What a blessing is Autumn!

So, just because I haven't posted in awhile, don't think I haven't been painting!  Here are some recent pieces from the last few months, not necessarily in chronological order.  All but the last piece are plein air, and were about 2-hour paintings on 8"x 10" linen panels.  Several are from the grounds around Blue Sky Studios, while several were from the plein air competition at Sagamore Hill National Monument in July.  The painting of the architecture is of Teddy Roosevelt's home at the monument. It's a lovely place, and he used to give speeches to guests right off the porch. The tall obelisk is from a trip to Sharon, Vermont that we did a few weeks ago, and is the monument placed at the birthplace of Joseph Smith, prophet and restorer of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  The painting's ok, but the monument is incredible.

The Paul Revere piece was for Seeing the Everyday magazine, and represents a re-working of the original painting. You can see where the line was for the bottom of the published piece, and originally I had painted the horse's head too small. I fixed that in Photoshop for the magazine, but someone wanted to buy the original, so I went back in and repainted the front of the horse, and was having so much fun at it that I added a little extra vignette at the bottom. As long as I was borrowing so liberally from Wyeth and Cornwell, I thought a vignette would be fitting.  The plein air piece of the fallen log is a scene near Blue Sky that I have revisited several times now and is great for overcast days.  I feel like I made some real breakthroughs with my understanding of the background and how to use softer brushwork to suggest complexity and distance.

As usual, I'll be back out again on Wednesday, so I'll post more soon. Remember, you don't hit a home-run every time, and there are many pieces that get scraped off. That's as it should be.