Fort Moultrie jetty

14" x 21"

15" x 23"

14" x 21"

     I started these 3 paintings in May, and worked on them most of the month, rotating through each one depending on the tide and weather. I was little more limited with the 2 paintings of the retaining wall, as the spot I was painting from was only accessible when the tide was out. It's a great spot to paint, a small cove at the tip of Sullivan's Island, with the famed Fort Moultrie a few hundred yards in. I had remembered the retaining wall, with it's large rocks and old pier stumps, as something that I wanted to paint; their muted earth tones creating interesting textures and shadow shapes.
     It was a challenge to paint these, as the tidal shift puts an extra element of pressure to capture the transient effects of nature on the scene. The sun became brutal by midday, bleaching out the colors on my palette and the surface of the painting. After each session, I had to tweak things in the studio a bit, reducing its whiteness and punching up the tones.
     These will be in a group show, "Passages" at Horton Hayes gallery this fall in Charleston. Besides referencing the way your eye takes you through different passages of paint across the canvas, this spot is also, literally, a passage for the ships that come in and out of Charleston harbor everyday. 

Porch at night

     I've had this idea for a painting of our porch for a few years now. It's a space we use a lot, mostly in the Spring and the Fall, when it's neither too hot or too cold outside. I started doing drawings for this one in March, testing out a few different angles and sizes in my sketchbook:

sketchbook 9" x 12"

sketchbook 9" x 12"

     This last drawing is larger and I experimented with having a figure in it. Painter John Hull came to my studio at the start of this painting and he told me how he makes cut outs of figures on paper and moves them around within a drawing of the space he is painting. I tried this with my daughter posing on the bench, but I felt that the space would seem too crowded with a figure.

pencil, 21" x 18"

     In my interiors, I've been investigating these near and far spaces, and the porch offered a perfect stage for this indoor/outdoor space. I was interested also in how different light is portrayed in a single image; string lights vs. fading sunset, warm interior space verses cool outdoor space. The composition ordered itself symmetrically, but I was interested in how the triangles re-iterated themselves and how your eye bounced around the patterns. The symmetry deflected at times by the thrust of the table and glow of the drawing on the easel.
      From the drawings I blocked in the darks on a toned linen canvas. I took progression shots along the way, usually after each painting session: 

   The table in the foreground was initially empty, but one night while I was set up painting, my wife walked through from outside and placed the flowers in the vase on the table. I put them in quickly that night, perfectly serving as a counterpoint to my daughters drawing on the easel across from it.

     The painting slowly built up over a long period of time, the sweet spot of the session being when I raced to set things up so I could get those 15 minutes of purple/blue light as the sun finally sunk. Trees in the distance dissolving into fuzzy silhouettes against the sky.  I worked on this one vigorously over 3 or 4 months, usually about twice a week for 2-3 hours at a time. As the painting went on, I started working more and more without the motif, in my studio, tweaking things here and there, building up the surface and marks. Here's the finished version:

oil on linen, 22" x 24"

Red Bud tree

     My studio has a small deck that spills out into our backyard patio and garden. Ever since we planted it there 4 years ago, I watch for the bright purple flowers of the red bud tree to appear outside my window, marking the start of spring. The color of the flowers is actually so intense and bright, that I couldn't mix anything close to it with the colors on my palette. It's almost like a neon fuscia...do they make cadmium purple?
     I set out in about February, with my sketchbook to prepare a composition. I knew that I only had a small window of time to get this done, before the petals fell and the new leaves appear.

pencil on paper 9" x 12"

     After determining my spot to paint from, I glued down a sheet of 22" x 15" Arches Oil paper to a panel. I've been working on this paper lately, but wanted to try it on a larger size glued down flat (the jury's still out on whether I like this better than linen...)
     I lightly sketched everything out and waited for the buds to appear. I didn't photograph after every session, but here are a few shots in progress:

    I didn't really get to resolve the painting before all the flowers dropped, so I might continue it next year at the same time. Spring has arrived and I've been busy outside doing some plein air work, so check back soon for some new work...

