small pockets of light poking through a few small holes in the pervasive cloud cover. This gave everything a distinctive glow, with very few strong areas of light and shadow.

Fuel Tank (pastel, 2010)

2010-10-13T14:41:00.001-04:00

Monticello Town Line (oil on canvas, 2010)

2010-10-08T17:40:00.003-04:00

Tuesday was a gorgeous day – clear blue skies, 72 degrees and no wind. I haven't been able to ride my bike much in the past month since we had so much rain in September. I thought Tuesday might be the last day this year that I would be able to get a nice, long bike ride in, but it was also a perfect day for painting and I didn't have time to do both since I had to be home by 2:00 when my son gets home from school. I'm glad that I decided to paint.

October Monday (oil on canvas, 2010)

2010-10-08T17:04:00.003-04:00

I painted this on Monday. I started working on this a little before 11:00 and thought I had enough a time to do a painting before I had to meet my son Damien's bus at 2:00 but when I pulled my watch out of my pocket to check the time it was 1:50 and the painting was only about half done. Fortunately, I was was set up on a dirt tractor path, about 1/4 mile from the road, so I was able to just leave my stuff there and rush home to meet the bus. (If I'm not there when the bus arrives, they won't let him off and he'll end taking an hour-and-a-half bus ride to Houlton and then back to the school.) I got there just in time and I had Damien change into play clothes, gave him a snack and we went back to my spot so I could finish this. While I was working, Damien took a couple of my paper towels and laid them on the ground behind be, next to a mud puddle, and got himself a couple of sticks and proceeded to make a Jackson Pollack-style drip painting in mud on the paper towels. It turned out to be a good thing that I had him change his clothes, since he was covered in mud by the time we headed back to the house.

Where No Curtain Hung (oil on canvas, 2010)

2010-10-06T15:23:00.003-04:00

(Private Collection)
This house on the Canadian border used to be really nice and I always loved the color of it. It's been vacant for over a year now, evidenced by the fact that the lawn has become a small meadow, some of the windows are broken and the arial TV antenna is hanging limply from the roof on one side. It's too bad, really. I'm not sure if the owner passed away or just moved. Maybe it's in foreclosure, but there's no sign anywhere. Anyway, the house being vacant made it easy for me to set up my easel in the driveway and do this painting. There was a strong wind blowing from the west, which was to my back, but I was able to park my van right behind me, which helped a little, although I found that I had to tie a plastic bag with a big rock in it (I always tie one to my easel to keep the canvas from acting as a sail and blowing the easel over.) to the little TV dinner table that I set my palette up on, to keep it from blowing away.

Easy Livin' (oil on canvas, 2010)

2010-09-28T22:27:00.006-04:00

John Constable is one of my heroes. The first time I saw his "Hadleigh Castle, The Mouth of the Thames — Morning after a Stormy Night" at the Yale Center for British art in New Haven my knees gave out and I dropped to the floor and wept. Years later I read that Delacroix had a similar experience when he first saw Constable's "The Hay Wain" in the Louvre. Despite a relatively late start as an artist, meager sales and continually being rebuffed by the "established" artists of the Royal Academy (Constable wasn't voted in as an R.A. member until he was 52, at which point the president of the R.A. stopped by his house to inform him that he had received enough votes to finally be admitted, but that he, the president, had voted against him and felt that he didn't deserve the honor.) he continued with his studies of painting directly from nature, eventually becoming one of the most important of British artists and, either directly or indirectly, influencing every painter who has ever stood outside with a brush in hand and attempted to make art based on the natural landscape.

One thing that Constable was repeatedly criticized for by his contemporaries was his, in their opinion, over-use of the color green. There's a great story about Constable standing outside on a lawn discussing art with some other painters and one of them remarked the the best color for grass was the color of an old Cremona violin. Constable went into the house and returned with a violin and laid it on the grass at the speakers feet. Once, after he had become a meber of the Royal Academy, one of his paintings "Water Meadows Near Salisbury" was mistakenly put into the room filled with work by non-members that was to be juried in. Upon seeing it, the other R.A. members, not knowing that it was Constable's painting, were quite severe in their criticism, with one remarking "What is that nasty green thing?!" Constable picked up his painting and left.

This is a painting of the back of Fred and Inez's house. It has a lot of green in it (in case you were waiting for me to get to the point). I did a series of pastel drawings of this view, none of which I was completely satisfied with, and then did this painting based on everything I had learned from the drawings.

Five O'Clock Shadow (oil on canvas, 2010)

2010-09-28T19:56:00.002-04:00

This is a view looking south down the Currier Road, which eventually becomes a dirt road when it crosses into Houlton. I found this view while out riding my bike recently and went back and did a couple of pastel drawings at different times of the day. This was based on one done in the late afternoon. I have a drawing done early in the morning, with the sun on the other side, which is completely different color-wise, and I may develop that into a painting as well. I imagine this will be a nice spot to work from once the snow arrives.

