Actually Not Much

An 8x10 oil on canvas of a view through the Sweet Brook garage window with Mount Greylock in the distance.  The workbench is covered with plastic bins, tools and tubes.  Actually it's a painting of a lot of paint marks, touches, and blotches that might resemble the above.  Actually, it's a painting of not much.  The kind of stuff we see everyday.

Folding Chairs Everywhere

One thing leads to another, sometimes quickly.  Here's an 8x10 oil on canvas painting of a view in the Sweet Brook Farm garage.  Artists have been painting folding chairs for a long time.  I was looking on Pinterest today.  Folding chairs everywhere.

Inside

An 8x10 pastel on watercolor paper of a tiny portion of the interior of the barn at Sweet Brook Farm.  The weather outside is terrible, so I'm working inside.  But I've been wanting to do interiors for a while.    I'm starting out by doing a bunch of drawings and pastels, and will try to do different kinds of interiors to see what happens.

Not Another Barn

This afternoon I went out again to the homestead farm to paint this 9x12 oil on panel.  The tall grass has been cut and baled so I have access to areas where I was reluctant to step in,  never mind set up an easel.  I tried to work as fast as I could.  This took me about and hour and a half from the moment I started painting.  It may be the last barn I do for a little while.  I always wonder what, besides neglect, has been so tough on this barn.

Two Elderly Barns

When I first saw the barn in the first painting, an 8x10 oil on panel, back in April of last year, the vines had no leaves.  They wrapped the barn in a black net making it look very foreboding.  It looks just as scary in green.  It's actually the other end of the barn that I painted yesterday, which is vine free. The other 8x10 oil on panel is of the barn previously painted that has as much wood missing as present.  I did both paintings today on site, though again 'reviewed' them in the studio.

Another Old Barn

A few years ago I wrote how old barns reminded me of...old, and wise folks.  Some are falling down, some are in good shape, and they are always fascinating because of what they represent, what they have seen, and undergone.  Anyway, this painting is an 11x14 done yesterday at the site (with some slight changes later).  The field in front of the barn entrance had just been mowed allowing me to take this vantage point.  Previously the grass was about four feet high.  I worked on this thing for two hours.  I took a photo just before I started, and one right after I finished.   It's amazing how things change in two hours, as recorded by the photos.  God only knows where the painting fits in.  After a while, you realize that the only thing that counts is what is on the canvas. I'm not thrilled with it, but it was a good experience, in a long line going back and going forward.  Sort of like an old barn.

One Barn, Two Paintings

Two 11x14 oil paintings of an old barn at the homestead.  This barn is hanging on literally by one post or beam from collapsing.  When you look inside every piece of wood seems broken.   The close up painting I did on site yesterday, and the middle distance one I did today.  I did do a small bit of work at home on both.  The third photo shows my easel this morning.  I took it to show that this place really exists.

On the Farm

The wagon, a 9x12 studio oil on canvas, I completed earlier today from yesterday's start.  Two large horses pull the wagon, which is used to give rides around Sweet Brook Farm.  The wagon maker informed me that the metal understructure once belonged to a Freihofer Bread wagon.

The old barn, a 9x12 oil on panel, I did later this morning at the homestead farm.  I'm planning on doing several paintings at this location since the barns are eventually going to be torn down, assuming they don't fall down first.

The Garden Fence

The garden fence: the large 18x24 version for which I did the sketch earlier.

Garden Fence

A 9x12 oil study for a larger painting done this morning at Sweet Brook Farm.

Beth's Garden

An 18x24 oil of Beth's garden, which has a wonderful view.  The next garden painting will show a completed arbor and fence.

Threefer

The top 9x12 oil on canvas I did this morning at Sweet Brook Farm.  The middle 9x12 oil on canvas I did at a spot to the right last Saturday at Sweet Brook Farm.  And, alas, I felt I had to revise just a bit the "Near Five Corners" 9x12 oil on canvas that I did earlier this week.

Painting outside can be a pain.  I had to take off my apron and my shirt at one point today to get rid of some stinging bug that was caught between the fabric and my back skin.  But suffering for art, it's ok.

The weather has been so glorious for the last week or so that I feel like I've discovered clouds for the first time.  Usually they bring rain.  I did some other work outside today, which hopefully will bear fruit in the next few days.

Greylock and Hopper from Sweet Brook

A 12x12 oil painting that I started a while back and completed recently, but haven't posted until now.  You can clearly see why Greylock, on the right, used to be called Saddleback.  The view is from the field at Sweet Brook Farm.  No,  I didn't get out today.  Maybe tomorrow.

Baby Al

Baby Al, born yesterday, probably has a real name by now.  I did the bottom drawing earlier today in preparation for a painting, but then realized that the image doesn't give any idea that the newborn is only about three feet high.  So I did the 11x14 oil painting above, where the baby is surrounded by adults.  If you go to the Facebook page for the Sweet Brook Farm in Williamstown, MA, you can see a short video of the birth.  Pretty amazing.

Spring Views

The bottom 12x16 oil painting is the one that I've been struggling with all week.  The top painting, a 14x18 oil, I started and completed today.  The key is always the starting composition.  I'm still not sold on the bottom one, but I like the top one.  With the painting I posted yesterday, I am done with spring views for now.  Actually it's getting to look and feel more like summer.

Maple Train

A 14x18 oil of the maple barn steaming away like a train evaporating the water out of the syrup from yesterday morning.

No Horses Today

Another 14x18 oil of a scene at Sweet Brook Farm.

Denis Donoghue in his short biography of Emily Dickinson quotes the following:  '"All her life," R. P. Blackmur wrote of her, "she was looking for a subject, and the looking was her subject, in life as in poetry."'

Alpaca Barn

I'm a sucker for compositions like this that appear from just looking, and where one is lucky to be standing.  I'm referring to the opposing mountain side and the roof slant.  A 14x18 oil.

Snow and Mud and Morandi

An 8x10 1/2 pastel of the Sweet Brook Farm barn overhang, and a 9x12 oil of Stratton Road looking North.

An excerpt from Charles Wright:

In Giorgio Morandi's bedroom and studio, it was always spring,
He would say, "Each time we begin,
                                                           we think we have understood,
That we have all the answers.
But it turns out we're just starting over again from the beginning."
Some bottles, a bed, and three tables,
The flowers abounding in little rectangles
                                                                  all over the walls.

Hopper and Greylock

Greylock reminded Melville of Moby Dick, except the mountain was known to him as Saddleback and he saw it from a different direction (from Pittsfield), so he could not see the Hopper.  This is the view from the Sweet Brook Farm, where the alpacas live.  I am going to switch off to other subjects for a while until the season changes at Sweet Brook.  It's a 14x18 oil.  The above view is from earlier this summer.