At the Edge

24x30 oil on canvas SOLD

This work is on display at the "Sons of Sedona" exhibition at the Sedona Arts Center. I worked on this in the studio, enjoying, as a painter, the architectonic treatment of space that the Grand Canyon can inspire.
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Sedona Sunrise

"Sedona Sunrise" 6 x 9.25, oil on board, $85

This was a quick plein air painting at one of those spots you see as you are driving around and then have to find the closest place you can paint from that is not in the middle of the road. Sedona is one of those places that really wants to be portrayed a bit panoramic.

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Persephone Rising

"Persephone Rising" 36 x 24 oil on canvas $750

This vertical diptych developed as a way of joining two unlikely scenarios, but then finding a gestalt experience through the integration. It was then included in an exhibition on Greek Myths as "Persephone Rising". I was thinking of it as "A Fathers Anxiety as a Daughter turns 16" (she, the daughter was originally depicted on a tight rope). It was the shows curator that identified the Persephone theme. Persephone rises in the spring from Hades where she is held captive all winter. This initiates the cycle of the seasons. She has to return to Hades each year as part of complex bargain struck between quarreling gods.

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Summer Haze, Moran Point

24" x 30" oil on canvas (on display at Susan Pitcairn Gallery, Sedona AZ)
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This is a studio work based on some studies done over the summer, I enjoy the intense shifts in palette and tone created by the dramatic atmospheric perspective at the Grand Canyon.

Boynton Canyon

18" x 24" oil on canvas (on display at Susan Pitcairn Gallery, Sedona AZ)
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One of my favorite spots near Sedona. After doing some plein air studies I did this studio painting.

Sunday Life Drawing III

18" x 24" charcoal on paper $50.00
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This was a loose and bold linear study in soft charcoal. The head ended up looking a little small, though I measured and double checked the proportions. It might be the way it is sourrounded by the dark hair mass. It was an interesting angle, the same pose for the last three drawings.

Sunday Life Drawing II

18" x 24" charcoal on paper $50.00
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This was an image I just worked into the sheet where I had been doing all my gestures, charcoal is so flexible...the most flexible of all mediums I think.

Sunday Life Drawing

18" x 24" charcoal on paper $50.00
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A twenty-minute life drawing session. This is done at an open studio drawing opportunity we have on Sundays at the arts center. It is such a popular session that we had to create a wait-list on which I am an alternate...so every once in a while I get a call inviting me to come in...

In Certaldo

9x12 oil on canvas $125.00
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We went to the nearby town of Certaldo and painted in the upper 'old town'. This is the quintessential small medieval town on the hilltop sourrounded by protective walls with gates and full of intimate little alleys and shops.

The Experience

I'll share a couple photos of the teachers demonstrations in the days to come.

Tuscany Vista

12 x 16 oil on canvas $300.00
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At last full sunlight! I dragged everything I owned in Italy out into the grapevines and spent the entire afternoon.

Window at the Villa

9x12 oil on canvas $125.00
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This was done on the first rainy day at the Villa, soon though the sun comes out...

Balcony at the Villa

9x12 oil on canvas $125.00
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Another composition from the balcony. We had a couple of rainy days but it was possible to work from the balcony without getting wet and then capture light from breaking clouds.

La Terraza

12x16 oil on canvas panel $350
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The terrace in the morning with a lemon tree and geraniums in the forground and a back drop of grape fields, cypress and olive. The Villa Fattoria Bacio has that rich feeling of generations of accumulated history.

From the Balcony

6x8 oil on canvas panel $85
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From the balcony outside my room at the Villa, I was able to see the little town of Fiano in the distance.

Italia!

6x8 oil on canvas panel $85
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First painting in Italy was a small one. I started by laying down some rich over-saturated color and working into it by moderatly adding white. This approach kept it from becoming too gray. The first day was pretty gray and overcast. The fields of grapes though are ripe for harvesting after a few days of rain.

Backyard Landscape

9x12 oil on canvas $125.00
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Sometimes you can just step out the door. I am off to Italy for 10 days and will post the results of my painting experience in Tuscany when I return. I will be studying with Randall Sexton and Marcia Burtt at a Field Expedition origintating from the Sedona Arts Center. (see links)

Vignette

14 x 17" graphite on paper $50.00
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A lone figure at the edge of the Grand Canyon.

People at the Canyon

14 x 17" graphite on paper $50.00
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Everyone seems to be in their own world in this moment at the edge of the Grand Canyon.

Sunday Interior

14.5" x 10.75" oil on paper $125.00
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This is taking a drawing experience right on into painting. I like working this way because I feel that the work stays a drawing, open and incomplete.