Clouds Moving In (oil on canvas, 2010)

2010-09-28T19:14:00.003-04:00

(Private Collection)
I did this a couple of weeks ago during a plein air painting workshop that I had in back of my studio, This is the view looking north from the field behind the studio towards the McGuire's house and the back of the old School's barn, which I have drawn and painted numerous times. It started out as a very sunny day, clear blue skies and quite warm but by about 11:00, the clouds had begun to arrive en masse. It's always a challenge to keep up with the ever-changing weather when working outside. The pressure of having to work quickly can force some interesting pictorial solutions. The field between my property and the red barn is farmed by the Fosters and has had potatoes in it for the past few years, but this year they grew wheat instead. The field had just been harvested and tilled, leaving that strip of light brown which created a nice transition from the foreground to the buildings and trees in the distance. Of course, as soon as we finished the workshop, the sun came out again.

Shipping Container (oil on canvas, 2010)

2010-09-28T19:05:00.003-04:00

I have been a little slow about posting images here, but I have actually been very busy working. This painting was done in mid-August and is based on a pastel drawing that I did from the field behind the shed that is in the painting "Height of Summer" below. I don't know what it is aout these hay bales, but I find them very interesting, especially during those times of day when the sun is low in the sky and they cast long shadows. This painting is bigger than any thing that I've done in a while, 28 x 42. I started working on it before going down to Ogunquit for a few days vacation, but wasn't able to resolve the picture before leaving. Upon my return, I felt that the field in the foreground was much too green. The paint had dried so I scumbled some oranges and yellow greens on top of the dried paint and was able to produce some interesting textures, especially where the original green color showed through.

Corner Fence (oil on canvas, 2010)

2010-09-06T20:31:00.002-04:00

My wonderful neighbors, Fred and Inez, have a farm up on a hill where they raise sheep, along with some hens, cows and lots of hay. I have drawn and painted their barn from the bottom of the hill looking up. I have been wanting to get a look at the farm from the back so last Monday I went up there in the morning and they gave me (along with armloads of delicious squash from their garden and some fresh eggs!) permission to roam around their property with my paints and pastels. I headed way out back to do a view of the main group of attached barns from behind, and on the way I was struck by this solitary tree, which had a very strong presence all by itself surrounded by pastures and hay fields. It turns out that at 9:30 in the morning the view of the back of the barns meant that I'd be staring directly into the sun so I decided to focus on the tree instead. In spite of the intense heat (it was in the 90's!!) and spilling my jar of paint thinner all over my palette of colors, I was pretty pleased with this little painting. As I told Fred that morning, I could easily spend months up there and not run out of interesting things to paint. I spent the rest of the week doing pastel drawings of the view of the back of their house and the path leading to it from the back fields. I will try to post some of those soon.

Height of Summer (oil on canvas, 2010)

2010-08-29T12:03:00.002-04:00

This is a view of a shed off of the Framingham Road. It's actually almost directly behind my house; if I were to walk a mile and a half through the woods I'd end up right here. I've run and ridden my bike past his building countless times over the past four years and have always wanted to paint it but it's very far from the road. I walked down the dirt road that leads past it and worked from the other side. I did some pastel drawings and then worked up this fairly large painting (30 x 36) back in the studio. I had to go to Massachusetts for a few days and tried to finish it before I left because I like to work up the whole painting while the paint is still wet and pliable. Plus, my process involves mixing up all of my colors before I start to paint, so I like to finish a painting before all of the colors dry up. I was unable to finish before leaving, however, so I had to work on it when I returned and, although I had to remix a lot of colors, I fond some interesting textural effects that resulted from applying layers of wet paint over paint that was tacky or already dry.

Air Conditioner (pastel on paper, 2010)

2010-08-29T10:52:00.003-04:00

(Private Collection)
This was another image done during the "Paint Presque Isle" event (see post below). The skies were completely clear by the morning, but by afternoon large cumulus clouds had begun to roll by, periodically blocking out the sun. I did a big walk around downtown with my backpack full of pastels, without much sunshine. Just as I'd decided to head back to the car and drive somewhere else, I passed this alley and the sun came out and I saw my subject. When I was a kid, I used to go to karate lessons in an old building like this and we used to enter and exit through the back door via an alley that looked very much like this. I could help thinking about those days as I worked on this.

Maine Public Service Co. (oil on canvas, 2010)

2010-08-29T10:32:00.003-04:00

(Private Collection)
I did this yesterday as part of the "Paint Presque Isle" event sponsored by the Aroostook Partners for the Arts. Artists worked all day in the city of Presque Isle and the work was auctioned off in the evening. This is a view of the Maine Public Service building on the State Street hill. I don't like to spend a lot of time traveling around looking for subject matter, which is why most of my work is based on subjects within a couple of miles from my house. As a result, I spend a lot of time looking at fields, woods and old barns and farm houses. It's always refreshing to be able to work in a more urban environment and I don't mind talking to the occasional curious passerby. This was done in the parking lot behind the Northeastland Hotel, where I registered for the event. I was initially drawn to the shadow patterns cast by the awnings and the compositional possibilities created by the diagonal of the hill and the church across the street.

Red Maple Tree (oil on canvas, 2010)

2010-08-29T10:31:00.002-04:00

Small painting (8 x 10) of the red maple tree behind my studio. I did this as demo during a plein air painting workshop.

