The Boats of Opua - "The Gannet"

I started a painting project a while ago and now that I'm back at home in Opua, New Zealand, I'll do some more boat pieces for the project titled, The Boats of Opua.  Opua is usually the first port of call for yachts sailing the Pacific. This is where they go through biosecurity and immigration. It is also a great place for armchair sailors like me to wander around the docks...admiring the boats, wondering where they're going and where they've been.

This is the Gannet, from Falmouth, Maine.  I saw this yacht a few months ago, so perhaps by now it has sailed on to another port. When the painting is dry, I'll paint the name on the boat.

The Boats of Opua 4 - "The Gannet"

Original oil on gessoed board, 8" x 6" unframed

US $125 plus $10 shipping

SOLD

Through the Woods

I was in South Carolina in early November, attending a group show at Horton Hayes Fine Art Gallery in downtown Charleston. It gave me a chance to spend time at Ace Basin, one of my favorite places to paint.  It's a wildlife management area, open to the public, and a great place to bird watch. Though I painted this 10" x 8" in Horton Hayes Gallery, it is typical of the roads that run through the Ace Basin area.

I leave for New Zealand in just two days. Today is a cold, rainy day in my current U.S. location, so I'm looking forward to heading home to summer. It is time to sit on the deck, soaking up the sun and enjoying my peek of the sea.

Through the Woods

10" x 8" oil on gessoed board

Available at Horton Hayes Gallery, Charleston, South Carolina.  

Mystic

This 11" x 11" oil is titled Mystic, as in Van Morrison's Into the Mystic, one of my favorite songs.
Mystic started as a 14 x 18, but it was a bit too soft and ethereal for a larger piece so I cropped it to the current size.  

A few years ago, a few artist friends and I rented a house near the Blackwater Refuge in Cambridge, Maryland, with plans to spend a lot of time painting. A hurricane changed course and headed right for us so we bought storm provisions (a case of wine and a bushel of crabs), lashed a canoe to the tree on the front lawn and waited for the storm. This was the view from the front window of the house!

Mystic

11" x 11" oil on panel

A Baker's Dozen

Baker's Dozen is inspired by scenes I've seen at the Blackwater Refuge, near Easton, where I visit every year. I can also see how my 75 for 75 bird study project has influenced a lot of my recent work. The idea for this particular piece came from one of the studies.

I've cropped the image so you can see the edges of the painting. Once the painting is dry, I sand the edges and round the corners with a fine sandpaper, then float the panel on black foam core, leaving about 1/4" of foam core showing between the edge of the painting and the frame. A lot of my paintings are framed this way as it gives my work a more contemporary look.

A Baker's Dozen

11" x 11" oil on panel

Minuet

An egret on a blustery day, inspired by scenes I have seen at the Blackwater Refuge in Easton, Maryland.

Minuet

16" x 20" oil on gessoed board

Cold & Clear

This scene is one of my favorite places at the Blackwater Refuge in Cambridge, Maryland. I've painted it over and over again at different times of the day. Though this 11" x 11" oil was done in the studio, it was inspired by the times I've painted the scene on location.

Cold & Clear

11" x 11" oil on gessoed board

Blowing In

This 16 x 20 oil was inspired by a trip to the Blackwater Refuge in Easton, Maryland one November.  It was blowing a gale, yet sunny and the hunkered-down geese were catching some wonderful side-lighting. It was one of those scenes that I knew would become a painting.  With studio oils, I work from photographic reference to remind me of the motif and the shape of the geese - but I do a lot of changing and embellishing. There is no photograph that looks like this painting.

Blowing In

16" x 20" oil on gessoed panel

Sandspit

I painted this little oil on location a while ago, in Sandspit. It's just east of Warkworth, New Zealand - my original hometown before I moved to the Bay of Islands. My son, daughter-in-law and three grandkids are moving to New Zealand in a few months. I'm really looking forward to taking the kids to Sandspit to swim, which is where I swam as a kid.  It's safe and shallow.

"Pathless Woods"

Pathless Woods

18" x 36" oil on linen
SOLD

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,

There is a rapture on the lonely shore,

There is society, where non intrudes,

By the deep sea, and music in its roar.

I love not man the less, but Nature more,

From these our interviews, in which I steal

From all I may be, or have been before,

To mingle with the Universe, and feel

What I can never express, yet cannot all conceal.

Lord Byron

299 - Shorebird

This is a little shorebird that I saw at the Blackwater Refuge in Cambridge, Maryland, last November. Perhaps a Yellowlegs?

Some paintings are difficult to photograph. Wet paint reflects light and some colors don't photograph as well as others. The color of this little painting looks accurate on my monitor but the paint is reflecting light. Oh well.

299 - Shorebird

5" x 7" oil on gessoed board, unframed

US$85 plus $7 shipping