Cherubs, National Gallery of Art

This is from our family trip last summer to Washington DC. I sat in the National Gallery of Art and drew this with a waterproof pen. This drawing represented a breakthrough in confidence for me as I had no pencil with me and just went straight to pen with no preliminary drawing. I was afraid to get my watercolors out for fear of the security guards, so I added the color back in the hotel room.

Buena Vista

My son recently made a roadtrip to Colorado with some friends. On the way, he and his buddies camped near the town of Buena Vista, in Colorado. He took some photos and gave me permission to use one as reference for this acrylic painting.

Here is a brief word about "designing" a painting from reference. As an artist, I do not copy photographs, just as I do not "copy" exactly what I see when I am painting on site. I make full use of my artistic license to rearrange, emphasize, remove etc… as I strive to produce a work of art.

6 x 6 in. Acrylic on gesso board.

National Mall

I sat on the Washington DC National Mall last summer and sketched this scene in waterproof ink and then added some watercolor. You can see the Smithsonian castle in the distance.

6 x 9 in. Watercolor on 140 lb watercolor paper.

Slice of Suburbia

This is the view from my front porch swing. It is a cloudy afternoon and the mosquitoes are abundant. I kept them at bay with Deep Woods Off. I forgot to bring paper towels, so I squeegeed the brush with my fingers.

6 x 9 in. Watercolor on watercolor paper.

The Old Stone Fort is an archeological park in Coffee County, Tennessee. These falls are adjacent to the park on the Duck River. We visit the park when we visit family in Tullahoma. As a painting subject, I was interested in partial sunlight, blue shadow water and rock forms.

Uncle Wade

My wife's uncle is a good example of a small town, hard working, self sufficient individual. He has an enormous garden including sweet corn, tomatoes, peppers, pole beans...and of course this large watermelon patch. Here you can see him picking one out for us to take home. He is giving it an expert "thump" with his knuckles to test for ripeness. It was delicious.

6 x 6 in. Acrylic on gesso board.

Here There Be Frogs

Yet another image gleaned form our weekend camping trip to Alabama. This is the view from directly below our campsite looking out over a finger of Brushy Lake. Every evening, all of the lake's five million frogs attempt an a cappella rendition of Wagner's "The Ride of the Valkyries". Unfortunately, most of them seem to be tone deaf.

6 x 6 in. Acrylic on gesso board.

Creek Interlude

This is the third in a series of color sketches/paintings that I did during our weekend camping trip to Bankhead National Forest in Alabama. We drove a little ways from our camping spot to a trailhead near a creek and walked into the woods paralleling the water. It wasn't long before I picked out a nice spot to do this drawing.

5x7 in. Pen and ink plus watercolor on watercolor paper.

Cliffside, Brushy Lake

This is another painting from our weekend camping trip. There was a path around the Lake and a side trail going straight up into the woods. I took the side trail, of course, and after a steep climb was rewarded with some pretty spectacular overhanging cliff faces looming up through the undergrowth. The next day I brought my sketching kit and recorded this view.

5x7 in. Watercolor on watercolor paper with black ink and some gouache.

Bankhead Afternoon

We took a family camping trip this weekend to Bankhead National Forest in Alabama. I started a painting outside near our campsite, but I quickly gave it up and retreated into the tent and finished another view looking through the mesh windows. The problem was the biting, bloodsucking deer flies. Regular insect repellent was ineffectual.

Anyway, this is the view from our campsite looking toward Brushy Lake. The afternoon sun provided some nice contrasts in the leafy green undergrowth.

My wife had a bottle of herbal repellent that really helped keep the deer flies at bay, so the camping trip was a pleasant one after all.

5x7 in. Watercolor on watercolor paper.