Encounter with an Old Apple Tree (oil on canvas, 2010)

2010-07-12T20:48:00.002-04:00

I finished this last week, based on a series of pastel drawings that I did during late May and early June. I went back to this location a couple of weeks ago with a smaller canvas and the grass and weeds were so high that would have needed a machete to get anywhere near this tree. The neighborhood where I grew up in central Massachusetts abutted some land that had at one time been an apple orchard and I used to love finding old trees like this in overgrown fields and climbing up into them with my friends.

Still Life with Cheap Wine Jug (oil on canvas, 2010)

2010-07-12T20:40:00.004-04:00

(Private Collection)
Painted in my studio last week during and after my Thursday evening open-studio class. Years ago, when I was in college, my focus was on printmaking and in an attempt to develop my own visual language, I spent a long time focused on monotypes and etchings of groupings of non-descript bottles, pitchers, mugs, etc. and then had a wonderful teacher introduce to the work of Giorgio Morandi, who continues to be an influence. (As a sidebar, I was down in New Haven, CT last Friday at the Yale University Art Gallery and spent about 20 minutes studying one of Morandi's still-life paintings.) This sort of work always brings back fond memories of those days.

Sherman Barn on an Overcast Day (oil on canvas, 2010)

2010-07-12T20:35:00.002-04:00

I had a day out painting with a couple of my students a few weeks ago, down in Sherman. We set up in front of this old barn but the sky was covered in a thick blanket of dense whitish-gray cloud, threatening to rain at any minute. Luckily, we were able to work for a couple of hours before it started to sprinkle. We packed up and went back to one of the women's house for a critique (and some coffee!) and, of course, by the time I left to come home, the sun was shining in a clear blue sky.

Crooked Barn (2010, oil on canvas)

2010-07-12T20:31:00.003-04:00

I did a painting of this barn earlier in the year, based on drawings that I did on location. This small painting (10 x 20) was done on location about three weeks ago. I find the S-curve of the roof line extremely interesting, but most people, when they see the paintings of this building, have trouble believing that it's really shaped like this, but I can assure you that it is.

Tree in the Middle (oil on canvas, 2010)

2010-06-01T22:18:00.003-04:00

This was painted outside a week ago last Friday. There once was a railway that ran through my town but the tracks were removed during the 1980's and the trail is now used for recreational vehicles. I often like to run out there and one evening, the night before I did this painting, I was on my way back from a run and I noticed what appeared to be a small structure (doghouse, maybe?)in the woods to my right. I followed an auxiliary trail in that direction to investigate. It turned out to be just an old tank, perhaps used for pesticides, that was half buried in a mound of dirt in the woods. On my way back to the main trail I saw this view.

Normally, my impulse would have been to do this as a long horizontal composition, but I didn't have any canvases in that shape so I had to use this "almost-a-square". I was trained in art school to think carefully about the compositional structure from the outset of a picture and to be sure that the composition is solid before introducing color. I usually work out the composition in washes of burnt sienna until I am happy with it, before I start mixing my colors. However, I wasn't able to get this one to work. I have been studying a lot of the abstract expressionist painters over the past few years and started thinking about their method of just going into the painting and making the composition "work" during the painting process, rather than mapping it out beforehand. I adopted this methodology while painting this picture and found it both challenging and invigorating. The bottom third of the picture presented a major compositional problem, but ultimately, by introducing a piece of the path that I was standing behind in the lower left corner and creating diagonal movement with the yellow dandelions, I was able to make the composition work in way that I was pleased with.

The Border (oil on canvas, 2010)

2010-06-01T22:17:00.003-04:00

(Private Collection)
This is based on the view from the field behind the Dulin's old barn, looking east into New Brunswick. I did several drawings and a small oil study of this view a few years ago, with the intention of developing it into a painting, but at the time I did not have a long horizontal canvas so I ended up re-working the subject as a vertical composition. I went back up there a couple of weeks ago with my paints, but the field was being cultivated, so I did this from memory back in the studio. Working from direct observation is always educational and I find that I learn a great deal in the process, especially since the color relationships and compositional structures in nature almost always seem to be perfect. However, when working from nature, there is always the temptation to include too much descriptive information and I enjoy the challenge of working in the studio and trying to make the picture "work" in a purely abstract way.

Rusted Roof (oil on canvas 2010)

2010-05-26T20:15:00.002-04:00

I went out Monday with a couple of students to paint and I did this small painting (10 x 12), with a couple of changes back in the studio yesterday and this morning. This old barn is on the Wiley Road and I've painted and drawn it numerous times, but never from this angle. I'm working on a pretty good sunburn on my left arm and the back of my neck and if I had any sense, I would have chosen a view that would have put me in the shade, but I like this composition. It was amazing watching the sun move as I worked. When I started mixing my colors, the little room on the left was completely in shadow and when I started packing up three and a half hours later, the entire left side of the barn was in sunlight.

