Category Archives: America the Beautiful

Twisting Hearts

Hearts are susceptible to forces of nature such as tornados. Perhaps they’ll be carried all the way to the stratasphere, eventually fly over China and get shot down! Or maybe they’ll land in your yard, a happier outcome. They’re totally friendly. https://www.dailypaintworks.com/buy/auction/1392473

Tropic of Cancer-Causeway

Florida. Here we are for the week while Ted works. It’s quite different than the the places I call home in the northeast mid and south west. Different flora and fauna, lots of water everywhere and not all that walkable. Skyscrapers ans doublewides dominate the cities. Mosquitos and seabirds are all over the grasslands andContinue reading “Tropic of Cancer-Causeway”

Vanderbilt and E.45th

It’s a rainy, mid-autumn day in the canyons of New York City, just north of Grand Central Station. It’s a scene that shows the construction of a building whose bones and entrails are on display, awaiting its clothing of cladding and windows. Traffic edges forward hardly noting the disruption of flow, all business, as usual.Continue reading “Vanderbilt and E.45th”

East Brunswick Storage Unit

We have a lot of stuff…too much. We have a storage unit to accommodate all the forgotten memories, boxes packed decades ago, abandoned projects and other extraneous ephemera  of the ages. We go there seldom because none of it really matters any more. It’s just that it’s hard to let go so we pay overContinue reading “East Brunswick Storage Unit”

East Brunswick, Mid-Winter

We’re driving on a Saturday afternoon and it’s starting to snow. It’s winter in New York, scrub trees in the field mowed last fall are a silhouetted filigree against the  leaden horizon. It’s not the sort of scene to leave the car to admire. The wind starts to gust.

East Brunswick, New York

In late winter we took a drive to the east of our city, Troy. Here the austerity of the hills frozen and neutral, the cold, cold sky draped with clouds pushing northeast, all of this struck me as a beauty specific to Upstate. This landscape is worthy of painting in every season, late winter beingContinue reading “East Brunswick, New York”

Clums Corners in Winter

Our storage unit is located in Clums Corners, a small farm community outside Troy, NY. Our unit has a sweeping view to the east. Late in the afternoon when the sun is flat, the colors of the sky and land saturate and you can see all the way to Massachusetts. The land is still undevelopedContinue reading “Clums Corners in Winter”

February Ocatillo

The setting for this painting is of the Sonoran Desert in Arizona. The time of year is winter. I hike a lot when I’m here and was surprised when I saw the Ocatillo I’ve featured in this painting. The cactus was all leafed out and bushy which I don’t remember happening at this elevation tilContinue reading “February Ocatillo”

Desert Wash

In the desert when the sun has just vanished below the mountains the light shifts in ways revealing colors not seen at any other time. This amazes me. Fact is, color changes all day long and through the night. Our color perceptions are defined by time and space. Yeah, really…..

Ford Canyon Arabesque

This painting is of a wondrous scene I encountered while hiking. I was taken by the arabesque forms of cactus and earth. I’ve included a shot the initial layout of of the painting which I used as a guide for the painting’s progression. I’m pleased with this painting and I hope you’ll enjoy it, too.

Ford Canyon Trail, Maricopa County, AZ

I’m hiking as much as I can while I spend a few weeks of winter in Arizona. Each hike I determine to see at least one wondrous sight. Sometimes I see the rare desert pool of water, sometimes I see a herd of deer, perhaps a lizard or an early blooming of cactus. Most frequentlyContinue reading “Ford Canyon Trail, Maricopa County, AZ”

San Pedro Cactus 2

The San Pedro Cactus is a gorgeous plant. They grow tall and wide and have straight regular columns or can be quite gnarly and contorted, depending on the growing environment and genetic mutations. The one I’ve painted is of the gnarly type. It grows at altitudes of 2-3,000 ft and is a known hallucinogen. What’sContinue reading “San Pedro Cactus 2”

Jojoba and Ferocactus

While in Arizona I try to hike every day. The temperature is still below 70 degrees F. during the day, perfect for walking. I walk in one of the Maricopa County Regional Parks, a wild and varied landscape with lots of rocks, animals and plants. I’m always looking for my next painting when I’m there.

Eastern Bracken Fern

The Eastern Bracken Fern is found in the Adirondacks of New York State. It’s a deciduous rhizome that appears in spring, lives and spreads in the summer, looses its fronds in the fall, winters underground and then starts it all again when the earth thaws. This painting shows the fern in early spring.