A not so recent commission

A couple of years ago, a friend asked if I would do a painting of his house. I photographed it a couple of times but never seemed to get a shot I liked. The house is quite large and rambles across a small rise.  It is mostly obscured by a row of trees, several of which have been removed for the purposes of this painting that I finally finished yesterday.

We are returning to Florida next week via Venice Italy and a Mediterranean/ Transatlantic cruise that terminates in Ft. Lauderdale. I won't be painting or blogging for a while but should have lots of subject matter when I get back..

Memory of Shelter Island

At the end of the lane near my son's home on Shelter Island ,New York stands a picturesque ruin of an old grainery covered with ivy.  The ruins of a concrete pier thrust out into  the bay.  I painted this as a gift to my son's family.

A discovery

It took me all summer to realize that this photograph, that hangs in our local supermarket, is the basis of the painting  for Art Prize.  It was taken in the 30's, 40 years before Mr Olendorf painted the original from it.

A couple of new works

I was asked to decorate a door panel for a close friend and produced the cherry blossoms above.  The second painting is of a friend's backyard pond in neighboring Fennville.

Art Prize Opens

The installation was officially unveiled at a cocktail reception last night. It is so large I had to photograph it from an angle. Now we wait for the public's opinion.

Art Prize Continued

Yesterday,I helped with the installation of the completed piece,or at least a part of it because of another appointment. This picture shows about one quarter of the finished painting.  My part is the blue shack to the left.  More to come

Goshorn Lake Before and after

Phase 1

                                         The finished painting

I finally got around to finishing the painting of our little lake from the top of our dune.

An exciting new project

I finally have something interesting to post here. An invitation went out to local artists to participate in a project for Art Prize, the huge art exhibit now in its third year in Grand Rapids. Twenty Four of us are reproducing a section of the painting shown below to create a Fifteen by Fifteen foot piece to be shown at The BOB, a central venue for  Art Prize.  The original painting, by William Olendorf is from a photograph, taken in the Thirties, of an art class on the Kalamazoo River near the chain ferry. The fishing shacks and boats are mostly gone by now, but the view is pretty much unchanged and evokes the spirit of Saugatuck as an art community.

The challenge is to get the pieces to fit and the colors to match. I have met with the artists to the north, east and west of my piece and we're pretty much aligned but the color match needs some work.

My assignment

My piece so far

Max Matteson is east, a good fit

                                                            

The piece on the west needs some work on the color match

The north alignment is good but the color match needs work

Stay tuned.

The Yellow Rose

Enough Said

Cross Country

Sorry for the hiatus.
We just returned from a 7100 mile five week jaunt to California and back from Ft. Lauderdale. Needless to say, there haven't been any new paintings for a while, but I have some interesting photos that may make it yet into paintings.

White Sands New Mexico

Tucson Arizona

Palm Springs California

Cambria California

Santa Barbara California

Phoenix Arizona

Grand Canyon

New Orleans