We met Dale Henderson, who ones this land (He has several newer, functional potato houses just behind where I was standing.) He told us that his grandfather Tom erected this structure in 1912 and that they're going to tear it down this year (before it falls in on its own). Too bad for me, as I quite enjoy it as a subject matter. I'll have to get a few more paintings done before the demolition takes place.

Orange Truck (oil on canvas 2010)

2010-05-26T19:55:00.004-04:00

(Private Collection)
A couple of Littleton potato barns, north of the Station Road about a mile from my house. I started this on location last Monday evening and worked on it in the studio over the next several days, with daily trips back to the location throughout the week. At first I chose to leave the truck out, but the painting wasn't working. I went back the following night to have a look and try to figure out what was wrong and I realized the I needed to put the truck in. The sky was much greener at first and the painting wasn't working at all, the green in the sky disrupting everything the picture (like a dinner guest who's had way too much to drink...). Friday night I painted the sky with a blue that was more on the violet side and the whole thing just came together.

Arledge Barn on a Spring Day (oil on canvas 2010)

2010-05-26T19:43:00.004-04:00

(Private Collection)
I painted this on location last Tuesday. It was a beautiful day, although a bit hot. This old barn and field are part of Fred and Inez Arledge's sheep farm, just a few miles from my house, and I've drawn and painted it many times over the past few years. The geometry of the hillside and the collection of old barns continues to hold my interest. Fred and Inez are extremely nice people. A few months ago they invited us up to see the new lambs that had been born and I got to see the inside of those barns. My kids really enjoyed feeding the lambs from a bottle and picking up the chickens. One of these days I'd like to see if Fred will let me paint the inside of the barn, but my allergy to hay might make that difficult. While I was painting last Tuesday, their two big, white sheep dogs started barking at me from the top of the hill and slowly made their way down as I set up my equipment, growling and barking the entire time. Eventually the settled in at the bottom of the hill, just to the right of where the painting ends. The barking and growling was a bit of a distraction as I started to work but once I got focused, I couldn't hear it anymore. An hour or so later I noticed that the dogs were no where to be seen.

Hilltop Farm (oil on canvas 2010)

2010-05-17T14:51:00.004-04:00

(Private Collection)
I painted this earlier today, over on the Framingham Road. Despite getting eaten alive by black flies and having a gust of wind blow my easel over, with the painting face down in the grass, knocking my table of paints and jars of solvent and oil all over the ground on the way, I was pretty happy with it.

Hole in the Sky (oil on canvas, 2010)

2010-05-17T14:39:00.004-04:00

I finished this painting last week. It's based on some pastel drawings that I did about a week and a half ago, looking up at the front ridge here in Littleton from a field down below. I was out there this morning and everything is a vivid green, quite a difference from just ten days ago. I liked the composition, but I had a lot of trouble getting the undersides of the clouds right in the pastel because I just didn't have the right color on hand. All of my choices were either too blue or too gray. I tried blending blues and grays together, but the pastel became too dense and lost the airy quality that I wanted. I am always eager to start a painting based on a pastel drawing that I don't feel was successful, as it gives me another chance to solve the problem. When I make a pastel drawing that I'm happy with, doing a painting from it seems pointless.

Ruby in the Dust (oil on canvas, 2010)

2010-04-25T12:51:00.003-04:00

This old shed is in back of the empty house that I did a painting of last week (see below). When I was looking at the back of the house for the other painting, this shed was on my right. I went out there on Friday and Saturday last week and did a few drawings and the worked the painting up back in the studio over the course of this past week. After many years of neglect, the shed is falling apart, I really like the way the roof line, which I'm sure was straight at one time, has taken on a prominent curve as the building has begin to sink into the ground, providing a nice compositional foil to the rectangle of the picture plane. I took some liberties with the doors - they aren't that white, since at least half of the paint has peeled off, but the painting felt better like this. I borrowed the title from a line in one of my favorite Neil Young songs.

Show at Wintergreen Arts Center

2010-04-25T12:45:00.002-04:00

The Wintergreen Arts Center, 149 State Street in Presque Isle, ME will be hosting a show of my work in their Barresi Financial Gallery during the month of May, 2010. The public is invited to the opening reception on Saturday May 1st from 7:00pm to 9:00pm. The show will be on display until May 31st. The gallery will be open during regular Wintergreen Arts Center hours, Monday through Thursday from 2:00pm to 6:00pm, Friday 9:00am to 6:00pm and Saturday from 10:00am to 12:00pm.

In Back of an Empty House (oil on canvas, 2010)

2010-04-13T19:01:00.002-04:00

This is the back view of an old house just north of the Houlton town line. I did a painting of the garage, viewed from the left of this painting, about a year and a half ago called "Halloween". This house has been empty and for sale since before we bought our place up here, four-and-a-half years ago, and it's really starting to fall into disrepair.
Once in a while a painting comes together fairly easily. This was not one of them. I worked on this for three weeks, returning to the subject many times, and scraping off and re-painting most of the picture two or three times. It's probably not apparent in this small jpeg (The painting itself is about 20 inches by 36 inches) but the surface shows a lot of the struggling and re-working that went into the process of creating it, which I rather like, as opposed to a slick, polished surface. Aside from appealing to me on a purely aesthetic level, I find that the "battle scars" on the painting capture the feeling of the subject matter.

