"Central Park in Fall Colors" (oil on linen; 9" x 12") sold

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I have often painted the famous Pond at the New York Central Park with a sliver of the Manhattan skyline.  It is such a picturesque scene.  It is always beautiful, but is most spectacular in fall colors!

"Central Park in Snow" (oil on linen; 9" x 12") sold

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The Central Park in New York City has got to be the most romantic park in the world. Think of all the movies filmed there!  I have painted the famous stone bridge at the pond several times.  This painting captures it on a wintry day.  The snow on the ground glows in the late afternoon sun.  Lights have come on, adding more warmth to the otherwise cold painting.

"Springtime at Central Park" (oil on linen; 9" x 12") sold

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Reference photo

I love New York, NY.  I don't want to live there, but would drop everything to visit the city anytime.  So much energy and cultural diversity!  The above picture was taken a few years ago on a family mini-vacation.  It was a mild, overcast spring day.  We had walked for I don't know how many blocks from our hotel at Times Square, stopping at many landmarks.  Our destination was the Metropolitan Museum of Art for an afternoon of Ancient Egyptian history and culture.  (I would have spent the time looking at paintings, but my daughter would have none of that and wanted to visit the world-famous Egyptian collection.  Sigh.) 

Central Park was crowded as it was a weekend day.  I don't know how New Yorkers would manage without this green haven.  Thank goodness, we had Frederick Law Olmsted, who had the vision to design this beautiful park!  Do you recognize the famous bridge, which had been featured in countless movies?

I wanted to paint the scene for a long time.  But something held me back.  Do you know that made me hesitate?  It was the tyranny of the color green.  It's green in the foreground, middle ground, and background.  I might as well pour a bucket of diluted green on the canvas and call it quits!

I thought long and hard about the problem and decided to take an artistic license.  I made the foreground greens warm (with the various mixtures of cobalt blue, cadminum yellow medium, and some reds), while keeping the middle ground greens pale and cool (with cerulean blue, cadmium yellow light, some reds, and lots of titanium white).  The background greens just above and below the bridge are muted violets.  I edited out the tiny figures to enhance the serene mood I was going after.  What do you think of the result of my efforts?

"First Snow, Lake District in England" (watercolor on paper, 21" x 29") sold

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The snow from the last week is still on the ground, so snow is on my mind as well.  "First Snow" is a large painting on a full sheet of watercolor paper.  The scene is the Lake District in the northern England, and I imagined it must be the first snowfall of the season.  Children are going home from school.  The white in the middle ground slope is the untouched paper.  With watercolors, you've got to save the whites with determination; once it's lost, you might as well start all over.  I don't generally use making fluid, but there is no harm in using it if you prefer.

The painting received an award in the Mid-Atlantic Regional Show by the Baltimore Watercolor Society in 2005.  It was also juried into the Art League International Landscape Show in Alexandria, VA in the same year.