Most painters have a “private collection” — paintings that remain in their home or studio, that they will never sell. These may be paintings they like too much to part with, or pieces that won an award or represent a milestone in their artistic development. In this post, I’ll give you a tour of my private collection, and tell you a little about why these paintings achieved that special status.
I Dreamed of Sun
oil on panel, 11 x 11″
I Dreamed of Sun hangs in my living room. When visitors see it, I tell them it is one of my favorite paintings of all time. They stare at it in silence. “What is it?” they ask. I urge them to keep looking. Usually, in less than a minute, they see the mountain. This painting does everything I want a painting to do. It has atmosphere and unified light. It’s abstract and, most of all, it conveys a powerful illusion of brilliant light.
The story behind this painting is unusual. Many years ago, before an upcoming exhibit, I had a dream. I found myself in the gallery where all my pieces were hung. The paintings in the dream were not the ones that would be in the actual show, but one painting stood out: a single mountain in sunlight. Golden, radiant, and glowing. It achieved, and even exceeded, what I aspired to in my work.
Conveying an illusion of brilliant light was not new to me. But now, inspired by the glowing mountain in my dream, I wanted to see if I could push this illusion further than I had before. I turned to a strategy using highly saturated color. I knew from my studies of Impressionism that saturated colors, when set to mid-value (neither too dark nor too light), could be an effective metaphor for light. In the years that followed, I’ve done several paintings using a similar strategy, as in Sentinels, Study, below.
Also see How Value is Used to Heighten the Effect of Color in Landscape Painting.
Sentinels, Study
pastel on paper, 4 x 6.5″
Sentinels, Study is a recent addition to my private collection. Like I Dreamed of Sun, above, it expresses my passion for suggesting brilliant sunlight. Sentinels is an experimental study. I played with a combination of colors I had not used before. The strategy relies on relatively saturated colors and decisive temperature differences: reds played against yellow-greens, pale blue-greens (in the most distant rock formations) played against pale yellows.
Pathway to the Canal
pastel on paper, 5 x 8″
After working in oil for most of my life, I began experimenting with pastels in 2017. Initially, I got little traction because I didn’t have enough neutral colors. Once I got a wide enough range of those, I was better able to hit my color targets.
This piece remains in my permanent collection simply because it is one of my first pastels. It came out well and is one of the more interesting compositions from my Azure & Asphalt series.
Azure & Asphalt paintings in oil
Azure & Asphalt paintings in pastel
Shape Study, Camano Farm
oil on paper, 3 x 4″
I did this little study in a couple of minutes during a painting workshop in 2010. I was showing one of my students how to simplify the scene. With a #4 brush, right on the raw paper of the sketchbook, I dashed off this tiny colored thumbnail.
In the years that followed, I’ve done many studies like this, both in my workshops and in the studio. They are a great way to state the color and shapes simply, without getting bogged down in details (always advisable for the landscape painter). As my first painted thumbnail like this, the piece stands as a testament to a moment of discovery.
Also see, Getting the Light Right: The Power of the Color Study.
The Way Home, Study in Yellow and Phthalo
oil on paper, 7 x 7″
I’ve always liked this small piece for its fresh, direct handling of paint. Oil painting requires working wet-into-wet, which is the greatest challenge with oil. Here, the strokes are both fluid and distinct. The Way Home also uses one of my favorite color strategies, analogous harmony. Its yellow-green to yellow harmony creates a very unified light, while subtle blue-leaning passages provide a temperature contrast that gives the painting that added spark of color.
Two Bridges, Rome
oil on paper, 5 x 7″
I’m a big fan of contemporary Russian Impressionism. This small painting was my attempt to apply their type of color strategy to one of my own subjects. If you sreview my Russian Impressionst board at Pinterest, you’ll see how I tried to apply the strategies I’ve identified in their work”
- Lighter values overall. This is classic Impressionist strategy. Colors with values in the mid range (neither too light or too dark) tend to hold onto more of their intrinic hue identity. The result, color and temperature can do more work.
- Strong reliance on blues and violets. These colors seem to work particularly well for shadows, especially when their values are not too dark.
- They often use accents of white and/or near black. I beleive these accents are used to serve as endpoints, and create a full value range, in what would otherwise be an all, or mostly all mid-value painting.
- Color saturation: moderate to medium — rarely full
- Subject matter often includes architectural forms, which creates good planes for light and shadow
- Strong use of temperature differences.
- Relatively simple compositions.
Tuff Cliffs, Lubriano
oil on paper, 8 x 6″
Ah, Italy! I’ve had the good fortune of teaching workshops in Italy several times. I’m usually helping my students, and don’t always get time for my own painting. So any piece I can get done in Italy is special. In 2017, at a workshop with Winslow Art Center, we took a day trip to the hilltop town of Bagnoregio. Sitting across the valley is the town of Lubriano, which offers a panoramic view of the tuff cliffs (a type of volcanic rock), aglow in the morning light.
Plein air painting in Lubriano, Italy, September 2017.
I have vivid memories of the morning I painted Tuff Cliffs. The colors of the Italian countryside dazzled me. My brush flew around the palette, searching for the color mixtures that would capture the subtle blues, violets, and atmospheric perspective. It was a true plein air experience! See more Italian landscapes on my Small Works page.
Also see The Gifts of Plein Air – Living Color through Direct Observation.