Flowers

    The Winter months usually bring a temporary halt to painting outside in the landscape, even though I love the light and muted colors I see everywhere. To keep me busy, I've been working on some paintings of flowers that are around our house (courtesy of my wife, Faith Evans-Sills) These are mostly small, quick paintings, something that I can finish in 1 sitting, usually around 3 hours. The high key colors I find exciting, with the reds, pinks and yellows something that normally doesn't sneak into my paintings. Who doesn't need more flowers in their life?...

oil on paper; 12" x 16"

oil on linen; 7.5" x 10"

oil on linen; 7.5" x 10"

oil on paper; 12" x16"

oil on paper; 12" x 16"

Winter still life

     Every Winter we pull some of our plants inside, the ones that are in containers, where we can shelter them from the colder weather. The larger ones usually make their way into my studio, because of the free space and the natural light. Over the past few years, I usually paint or draw them here, and about a month ago I started this painting. A lot of these plants we've had for a long time, where they pop up in different paintings over the years (I recently found an old drawing with the rubber plant in it from 2003) There's something about the idea of a container that I'm attracted to, or maybe it's a vessel...how something 'boundless-ness' can be 'contained'. I like tracking the growth of these plants through paint.
     I painted over this painting turned on it's side from a few years ago, which I was never able to resolve (the symmetry and the space never 'clicked', and the paint application got too 'finicky'):

25" x 22"

     Before I jumped into the painting, I started by sketching out a few different compositions:

     I settled on the symmetrical composition again, probably unconsciously leaning this way from the previous painting that I was covering over. I don't usually like working over other paintings, but it does happen from time to time. The painting underneath had probably been drying for about 2 years, so I took a razor blade to it and tried to level off as many ridges of paint as I could.
     My first layer is usually applied with a palate knife, but in this case, it felt like I was plastering over an old wall. I've been specifically trying to work more broadly in the beginning, and using large brushes, or in this case, a palette knife, forces me to focus on the big shapes and how they relate to the rectangle. (basically, the Charles Hawthore color-spot approach). From there, I can progressively hone in and articulate the spaces between the big shapes, which is what happens in this sequence:

   I've taken a break from this one over the holidays, but it's nice to have a painting to work on at all times. I've enjoyed exploring the patterns on the rug with paint and how they relate to the shapes of the leaves. The bright cobalt rectangle serves the practical function of keeping any water and dirt off the rug, but within the painting it functions as a compliment to the orange of the wood and breaks up the receding floor plane. I'll probably continue to fiddle around with it until the plants go back outside in the Spring...

Some Figure drawings

     I've been teaching Drawing I for the past 3 years at the College of Charleston; 2 classes per semester, 2 days a week. It's been a good change for me, as I was in the decorative painting field as my 'day job' while I was in New York City. Teaching has given me the opportunity to organize my thoughts about Art (drawing) and pushed me out of my comfort zone, both by talking in front of groups of students, and also one on one. The politics of 'academia' and teacher compensation aside, I still believe that teaching is a valuable asset to my studio work and our community in general, and I keep doing it for the 3 or 4 stellar students each semester that I feel like I'm passing the torch to. I've had numerous teachers over the years that have made a big impact on me, both professionally and personally, from which to learn from.
     My favorite part of the semester is always when we get to draw from the model, which I usually save for the end. For a beginning class like this, I usually emphasis gesture and form, over anatomy and proportion. We do a lot of quick gesture drawing and short poses in order to have the students sync their eye-hand-mind together. I usually start with a demo, to try and walk them through how I would approach the drawing problem at hand. Here are a few recent ones, all vine charcoal on 18" x 24" paper:

Autumn Exhibitions 2014

Angel Oak (V) oil on linen 24" x 36" 2013 My painting, "Angel Oak (V)", will be included in the Painting Alumni Retrospective at Syracuse University's 914Works Gallery. The exhibition runs from October 21, 2014-January 3, 2015, with an opening reception on October 23rd, from 6-8pm ______________________________________________________ "Atmosphere" at Horton Hayes Fine Art 30 State Street Charleston, SC  opening reception: Friday 11/7 5-8pm Cloud study oil on paper 9" x 12" 2014 _______________________________________________________ Night Painting oil on linen 23" x 28" 2014 "Night painting" will be included in the exhibition, "I See Pattern", at the Vendue Hotel gallery, curated by Robert Lange Studios. Opening reception on November 21, 5-8pm