Melwood Street, 16 x 20, oil on linen

This is the latest in my vintage painting series. I loved the austere feeling of this house on an unpaved road. The photo used for this painting was taken on April 12, 1920. The street runs under what is now the Bloomfield Bridge.

Montara Waves Study, 9 x 12, oil on panel

Contrast in life can be a good thing. Yesterday for example, I got on a plane in sunny San Francisco and returned to the frozen tundra of Western Pennsylvania. It was a great a week of painting the Bay Area and it was quite startling to feel the cold again. I did  a lot of work while there – mid-century architecture in Daly City, coastal seascapes, the Golden Gate Park and Bridge. The painting above was done on the Montara coast near Moss Beach. The strong winds and crashing waves made this painting a real challenge. I'm showing this image because contrast was the idea for it:  light against dark, soft against hard, and movement against the unmovable.

Flatrock, 34 x 50, oil on canvas

About a year ago my identical twin brother Don took an interesting winter photo. I liked it so much that it inspired the above painting for his office. He lives in San Francisco, which is where I'm painting this week. I normally don't work from photos that were taken by others, but Don and I have a similar sense of landscape aesthetic so it seems natural to collaborate. The image was taken north of Lock Haven in Clinton County. We are currently working together on images of the bay area. Here is an interesting online interview about Don and his design process.

http://www.iup.edu/magazine/exclusives/page.aspx?id=103563

Power Line Road, 5 x 7 and 9 x 12, oil on panel

 Here is a 5 x 7 inch study done quickly after premixing a group of five mass colors. The power lines were edited out because I was focused on the road that angled up the mountain.

This image shows the 9 x 12 inch panel. It is a little different proportion, slightly more square. Basically the same painting, but somewhat darker. The sky became cloudier as I worked and the landmasses became darker as a result. I used the premixed colors and blocked it in using dark to light and thin to thick sequential passes. As you can see this one has a bit more information.