Plein Air a al Bicyclette

Spring is high and the air is warming, it's getting to the point where I feel compelled to get out of the studio and onto the trails.  How then do I compromise and continue painting while still getting to enjoy the rebirth of the seasonal cycle?  Here's the idea; packing my essential supplies and a selection of canvases on my touring bike and setting off for a plein air tour of (insert whatever location I decide on later).  I'm no stranger to biking long distances and camping out in whatever place my legs have carried me but adding a painting session would be a change.

Being fairly out of shape after a lazy winter means it'll take some training anyways so I'm going to take this week and travel around a bit to experiment in plein air work to see if this plan is something really worth pursuing.  The normal studio approach I have while painting is slow and fairly meticulous.  Painting more thickly, and quickly, in the rougher conditions would certainly require a different stylistic consideration.  A few experiments and I should know if I can/want to trying to pull it off.

Grand Central Academy

New York city hosts one of the finest painting ateliers I've heard about in the states, the Grand Central Academy of Art.  It's the brainchild of Jacob Collins and home to several of the greats in modern realist painting.  It's a fast paced city with too much congestion for my serious consideration as a place to live but that school was still something I've wanted to see.

Around here the closest art school is the Lyme Academy.  They have a superior studio space for students (because the studios are massive and flooded with great light) yet I feel they lack something in their finished paintings, the art on display in the halls is below the level I expect a place with such a great reputation.  If it's not too bold a thing to suggest I think I could fit in at Lyme, whereas the work being executed at GCA leaves me in the dust.  The painting being done there strongly resembles the academic works of the 1800s, a skill that seems otherwise all but lost.  Seeing what those students are doing, despite the obvious advantage of amazing teachers that seem to be successful at transmitting their techniques, has raised the bar for what I expect in my own art.

See the basics of what I mean here:
grandcentralacademy.blogspot.com

Chesapeake Inspirations

Last Summer and Fall I was living a dream and sailing on the Schooner "Mystic Whaler."  As a deckhand I lived on the ship full-time while carried myself and the rest of our small crew on many fantastic voyages.  The highlight of the season (for many schooners on the East Coast) was the Great Chesapeake Bay Schooner Race, a day and night dash from Baltimore to Portsmouth, Virginia. As the sun began to set the clouds looked grave and heavy but couldn't dim our collective enthusiasm for the long night of sailing ahead.

First Post

Hello!  I've finally joined the blogging revolution and will be using this site to display my art and discuss events of interest.  So let's jump right into it!

I'm a painter with a preference for landscapes and figurative work done in a modern realist style.  Right now I'm working in a temporary studio to get a few large scale pieces done, including some seascapes and new figurative pieces.  Below is the first piece I've finished in that space, with the higher resolution shot available in the gallery.

"Gojika in Repose" Oil on Canvas 24"x36"

The scale of the canvas allowed me to capture her at just below life-size, aiming to create the feeling that she's laying just out of reach beneath the painting's surface.  The pose was truly organic, literally unstaged and free from instruction.  The model was resting and, as the angle implies, this piece was worked up from a photograph taken two years earlier.