Christmas 2022
My card this year returns to one of my favorite venues, White Deer Plaza in Lake Mohawk. This year I conjured a snow storm outside the old Crane Realty office (now Coldwell Banker) and gave them a few extra holiday lights.
October.
In the autumn I tried to take advantage of the Wallkill Valley Plein Air event, but only for the quick draw contest. The site was the City Winery property which is in an old mill building complex in Montgomery NY, on the Wallkill river.. Artist are given just two hours to complete, frame and present their work. There were approximately one hundred artists present and it was a lot of fun but maddening as I had never tried to hurry up a painting in this fashion before. I had to work on it in my studio after getting home
Great practice and I think I would try it again next year. I tried to emphasize the perspective looking down an alley toward some wine fermentation vats.
Plaza Shops
One of the popular shops in White Deer Plaza is Garlic and Oil. I tried to capture the curiosity of these shoppers on a sunny day. The shadows give a little sense of depth.
Another summer picture was this boat house that sits on Manitou Island and is seen from my deck. I like the way the noontime sun hits the building.
Redo
One painting of a barn in York Pa. always appealed to me because it had a mystical, other worldly quality. Note the see through windows in the back wall of the barn. But I decided it would have more appeal as a gritty, dirty working hands quality if I pumped up the texture of barn boards and the dirt in the road. Mostly this was an exercise in adjusting the values to a more contrasted key and changing the old focal point from a vague blue reaper to a brighter orange, more dominant one in the lower right quadrant, even as the blue reaper is also pumped up.