House on a Hilltop (2010, oil on canvas)

2010-02-28T21:07:00.004-05:00

(Private Collection)
I started working on this little painting last weekend while the weather was lousy. It's based on some drawings that I did back in September. This house sits all by itself on top of a steep hill on a dirt road about 2.5 miles from where I live. I had done a pastel of it that I liked except for the composition, which was a significantly taller rectangle, with a bit more sky and a lot more of the field in the foreground. It's been hanging on the wall in my studio since I did it back in September and from time to time, I would get out a sketch book and do pencil drawings, trying different compositional options, changing the shape of the rectangle, the position of the horizon and the scale of the house. Composition is very important to me, but I try to avoid the "tried-and-true" compositional cliches which, although they certainly do work (I suppose that's why they've become cliches...), tend to lack a certain spark of originality that I admire in many of my favorite artists (Rembrandt, of course, as well as Edward Hopper, Richard Diebenkorn and Andrew Wyeth always had surprisingly original compositions). Anyway, I tried this long horizontal with the size of the house diminished and it seemed to show some promise so I did this small painting.

I paint almost entirely with a palette knife, usually with the canvas lying flat on a table so that I can walk 360 degrees around it while I work, and for the past couple of years I have been consciously working on building up a very thick, painterly texture on the canvas. I have included the close up below (you should be able to enlarge it if you click on the image) to show the texture of the paint in this one, which isn't usually apparent in these small images.

I have never really liked paintings that have a slick, refined surface, where the artist almost wants the viewer to disbelieve that they are looking at paint. I've always preferred paintings where the process, the materials and the movement of the artist while they worked are very apparent.

Late Afternoon January Light (oil on canvas, 2010)

2010-02-15T19:41:00.002-05:00

My painting process involves mixing up a palette of colors, from the three primaries and white, for each painting before I begin to actually paint. This can take anywhere from 2 to 16 hours, sometimes spread out over multiple days. I spent three days mixing colors for this painting and then my son got sick and I was confined to the house with him for four days, until I in turn got sick, a sinus infection and then bronchitis, which laid me up for almost a week (I'm still coughing, almost three weeks later...). By the time I got back out to the studio to work, all of my colors had dried up and I had to start over. The subject for this painting is the twin barns on the old Anderson farm, almost directly behind my house on the Canadian border. I painted these barns in the fall a few years ago, when the field in the foreground was filled with a bright gold canola, just about to be cut.

Looks Like It's Going to Rain (oil on canvas, 2009)

2009-12-29T18:22:00.003-05:00

(Private Collection)
This small painting is based on a drawing I did looking west from the Wilkins Road in Monticello. back in early November (before the snow arrived) on a very cold, late autumn day. The nozzle on my can of fixative had become obstructed with gunk, so I was not able to work on the drawing as long as I would have liked (which was just as well because my fingers had become quite painfully frozen by that point), but I did, however, get to meet the farmer who owns the land as he came by on his tractor just as I was getting ready to pack up my supplies and we had a nice chat. I really liked the contrast between the oranges and browns of the recently plowed field against the deep blue of the oncoming rain.

You Can See Mars Hill from Here (oil on canvas, 2009)

2009-12-07T10:02:00.002-05:00

I did some pastel drawings of this view looking north at the turn on the Front Ridge Road over the course of four or five days during the week before Thanksgiving. Despite the sunshine and perfectly clear skies, it was quite cold (although it has gotten much colder since), which always makes working outside with pastels a challenge. I started this painting during the week of Thanksgiving, but had to take a break from it to travel to MA for the holiday, and finished it last week.

House Where No One Lives (oil on canvas, 2009)

2009-11-06T20:34:00.003-05:00

This old house is on the Fletcher Road in Monticello, just past the Wilkins Road and right before the border crossing into Canada. When I was kid, there was a path at the end of my street, which would take you through a big field and then about 3/4 through the woods where it came out on Stow road by an old, empty house behind trees like this. The kids in my neighborhood all called it the "Witchy-poo House" and we were terrified to go near it. Coming upon this building, at dusk, during the last week of October brought back a lot of memories from childhood Halloweens. I borrowed the title (slightly altered) from a Tom Waits song.

The Sentinels (oil on canvas, 2009)

2009-11-06T20:19:00.002-05:00

I found this group of trees on a hillside in Monticello, south of the Wilkins Road, which is a dirt farming road that runs parallel to the Canadian border. I did two pastels of the subject, one on a very cold, overcast Sunday afternoon (Drawing with frozen fingers is never fun and I know that it's going to get much colder in the months to come...), and another, a couple of days later on a sunny day. I liked the feel of the first pastel drawing and tried to capture the coldest of the dim, late-October afternoon. Right behind where I was standing is a big tree with an enormous tractor tire wrapped around it. Apparently, the tree grew up right through the opening in the middle of the tire, which has probably been there more than 40 years.

