"Lake Champlain" oil 8"x10" $550

Landscape Painting reflects our current Global Community

Portrait paintings depict objects and they present isolated subjects (think Grandma Moses paintings). Landscape paintings depict communities; objects bound by their connections to each other.  The connections are the crux of a true landscape painting (think Maynard Dixon paintings). Is the Art World exhibiting current, relevant painters and thinkers?  From global economies to community gardens, the 21^st century is governed by how we connect. The current Art World is still on the Object. When will it move beyond objects and discover the other art-Landscape? 

"Ligui, Baja" oil 12"x16" $850

I started kayaking the Baja coast here, south of Agua Verde, and for seven days I was on the water and watching the cliffs undulate and always with the Sierra de la Gigante towering over the Sea of Cortez. The Baja colors were brilliant and often soft at the same time. 

"Punta Valle, Baja" oil 9"x12" $550

Slipping silently down the coast of Baja in my sea kayak, I was the wanna-be drawn to the canyons and wanting to explore! When I was on the sand and grounded with my margarita and watching the sunset, I missed the water. I painted four oils on location and kept my paints almost sand free. 

"Robin" 4"x6" Watercolor $75
The robins have arrived in Vermont with the sunnier days. A feel of Spring is in the air. The robins congregate at the grassy openings between blankets of snow and the snow keeps falling except that the new heavy white flakes float away on the pooling ribbons of water.
I used indigo blue, permanent rose and cadmium yellow to mix these nuanced colors. Is it simple?
Yesterday a painters called and wanted watercolor painting lessons because she had not captured the "simple" in her watercolors. What is it she wants, really?
I believe it is somewhere in this range of the robin. The sense of simplicity is from the effortless brush strokes, layered colors(warm to cool in the classic style) and cool darks. There is no simplicity in applying the paint but a clear vision and decisive paint application. The simplicity is in the eye of the beholder!

My winter skiing and birding adventures are winding down since I arrived back in California and found blossoms peeking out on leafless branches. This meadowlark streaked through the landscape at Green String Farm during a painting class where we had easels set-up out doors to capture the budding fruit trees. Clouds still hang over the electric green grassy rolling hills with lemon yellow mustard flowers marking patterns of farmer's fields and the wind has a biting chill, but California is spring-bound. I paint with three layers of fleece and mud boots until April arrives. The birds are very busy this time of year!

"Bohemian Waxwings" oil 9"x12" $390

At the same time that I  recognized the Cedar Waxwings, I noticed these Bohemians interspersed in the tops of the leaf-less cottonwoods. It was a cerulean blue Colorado January day and I was gliding on skinny skis through the trackless powder. It had snowed. In the crystalline air, the flock of birds gave themselves away as waxwings. These birds gathered on thin ice banks looking for berries and when I saw them, they were rising off the open water like steam from a teakettle. Memorizing and memorable, I brought home their flocking image and painted in the studio what I recalled.

"Cardinals" oil 9"x12" $390

I'm definitely east of the Rocky Mountains when I see cardinals. Unless it is on Mexico's Coronado Island in the Sea of Cortes where I spotted a pair nesting in a Palo Verde tree. But here in Vermont the snowy evergreens try to disguise these brilliant red heartbeats and I think my radar picks up the red vibrations before my eyes zero in and catch the color flitting through the needles. I saw these at Vermont Audubon offices near their sunny porch's bird feeders.