"Rialto Bridge Dusk" (oil on linen; 12" x 12") sold

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Venice is always beautiful.  At dusk, it becomes breath-takingly ethereal.  Ride a gondola, like the couple in the painting, and glide under the famed Rialto Bridge in the sunset.

"Twilight Snowfall" (oil on linen; 8" x 10")

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Snow falls gently in the country at twilight.  All is silent.  All is beautiful.

"Festival of Lights" (oil on canvas; 12" x 16") nfs

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If you live in the Washington metropolitan area, you are probably familiar with this structure.  It is the Mormon Temple in Kensington, MD.  I was there last Saturday to attend the Greater Washington Suzuki Flute Ensemble's Christmas concert.  Every year during the Festival of Lights, the trees in the church grounds are decorated with millions of lights.  The work that goes into it must take thousands of hours.  Lights of all the colors in the rainbow wrap around the branches of tall trees, short bushes, and every tree in between.  You have to see the Festival of Lights!

I took several pictures before going into the Visitor Center for the concert, because that's what I do--taking pictures.  While looking at them on my laptop on the following day, it occurred to me that a painting of the subject would make a terrific Christmas present for my daughter's flute teacher who happens to be a Mormon.  For someone as special as she, a store-bought gift just doesn't cut it.

I have never painted Christmas lights before, but there is always the first time for every thing.  I am pleased with the way "Festival of Lights" turned out.  I told her that she would have to wait for her present until early January.  I hope she likes the painting!

"Jefferson Memorial Nocturne" (oil on linen; 10" x 15") sold

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"Jefferson Memorial Nocturne" was the first of my new mini series--mellow nocturnal scenes of Washington landmarks.  Initially it turned out dull and boring instead of evocative and stirring.  So I let it dry and reworked with more paint and colors.  The famous memorial to the great president doesn't look dirty anymore; its reflections in the water have colors instead of mud. 

We are used to seeing Jefferson Memorial and Tidal Basin during the National Cherry Blossom Festival against gazillion, fluffy, pink petals.  I wonder what President Thomas Jefferson feels about that in his grave.  To this man of many talents and great vision, three achievements mattered the most. 

Thus, he penned his own epitaph on his tombstone at Monticello, VA as follows: "Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statue of Virginia for religious freedom, and father of the University of Virginia."

"Poppy Field" (oil on linen; 16" x 12") sold



After
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"Poppy Field" before revision

"Evening Island" (oil, 14" x 11")
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I have a tendency of quitting a painting too soon.  It's not because I am lazy.  It's because of the fear factor--if I continue working on this pretty darn good painting, I am going to ruin it!  Last week, in his first class of the winter term, John Murray told the students to be brave: "No one is going to die here.  We are not performing a brain surgery.  So go ahead, use big brushes and lots of paint, and knock yourself out."  Or something like that.

We got a good laugh at his encouraging comments, but they got me thinking.  I have a few paintings that are supposedly finished and framed.  Whenever I look at them, however, I am bothered.  Yesterday I decided to do something about this nagging sensation and unframed a couple of the guilty paintings.  There was nothing to lose, you see?  Just as when a painting is a knock-out, it is a knock-out; when a painting doesn't work, it doesn't work.  No judges will like them; nobody will buy them either.

"Poppy Field" was too wispy.  It looked good only when I turned on a lamp next to it.  So I turned up the chroma (color intensity) of the poppies and greens in the foreground.  For "Evening Island," I increased the value scale.  The sky along the horizon was lightened and the grassy foreground was deepened.  I also added texture with a rough bristle brush, dipping it into pure paints and mixing colors directly on the painting.

I am happy to report that no one died in the process and I just rescued two paintings from the ignominy of mediocrity.  Not a bad reward for courage!

"Sheep Country, Yorkshire" (watercolor on paper, 10" x 6 1/2" each) sold

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"Sheep Country, Yorkshire" was an interesting exercise in Carolyn Gawarecki's class that I took several years ago at the Art League School in Alexandria, VA.  We were to paint a triptych, each painting with a distinct foreground, middle ground, and background.  Then we had to assign the different values (light, mid-tone, and dark) to the three parts in each panel, never repeating the same scheme.  Colors were a secondary consideration and we had to focus on values.  A big headache!

The above painting is what I came up with.  The left panel has a light foreground, mid-tone middle ground, and dark sky; the center panel has a mid-tone foreground, dark middle ground, and light sky; and the right panel has a dark foreground, mid-tone middle ground, and light sky.  As it happens, the left panel has the feeling of an early morning; the center panel, that of the mid-afternoon; and the right panel comes across as a scene at dusk.  How about that!  Good teachers exercise our mind and force us to grow.  Thank you, Carolyn.