Top of the Hill (oil on canvas, 2009)

2009-10-19T15:54:00.004-04:00

(Private Collection)
This is a painting of the old Henderson barn at the top of a fairly steep rise on the Carson Road in Littleton. I have done several pictures looking up at this building from the bottom of the hill, at various times throughout the year. I did a lot of bike riding this past summer and my regular route took me up to the top of this hill, usually in the early afternoon, and I often thought that it would make a good subject for a painting. I did three or four drawings of on different days over the course of about two weeks before executing this painting from memory. There's an opening in the chicken-wire fence between those two posts and sometimes the sheep will wander right out into the road.

Solo Show at the Turner Memorial Library in Presque Isle

2009-10-15T14:05:00.002-04:00

I will be having a show of some my recent work at the Mark & Emily Turner Memorial Library, 39 Second Street in Presque Isle, ME from November 7 through December 31st, The public is invited to attend the opening reception on Saturday November 7, 2009 from 3:00pm to 6:00pm.

Closed House (oil on canvas, 2009)

2009-10-15T13:50:00.003-04:00

I finished this over two weeks ago but 9 straight days of rain and a trip to Massachusetts have kept me from photographing it until now. I did several pastel drawings of this view, looking north from the recreational vehicle trail towards where it crosses Wiley Road, in late August and September.

Of Mice and Men (2009, oil on canvas)

2009-09-21T14:10:00.003-04:00

(Private Collection)

Forgotten Dream (pastel, 2009)

2009-09-17T10:02:00.003-04:00

Another, more recent, drawing of the old potato house north of my studio. When I started working in pastels, about 9 years ago, I bought a large set of Rembrandt pastels, which I used for quite some time. For the past few years, however, I have been using mostly Schminke, Sennelier and Townsend pastels which I keep in various boxes in a backpack. I used my old Rembrandt set for this image, and I quite enjoyed working with them again.

Wilson's Wharf, Eastport (pastel, 2009)

2009-09-17T09:57:00.004-04:00

(Private Collection)
This is the second drawing that I did in Eastport on Saturday on a pier behind a seafood restaurant looking out towards Lubec. There was actually a dumpster from the restaurant right behind me and I did all i could to try and ignore the odor coming from it as I worked.

Houses on Middle Street, Eastport (pastel, 2009)

2009-09-17T09:49:00.003-04:00

I went down to Eastport this past Saturday for the annual "Paint Eastport" event, organized by the Eastport Gallery. Artists create work during the day, which coincides with the annual Salmon Festival and the Pirate Festival (The biggest challenge of the day was finding a place to park!) and the work is auctioned off at a silent auction which takes place at the Eastport Arts Center. I decided to work in pastels because they are more portable than oil paints and the lack of available parking meant that I had to walk around town looking for subject matter. This was the first drawing that I did, between about 11:00 and 1:00. There was a church to the right of the white house, which I was originally planning to focus on, but as i started to work, I became much more interested in the the Victorian house in the distance and the two STOP signs.

Red Barn Up the Road (pastel, 2009)

2009-09-17T09:46:00.002-04:00

This old potato house is just north of my studio and I have been going out at noon time and making drawings of it.

Wiley Road Potato House II (2009, pastel)

2009-09-15T19:38:00.003-04:00

Another drawing of the old potato house off of Wiley Road.

Wiley Road Potato House (2009, pastel)

2009-09-15T19:35:00.001-04:00

One of several drawings of this subject that I have made over the past week or so.

Potato Field in Blossom (2009, oil on canvas)

2009-09-15T17:30:00.003-04:00

I was happy with the pastel drawing that I did of this subject earlier this summer and wasn't planning to do a painting of it for fear that I would end up trying to just "copy" the pastel. However, after looking at the pastel for a few weeks I realized that many of the reasons that I liked the pastel had to do with the handling of the materials, and that I really didn't know how to translate that into oil paint. I found this painting particularly challenging and learned quite a bit while working on it.

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

2009-08-27T13:30:00.003-04:00

(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)

2009-08-13T17:28:00.003-04:00

(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)

2009-08-13T16:54:00.004-04:00

(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)

2009-08-09T21:11:00.002-04:00

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)

2009-08-06T17:09:00.004-04:00

(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.

Pastel Sketches from Front Ridge

2009-07-15T13:12:00.003-04:00

These are some sketches that I've done over the past couple of weeks of the view from the Front Ridge Road here in Littleton, looking West towards New Brunswick. I have had to work very quickly on these because of the temperamental weather – I never know when a thundershower is going to strike. If we get a good, clear day I would like to bring a canvas up there and do a painting.

Fox's Hill (oil on canvas, 2009)

2009-06-28T19:08:00.002-04:00

This is a view looking south towards Wiley Road down the ATV trail that will eventually take one to the Meduxnekeag Ramblers Club House. It is a spot that reminds me more of England than northern Maine, oddly enough. I can honestly say that I've lost about a pound of flesh and at least two pints of blood to the black flies over the past four weeks while making numerous drawings of this view. I found the geometry of the paths and newly tilled potato fields to be particularly interesting. I know that I went too far with the yellow-greens and the oranges, but it works for the picture.

There's a big red fox that lives on that hill in the upper right and he sat there watching me draw on two different occasions.

