Giverny

A side street in Giverny, France, a small souvenir/postcard painting.  6x8 oil on aluminum panel.

Follow Up

The on site drawing, which I posted yesterday, of the irregular rows of round hay bales,  I followed up with a plein air painting of the same subject.    The site is at the top of Stratton and Blair Roads in Williamstown, MA.  9x12 oil on panel.

Late Day Drawing

All I have for the moment is a late day drawing from walking to the hay fields yesterday.

Two Boats in Vermont

This painting, "Two Boats, Gloucester," I am happy to report, will be in the 2019 juried exhibition "Land & Light & Water & Air" at the Bryan Memorial Gallery in Jeffersonville, VT.  The exhibition will run from September 5 to November 3.

An Edging of Round Hay Bales

Here's a field in Williamstown, MA with an edging of round hay bales.  I did a drawing of this view a couple days ago, so I wanted to return at about the same time (mid-afternoon) to follow through with a painting.  9x12 oil on panel.

Tip of The Bales

The haphazardly lined up hay bales at the edge of the large field at the top of Stratton and Blair Roads in Williamstown, MA were the subjects of my painting this morning.  This place is the juncture of two dirt roads.  I was amazed how much traffic goes by.  8x10 oil on panel.

The Bear's Backyard

While scouting out new painting views this morning I walked up a dirt road with a muddy patch in it. It's nearby where I painted yesterday's painting of the trees in the hay fields.   The footprints you see are what you think they are: a big bear made them, along with a few racoon tracks.   I don't know what the diagonal slide mark is from.  I was with the painter John MacDonald.  That's his hand in the photo for scale.  Anyway, I may be paranoid about it, but I am always conscious that I'm painting in the bear's backyard.

A Larger View

Later I studiously avoided the hay bales below and walked up to the upper hay field to paint a larger view.  12x16 oil on panel.

A Large Rock, A Boulder

Instead of painting hay bales yesterday morning I painted a large rock, a boulder sitting on the edge of the Green River next to the new bridge at Mount Hope Park in Williamstown, MA.  8x10 oil on panel.

The Call of The Round Hay Bale

When the sun appeared this afternoon, I went walking up the road with my sketchbook to explore the next painting project.  I couldn't help looking at the rows of round hay bales.   One contained possibly forty bales, all perfectly line up and very uninteresting.  I was told that they were done earlier probably by somebody who's done it before.  But at least two other sets of rows in two different fields were done by somebody not as neat.   These two drawings show the same row askew in one field, which presents possibilities for a painting.

I do have a non-hay bale painting project lined up in the same vicinity, but first I must overcome my lingering inclination to paint round hay bales. Even if the bales are now lined up on the edge of the field, their sloppy line is still intriguing.

Maybe It Was Something Else

On rainy days and with no compelling projects, I sometimes turn to my easiest portrait model.  Such great portraitists as Robert Henri and John Singer Sargent painted few self-portraits, whereas artists like Rembrandt, Cezanne, Van Gogh, Bonnard and others did many self-portraits.  I don't think that means that it never rained during the careers of Henri and Sargent.  Maybe they just had many sitters.  Or maybe it was something else.  8x6 oil on gessobord.

Hihaytus

This is the last hay bale painting for a while, since what had appealed to me was their random distribution throughout the hay fields.  Now they are all lined up like freight trains at the edge of the fields.  But the paintings probably have run their course, and it's time to do something else.  9x12 oil on panel.

The End Is Near

The end is near.  The round hay bales have all been moved to the edge of their respective fields.  I have only one more painting in the assembly line.  Yesterday in Manchester, VT, I saw a fellow on an open tractor mowing a field.  Because of the heat and sun, he was holding an umbrella with one hand and driving the tractor with the other.  When I went by the field a second time later, he had quit mowing before he was finished. The fellows who moved the hay bales have enclosed, air-conditioned tractors, so moving the bales on the same extremely hot day must have been a piece of cake for them.  They had no incentive to wait.  Too bad for the painter who withstood the heat under an umbrella to paint the hay bales.  I'll never get to Monet's number of twenty-five paintings. 9x12 oil on panel.

