Reaction

After the duckling rescue, I completed this 12x12 oil on panel.  It seems that it's better if I just react to the pond instead of thinking about it too much.

From One End to the Other and a Daring Rescue

This morning I went back to the pond.  I was standing at one end of the pond looking toward the other end and painted this view, a 12x16 oil on panel.  I may paint this view more than once, since it changes dramatically during the day.

After I finished this painting, I moved to another location to start another painting, but I became involved in a duckling rescue operation.  I learned later that a duckling was born last night, and at mid-day I saw it running after three other ducks, and it promptly went into the pond while the three ducks went back to their duck house.  The duckling tried to get out of the pond, while, in the meantime, the bullfrogs were signaling that lunch had arrived.  Anyway, the duckling was eventually successfully removed from the pond and put back in the duck house with its careless mother, who is sitting on a pile of eggs.  Hopefully the duckling will still be there tomorrow.

Frantic

Last Friday I also did this 8x10 oil sketch on panel.  I looked across the pond and saw reflections of a tree like an airplane and the roof of the peacock house like a heart, and a pine tree...  like a pine tree, and I painted away frantically.

Looking into a Pond

When Monet started to paint his pond, he spent a few years agonizing about it and destroyed dozens of canvases.  Fortunately, he got over whatever problems he encountered or created for himself.  One can't look into a pond without thinking of Monet.  This is a 9x12 oil on panel done while standing on the pond's nose, from two days ago when the sun was still shining.

Controlled Chaos

This is a 12x12 oil on panel, which I worked on for a span of two days.  I stood in a shady spot looking into the pond.  Most of the view is water.  Charles Movalli called painting "controlled chaos".  I was trying to achieve a controlled chaos, from the chaos of a pond surface, on the surface of a panel.  The view looks down the pond to where there's an old barn.  The outline of the pond has been described as like a pair of sunglasses.  In the center of the painting you can make out the nose on which the sunglasses sit.

Down the Pond

Yesterday was still cloudy, but the pond was still there, so I went out and painted.  Here's a 9x12 oil on panel showing a view down the pond.  I described it as a figure eight, but was told by someone who knows it better that it's like the two lenses of a pair of sunglasses.

Mostly Cloudy

The clouds, the rain, the clouds... So I went out and painted anyway: a 9x12 oil on panel.

Holding Up the Harbor

So I worked on and completed a larger version of the boat holding up the harbor in Gloucester, MA.  It's an 18x24 oil on canvas.

Snug Fit

This is a 12x16 pastel on colourfix board: a complicated Gloucester boatyard view that I've tried to simplify. I snugly fitted the boat at the bottom to hold up the rest of the harbor.   I want to tackle a larger oil version of this view.

Unrandom Marks

At the end of Rocky Neck Avenue in Gloucester, MA is a site called the Gloucester Marine Railways, which calls itself the oldest working shipyard in the United States.  This 9x12 pastel is a view of the shipyard.  It's also a collection of mostly unrandom marks, touches, scrapes, and rubbings of hard and soft pastel.

Change and Tradition

Another Gloucester pastel, this on an 11x14 on pastelbord.  I can understand why seaports and boatyards have always attracted painters.  Where else can you find colorful and shapely man-made objects surrounded by sky and water?  And there's always the patina of age, and other aspects of change and tradition.  I went to Gloucester to see an exhibition of paintings by Charles Movalli, a great painter who died last year.

Gloucester Boat

I'm still near the water, but this time it's in Gloucester, MA, an ancient and venerable site for painters.  This is a 12x16 pastel.

At the Beach in Brooklyn

This is an urban painting, a view of the boardwalk at Coney Island, in Brooklyn, facing east towards the aquarium.  I've been reading some books on Eugene Boudin lately, and so felt the urge to paint the beach with people. The painting is an 18x24 oil on canvas.

Repoussoir

The weather improved again in the afternoon yesterday, so I went to the pond once more.  I notice that I'm in a rut: my last three plein air paintings have had a tree repoussoir at the side.  I'll work on that.  This is a 9x12 oil on panel.

Situational Painting

A 9x12 oil on panel of a pond in Hoosick, N.Y.  The afternoon started cloudy but the sun appeared near the end of this painting, so I went with the flow.  It's happened often enough, that when a painting is approaching completion, I am prepared to take advantage of a sudden positive change.  Situational painting.  Of course the water just kept moving the entire time.