View Down the Front Ridge (pastel, 2009)

2009-06-28T19:00:00.002-04:00

After six days of rain, the sun came out briefly last Thursday and I did this pastel from the Front Ridge Road which offers some fantastic views looking east out over the numerous Littleton potato farms towards New Brunswick. I had to work fairly quickly as the sun was setting behind me. Given the plethora of subject matter in front of me, it was a good exercise in editing out unnecessary information. I liked the way the fence posts help to establish the space going down the hill in the foreground and there was a big cloud out towards Fredericton that was catching the light from the setting sun and giving off a pinkish-orange glow.The drawing has some problems, but I look forward to returning to this subject some more over the next few weeks.

Fork in the Road (oil on canvas, 2009)

2009-06-28T15:43:00.000-04:00

A Very Green Spring (oil on Canvas, 2009)

2009-06-15T16:47:00.003-04:00

This is the old Henderson sheep farm on the Carson Road, which I have drawn and painted many times in the past and which I still find to be a subject that offers numerous possibilities for composition and color. This was based on a pencil drawing, that had quite a few sheep in it, and a pastel sketch (see below) that didn't have any sheep.

Path on a Hillside (oil on canvas, 2009)

2009-06-15T16:42:00.005-04:00

(Private Collection)
I did most of this during my Open Studio Masterclass this past Thursday evening, with some finishing touches added on Friday afternoon and Saturday. Usually my students paint while I walk around the studio offering advice, suggestions, criticism, relevant comments, etc.. They suggested that it might be educational for them if I were to work along with them so that they could observe my process directly. So, I worked on this painting, which is based on a pastel sketch that I did last week.

Through the Hollow (pastel, 2009)

2009-06-03T18:35:00.003-04:00

Sketchbook Pages

2009-06-03T18:08:00.010-04:00

Now that the snow is (finally) gone, I've spent the last few weeks going out almost daily, getting eaten alive by black flies and drawing, either in pastel or pencil. I've tried painting outside during this time of year, but I always end up dozens of insects stuck in the paint – a real nuisance! By the first week of July it's pretty easy to work outside, bug-free. I have also been stretching and priming a dozen canvases and looking forward to painting with green again. When I do these drawings, I focus on finding compositional and color relationships which may be developed into paintings later on, rather than "descriptive" information. Rather than bringing my big bag of expensive pastels, these are done with the remains (mostly very small pieces and crumbs) of my first pastel set, a set of 30 Rembrandt half sticks that I bought in 1999. Because of the rapidly changing light and the insects, I have to work very quickly. I do a lot of these types of drawings and it usually feels like I'm panning for gold. Usually I come up empty, but once in a while I get something that has promise. Here are a couple of those.

This is the old Henderson sheep farm that I've draw dozens of time over the past three years and which continues to give me inspiration. Lately, the sheep have been out en force, but they usually flee to the top of the hill as soon as they notice me.

This is the entrance to a field on the Carmichael Road, directly across from the two barrels that I painted last fall. I went back to this spot on three different days.

Dexter and Pam's House (oil on canvas, 2009)

2009-05-10T18:48:00.004-04:00

My wife's car had to have the engine replaced and, as a result, was at the mechanic's from early March until the end of April. This left me without a car during the day so I was forced to work within walking distance of my house. This is a painting of my neighbors' house and dairy barn, about a mile up the road, when we still had a great deal of snow on the ground. I did a number of drawings just after noon time over the course of about a week and worked the painting up in the studio. The house, like my own, is over a hundred years old and probably doesn't have square corner anywhere on it at this point. Because of this, I left the drawing of the house a little loose.

Ides of March (oil on canvas, 2009)

2009-04-26T17:03:00.000-04:00

Valentine's Day (oil on canvas, 2009)

2009-03-05T19:11:00.000-05:00

Halloween (oil on canvas, 2009)

2009-03-02T19:13:00.006-05:00

(Private Collection)
This small painting (10 x 20) is based on a charcoal drawing that I did on Halloween last year, in between my kids' party at school and taking them out for Trick or Treating. This is an old house a few miles up the road from me that's been for sale for a long time. I fear that having been unoccupied for so long and not heated during the winters, that it may be starting to sustain some structural damage. I pulled in to the driveway and was immediately struck by the long shadow cast on the wall. I thought it was kind of spooky, but maybe it was just the day. The original drawing included all of the dormers and much more of the roof, but I think it works better cropped this way.

Gerry's Barns in Winter (oil on canvas, 2009)

2009-03-02T19:07:00.004-05:00

I finished this painting about 5 weeks ago but I misplaced my digital camera so I haven't been able to post anything. These are the same barns from a painting called "Last Days of Summer" that I did a couple of years ago. When I was out drawing these back in September 2006 the owner came down to see what I was up to and we talked for a little while. He indicated that he was planning to have the barns pulled down before the end of that year, but I am glad to see that, two and a half years later, they are still standing.