As I Was Painting In The Hay Field

In case you were wondering about it, Monet did 25 grain stack paintings.  His motivations were different than mine (don't laugh).  My round hay bales probably won't be around for some winter views, at least not where they are located now.  Yesterday, as I was painting in the hay field (in Williamstown, MA), the farmer was already removing hay bales with a pronged tractor.  However, if he only takes away two at a time, like yesterday, it will take him a while.  9x12 oil on panel.

Late Day Bale

This is the last bale I painted on Wednesday when the sun shone late in the afternoon.  The view looks south from what I call the upper hay field.  There's another hay field even higher up.  Williamstown, MA.  9x12 oil on panel.

Scouting in the Hay Fields

The hay fields are quite large, and the weather at the moment, dark and overcast, is not great for painting.  So I went scouting, looking for compositions in the hay fields.  When I next go out to paint, which I hope is tomorrow morning, I will go directly to one of these spots without wandering around too much.  The sketches make the bales look like turned over coffee cups,  but there are potentially good paintings there.

A Salute to Cezanne

There's a Cezanne painting that he did while working with Pissarro in the early 1880's where he placed a dark window at the center of the painting (see Le moulin sur la Couleuvre a Pontoise).  To start this hay bale painting the first thing I did was to place the dark door space near the center, and go on from there.  A hidden salute to Cezanne.  9x12 oil on panel.

They Don't Roll

The first of three hay bale paintings from yesterday.  There's a nearby field where the farmer was making even more of them all randomly left there.  These fields by the way are not flat, but rolling.  Fortunately the bales don't roll.  9x12 oil on panel.

Geometry in the Field

When I saw these two bales I walked around them looking for a possible composition involving symmetry and asymmetry.  Thus there are slight variations, slants, near touches, parallels, etc. in the painting.  They are "found" bales.  I'm not going to move or re-arrange them into place!  Geometry in the field.  9x12 oil on panel.

Raining Sunshine

Usually I don't go into this field but the hay bales are a recent addition, and I don't know how long they will be there, so I quickly set up and painted away.  I had to use my umbrella to keep the sun off me and my panel.  9x12 oil on panel.

Criss Cross

This was the first of the two paintings that I did yesterday next to Porches across from MOCA in North Adams, MA.  8x10 oil on panel.

Next to Porches in North Adams

Early this afternoon I painted with Thor Wickstrom and Frank Visco at the small park next to Porches across from MOCA in North Adams, MA.  Fortunately there are a few trees there providing shady spots to settle under, and a parking lot.  Frank lives in New York City and is visiting the area.  Looking for local plein air artists, he found me yesterday at the popup Gallery 28 via FB.  Frank takes courses at the Art Student's League, so I told him to link up with Thor in NYC, but Thor was here today, so through the magic of texting, we all ended up painting together.  9x12 oil on panel.

The Beckoning Landscape

An opportunity to paint outside beckoned, as they say.  So I stood in the shade at the very end of Hopper Road in Williamstown, MA, and painted.  To my right, the farmer and several helpers were loading the last bales of the first cut of haying into the barn.   9x12 oil on panel.

Sky Building Blend on Atlantic

This painting I 'finished' last year, but it was sitting around my studio, and so I decided to 'finish' it again.  It depicts Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn.  The building blended into the sky. 12x16 oil on panel.

Gallery 28 in North Adams

This summer I'm participating with three other artists in a pop-up gallery in North Adams, MA.  Our beautiful exhibition space is located next to public on Holden Street.  Gallery hours are Tuesday - Saturday 11-7.  The other artists are Marilyn Cavallari, Ellen Joffe-Halpern, and Grant Sun.

There will be an opening event on Friday, July 12th from 5 to 7.  If you are in the area, please come.

Something Quite Rare in Brooklyn

Here's a painting that I did over seven years ago of something quite rare, an empty lot in Brooklyn.  The lot was empty when I made the painting, but there's a huge apartment building there now.  The view is from another building on Sterling Place.  Each halve is 11x14 oil on canvas, making the full dimensions, 11x28 inches.  I remember not being happy after painting the canvas on the left, so I added the one on the right.  It just occurred to me that I could have kept adding canvases!

Sun on Third

A small Brooklyn painting evoking the corner of Third Avenue and Sackett Street with the late afternoon sun streaking down Third Avenue creating dark shadows on the side streets.  6x8 oil on gessobord.