Solitude

9x12 oil on canvas SOLD
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Couple II

9x12 oil on canvas $125.00
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Couple

6x8 oil on canvas $85.00
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I thought of the title 'couple on the edge' as my first option. It seemed negative - but aren't all couples on the edge? Maybe relationship itself is the edge, for each of us?

Gathering

9x12 oil on canvas (SOLD)

There is a strange and interesting luminosity of figures struck by the setting sun. Sometimes they are quite opaque but reflected light can make them seem almost entirely translucent.

Evening Cliff Dwellers

9x12 oil on canvas SOLD

...and how different are we from gatherings of long ago?

Audience II

9x12 oil on canvas $125.00
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Every sunset is unique and yet universal just as the crowds that gather to watch are always similar yet completly different from the crowd of the previous day.

Audience

9x12 oil on canvas (on display at Susan Pitcairn Gallery Sedona AZ)
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At any given sunset you can expect to see all the continents and many different cultures represented at the edge of the Grand Canyon. All sharing for a moment a singular experience.

Memento

9x12 oil on canvas SOLD

A roadside shrine on the way back from the Grand Canyon creates a kind of surreal element in the evening light of the desert landscape.

Evening Shadow

9x12 oil on canvas $125.00

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This is a view I could see painting again and again. The color changes quickly in the evening, the sense of depth, looking down into the canyon from here is dramatic and the movement of the cast shadow over the planes of this ridge is fascinating.

Spring Afternoon, Grand Canyon

6x8 oil on canvas panel SOLD
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This is a 'one brush' painting. Though I usually use a few brushes of various sizes and a palette knife or two as well, occasionally I find that I have picked up a tool and just stuck with it all the way through.

A Glance at Vermeer

6x8 oil on canvas panel SOLD
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One might think that dense layers of history would somehow obscure it but this sparkling glance from Vermeer's "Girl in a Red Hat" arrives as if there were no such thing as history and she has still, just now, turned. This is very close in size to the original.

Garden Girl

9x12 oil on canvas $125.00

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I have found painted figures have a secret life of their own. This girl started out as a garden sculpture, in fact a graceful Buddah type, but then she changed...a late night Pygmalion effect ...and charmed me at a certain point into leaving her alone in her moment of contemplation.

Spring at Moran Point

9x12 oil on canvas $125.00

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I couldn't resist these greens. I've been avoiding the Phalo Blue for quite awhile but I had to get it out for this one. I am still enjoying all the different aspects (and seasons) of the south rim of the Grand Canyon.

Rim Towers

9x12 oil on canvas $125.00

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Very nice to get back to the 'one session' model of painting. It feels so immediate - clean and clear in a way, like the air in this painting from the edge of the Grand Canyon.

Another Demo -Stage 1

This is another demo of the same process as in the previous painting,(scroll down to see more). This time I did stick longer with the acrylics and brought the oils in only at the end stage to help a bit with softness, depth and color in certain areas.

Stage 2

Stage 3

"Spires" finis

16x20 oil on canvas (see Feb 3)
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Demo Stage 1

These three images represent the stages of a process explored in a recent workshop with the wonderful painter and teacher, Morton Kaish, at the Sedona Arts Center. Though we were working from costumed models in the workshop, it was suggested that the process would be very applicable to a landscape scenario. In this first stage, over a ground of Ultramarine Blue at a value of about 3-4, a charcoal line drawing is made exploring the topographical qualities of the image and the major shapes of value. Then a brush with black acrylic paint is used to create a very solid drawing for the next stage.

Demo Stage 2

This stage was done with acrylics and a palette knife, using a limited palette. This can be done with a very intuitive sense of color and space though keeping the values of the source material and starting with the warm tones, leaving the underpainting as the cools. The next stage would be to continue on with the acrylics...but I switched to oils for finishing...

Grand Canyon #10

12x16 oil on canvas (SOLD)

In future I will stay with the acrylics longer as the drying time is so advantageous, especially when working with the palette knife. I am currently working on some larger Grand Canyon paintings using a similar process.

Evening Clouds

6x8 oil on canvas panel SOLD
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Sedona Landscape

5x7 oil on canvas panel $65
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Evening View

6x8 oil on canvas panel SOLD
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Sedona Spires

9x12 oil on canvas panel $125
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Last Snow

9x12 oil on canvas panel (SOLD)

High Desert Landscape

9x12 oil on canvas panel (SOLD)

Wind and Sun

9x12 oil on canvas panel (on display at Susan Pitcairn Gallery, Sedona AZ)
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Sarah in the Landscape

9x12 oil on canvas panel $125
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Reflecting Pool #3

9x12 oil on canvas panel (SOLD)