Blue October Sky (oil on canvas, 2009)

2009-01-13T19:53:00.004-05:00

First painting of the new year. I didn't get much work done during the holidays. Well, not much art work, anyway. Plenty of baking, writing out Christmas cards, shopping, wrapping, cleaning, and entertaining house guests. Then, I almost managed to burn my studio down when I absent-mindedly left a plastic can of black house paint on top of my heater and the bottom melted out. It has taken me two weeks to finally get the smell of burnt plastic out of the building.

I laid out the composition for this painting back in November and, prior to the holidays, I did about half a dozen small color studies, mostly experimenting with different colors for the sky, which for some reason, I thought had to be any color but blue. In the end, I couldn't decide and figured that I should stop thinking about it and just start the painting and that I would know what color to paint the sky when the time came. It turned out blue after all. At least I know that I didn't choose blue out of indolence – it was chosen to bring out the oranges in the grass.

October Light (oil on canvas, 2008)

2009-01-11T19:27:00.006-05:00

(Private Collection)
I actually finished this right before Christmas but haven't had a chance to photograph it and post it until now. These are one very old and two fairly new barns next to the ITS trail where it crosses Wiley Road here in Littleton. I parked my car across from here one Saturday afternoon in late October and hiked south on the ITS trail with my pastels and easel to a nice clearing with a tractor path meandering through it and a very old tree that held a lot of promise for a compositional subject. Unfortunately, after setting up, I heard far to many rifle shots to feel comfortable (I have been told by a reliable source that a stray rifle bullet can travel as far as two miles.) so, dejectedly, I hiked back to the car and as I was loading my gear into the back I saw the afternoon sun hitting the side of this old barn and once again, as so often happens, found my subject in a place where I hadn't expected to.

Cold Winter Morning (pastel, 2008)

2008-12-09T22:57:00.005-05:00

Since the ground is covered with snow and I'm freezing inside my house, I figured I had better post something more recent, and with some white in it. I did this drawing yesterday and decided to use it on my Christmas cards. The wind chill yesterday morning (and today!) was about 20 below zero...and it's not even winter yet. But I'm not complaining. It's supposed to get up to 40 degrees tomorrow – a heat wave, no less!

The sunsets here in northern Maine can be breathtaking, especially when there are clouds in the sky and they light up pink and orange, but the pink sky early on a winter morning is also quite beautiful (if you're willing to go outside at 7am when the wind chill is 20 below zero). That's the same barn as in the "Lonely Barn" painting below, but seen from further down the hill, and I've included the house and other structures so the barn isn't as lonely, especially with it being so close to Christmas.

Tractor Path (oil on canvas, 2008)

2008-11-23T19:28:00.003-05:00

(Private Collection)
I have been out running and on sketching hikes on this particular tractor path on numerous occasions over the past year and the geometry of the path, as it snakes through the fields, down the hill and back up again, has always been interesting to me. The mound of earth in the distance to the left of the path always reminds me of Thomas Hardy's "Return of the Native" (and if you know the story, you'll know where the name of my studio comes from...). That's the Littleton Baptist church on Route 1 in the distance.

Lonely Barn (oil on canvas, 2008)

2008-11-10T13:19:00.001-05:00

Two Barrels (pastel, 2008)

2008-11-10T13:14:00.003-05:00

This is a field off of the Carmichael Road, about 2 miles from my house. I have taken my 4-year-old son for walks past here dozens of times and have often wanted to make a picture from it. The view always reminds me of Andrew Wyeth, probably because of the high horizon and the old empty barrels. I did this drawing about three weeks ago on a beautiful October day.

Rainy September (oil on canvas, 2008)

2008-11-10T13:03:00.004-05:00

I saw this view on Ingraham Road, about a mile and a half from my house, one day while out running just after it had stopped raining. I walked up there the next day with my backpack full of drawing materials, my portable easel and my drawing board to make some compositional studies. As I was walking up Route 1 on the way there, I happened to notice one of the Border Patrol vehicles drive past me. About a half an hour later, I had my easel set up on the side of the road and was well into my drawing when I sensed a car approaching from my right and slowing down to a stop. I looked up and it was the same Border Patrol truck that I had seen earlier. The driver rolled down his window and asked me the strangest question: "Are you looking for something?" Had I been quick-witted, I might have replied "Yes, inspiration." but instead I just asked him what he meant. He said, "I saw you walking up the road earlier and I thought you might be looking for something." I am not sure how he came to that conclusion, but I explained that I was an artist and what I was doing and he wished me well and drove away. Very odd...

Tractor Path studies (pastel, 2008)

2008-11-10T12:54:00.004-05:00

These are a couple of pastel studies that I did of a subject that I am currently making a painting of. It is a view from a tractor path through some corn and potato fields, facing west towards US Route 1. The first one (bottom) was done on an overcast day in early October. I liked the composition but wasn't happy with the colors. I went back a week later on a nicer day and moved my easel over to the left. I liked the colors better in the second one (top) and the view of the Littleton church at the top, but I was not happy with the tractor path in the foreground. I went back again last Sunday afternoon but there were gunshots all around (it's hunting season up here and not everyone adheres to the "No Hunting on Sundays" rule.) so I turned around and hiked back to my car without getting any work done. I have incorporated the elements that I like from both of these into a painting which I have been working on for the past week.