I will never cease being attracted to one lone tree standing in a field. There seems to be something majestic as well as vulnerable about this motif. It stands tall and the view is not hindered so the tree is free to impress us with its beauty through the seasons. But it stands alone and is therefore exposed to the full forces of nature i.e. wind, snow, rain, sun. But it adapts and prospers despite these external forces.
In a lot of ways this painting is what on site landscape painting is all about. My wife and I walk 3 miles for exercise every day…well maybe not every day, but we did that this past Saturday and then I gathered my painting gear and headed out to Caumsett State Park on the North Shore of Long Island.
Now I've been to Caumsett before and I know there is some walking involved but it took me 3 ½ miles to get to this point! Don't get me wrong, the view and resulting painting were totally worth the effort but I was looking at about another 3 miles to get back to the car. I remember thinking at one point that being an on site landscape painter is turning out to be good aerobic exercise! A total of six miles with my backpack, tripod and camera on top of the three miles I had walked that morning. But it couldn't have been a nicer day and, as is always the case when I'm outside looking for paintings, I loved every moment of the “adventure”.
I told my wife that I had done three days worth of walking in one day and for the next two days she was on her own. She just smiled and advised me to be ready the next morning for OUR walk!
This view is from the town where I was born and raised. It is also not from the town where I was born and raised. By that I mean that this is one of those rare paintings of mine that is more of an impression of the area based on a particular locale. I set out to do a painting of Mattinecock Point just east of Prybil's Beach where I have spent so much time in the past. There is a rather large house on the point but I always feel distracted by these man-made structures and just decided to leave it out. I felt that just this bare promontory wasn't overly exciting and added the hazy headland in the distance. The next thing I realized was that I was no longer painting a specific spot but more my impression of what this area looks like in my mind and memory. To the best of my understanding that is what's known as artistic license! I don't often employ these vast powers that I have but really get a kick out of it when I do. All of the above strikes me as sounding very heady but it is not supposed to. I think I usually feel guilty when I don't portray what's in front of me and it is a VERY guilty pleasure that I now feel sharing this painting with you.
This piece is another recently finished but begun long ago painting. I was commissioned back in the late 90's to do a "portrait" of a privately owned stretch of the Battenkill River in Vermont. This famous trout stream meanders slowly through some very pretty farm country on the VT/NY border. In this view the river is just to my right but I was very taken by the beauty of the wildflowers along the bank. There is also something mysterious about the edge of where the field has been mowed and the "wild wall" or natural barrier of hip high vegetation begins. Something always makes me feel as though I don't want to walk in there! I think I just don't want to disturb anything. I do like to feel I have left nature as it was when I arrived.
