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.