Sunsoaked Summer Post 11

This still life was painted during a couple of days of nasty weather. Black coffee and Bananas.

Sunsoaked Summer Post 10

While painting this yellow house, someone pulled up to talk to me, and blocked the driveway of the house across the street. Of course, the owner of the house came home as the gentleman was talking to me, and they were a little upset. I enjoy talking to people while painting, but please pull the car over in a decent spot!

Sunsoaked Summer Post 9

An old wooden boat painted under an overcast sky on the first night of the Door County Plein Air Festival. The boat is off of HWY A. I heard stories about painters being kicked off of the property, but managed to finish this one under the radar.

Sunsoaked Summer Post 8

Summer would be nothing without spring, and I am easily influenced by the drug that is painting blossoming trees.

Sunsoaked Summer Post 7

Here are some paintings from my backyard. There is a hammock by my studio, that sometimes I lay in and watch the clouds from. 

Sunsoaked Summer Post 6

A couple more from my fishing trip. The trees give some opportunities for dappled light, which leads to a shoot first ask questions later approach. I had 30 9x12 panels with me, and did more sketching than fishing during the week.

Sunsoaked Summer Post 5

 A paintings from my fishing trip in July. Sap green always makes it into my painting from Chetek, it seems that they tried to match the color of the trim on the cabins to the evergreens up there.

Sunsoaked Summer Post 4

This still life was painted under an overcast sky. My mother has a garage sale every spring. I purchased a bunch of crocks and fiestawear from my Aunt Marcie this year, along with a little white table. The local colors of the items seem to work well for colors that I like to mix. Some of the items in this still life were made right here in Reedsburg. The shell was not. We are landlocked for the most part.

Sunsoaked Summer Post 3

This painting was a demo piece from a color workshop that I gave in June, at my Chicken Coop Studio. I was working indoors for this one. The blue color behind the pitcher is the color of my studio floor.
When I thought about painting the studio floor, I figured that there would be floor paint in a few stock colors... easy to choose, right? When they told me they could mix any color I knew this was going to be a tough decision. I took in a swatch of Bonnard Blue from Senellier, and Sherwin Williams scanned it and mixed me the exact color. It works well for my studio, as all the warm colors in my paintings hanging on the wall pop even more against the dirty cerulean color.

Green Lake

Arts of Daycholah hosts a fun painting day during Memorial Day weekend. Last year, I still had my black painting car, which if you have seen it - you know it, and I got pulled over by a state trouper which caused me to be very late. He just didn't understand what was going on with my car! This year, I headed to Green Lake a day early, and had a chance to live it up with some other painters for the night before a full day of painting. The piece shown above, is available at Arts of Daycholah. I enjoy much of the work that is shown there and feel that Margaret does a nice job when selecting her artists. 

Sunsoaked Summer Post 2

This kid hangs out at the skatepark. He is going into 7th grade. I like that the skateboard is almost up to his waist. I like going after the major divisions of light and shade, and saying to heck with everything else. 

Here is another of the Hess sketches.

Sunsoaked Summer Post 1

Summer. It's now. I've had plenty of sketching over the past couple of months. These months are always a high key blur when I think about them in hindsight. Too many smiles to remember.

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This is my friend Hess. I usually am up and out painting by 7 or 8 in the morning, and then we meet up and go skateing about noon. He usually sits for me after we skate. Sometimes I can get two out of him. Hess is a good skater, he was really good a couple years ago, but ended up taking too many slams, and now he just likes to cruise around and not try anything too death defying. He moves around like crazy when I'm painting him, swatting bugs, answering his cell phone, and generally acting like the 20 year old that he is. I like it.