“I frequently tramped eight or ten miles through the deepest snow to keep an appointment with a beech-tree, or a yellow birch, or an old acquaintance among the pines.” – Henry David Thoreau, 1817 – 1862 I painted these trees several years ago in the Bois de Boulogne, and sold the painting to a woman in the park walking her dog. The picture wasn’t finished but when it was I brought it to her … Read more
Dear Friends and Family, While spending more time in France this summer than ever before, yet wanting to travel light when we finally did depart for the US, I decided to explore other painting media. The sketch above is a watercolor of a café in our neighborhood in the 9th arrondissement… A sketch in acrylic paint of rue Bruyeres. I can actually see this street when I lean out of my apartment window. … Read more
Last year, on college tour with my family to California, we came upon Cora’s Coffee Shoppe. Sometimes when you’re on vacation (or on college tour) it’s nice to step out of your motel early in the morning before all the other tourists are up. Grab a coffee and walk on the beach, or down the Main Street. Or in this case Ocean Avenue in Santa Monica. Cora’s is located on 1802 Ocean Avenue. What … Read more
Our Painting Safari began in France this year because we will not arrive in the US until almost August. But Plein Air painting has begun, with this painting done at Île de Puteaux, west of Paris, where Sam and I play tennis every Sunday morning. Île de Puteaux is an island in the Seine where houseboats are moored, as they are all along the Seine both within and outside the city limits of … Read more
When I was a kid, my mother would watch me paint stone walls, building facades and cliff-lined river banks. Lovely grays, browns and ochres. She once said to me, with a bit of impatience in her voice: “Why don’t you paint some nice pretty colorful flowers?” At which point I found flowers very difficult to paint, pretty or otherwise. I don’t know why this occurred. Later, when I tried painting them, they looked like … Read more
This painting and two others, Perkins Rubber Stamps and White Tire Bicycle, will be on exhibit, with many other paintings from alumni of the New York Academy of Art. This is the third annual all alumni exhibition, held at Studio 7 Fine Art Gallery and The Bernardsville Library, in Bernardsville, New Jersey. Opening Reception: Friday, May 1, 6:00pm-9:00pm Studio 7 Fine Art Gallery 5 Morristown Road, Bernardsville, NJ 07924 studio7artgallery.com – a n d … Read more
A great teacher of mine once said that a painting should have three qualities. First, it should draw you in from across the room. Second, it should have something about it that holds your attention when you are close to it and makes you keep looking. Third, it should leave you with something that makes you think about it after you have left the gallery, so that you want to go back. With … Read more
This painting was accepted into the contest and exposition “On the Rooftops” in the Salon Aguado, at the Mairie of the 9th arrondissement of Paris. The exposition and contest is in support of Paris’s bid for its rooftops to be included as one of UNESCO’s World Heritage Sites. It is organized by the Mayor of the 9th arrondissement, Delphine Bürkli. You are cordially invited to attend the vernissage on Tuesday the 31st March … Read more
“It’s better to have loved and lost than to have to do forty pounds of laundry a week.” – Laurence J. Peter When I first read this quote I didn’t know who Laurence J. Peter was, so I looked him up. He is a Canadian educator, author and Hierarchiologist, who, with Raymond Hull, wrote the book The Peter Principle: Why Things Alway Go Wrong. The Peter Principle humorously states that in … Read more
“Do not plan for ventures before finishing what’s at hand.” – Euripides Unknown to me before I found this quote was that Euripides trained as a painter in addition to being a playwright. Each January, we focus on New Year’s Resolutions, new beginnings and new projects. But then what happens? I myself have been guilty of starting projects and paintings, then leaving them unfinished. I think there are about seven unfinished paintings in my … Read more