Three Brothers

The interesting design of these live oaks caught my attention. As far as I know they are quite old ... their gnarled and crooked growth  tell a story of past struggles...hurricanes, strangler figs and chain saws...survival of the fittest..... they remind me of three brothers looking out for each other with some competition thrown in there... talking about past struggles - let's look forward to the NEW YEAR -
Happy and healthy 2012 everyone!!!!

Park Bridge

Preparing for the holidays kept me busy for the last week or so....now I finally find time to post something new. This is one of the plein air paintings that is now finished. It took several trips to the location to finish. As you can imagine a 30" x 30" canvas in sometimes windy conditions was quite a challenge. I had to put robes with tent stakes into the ground to hold the easel down.... a square format was another tricky thing with this composition... what do you think? Does it work??

Chatting

For almost 3 years I have chickens in the back yard. It all started when my oldest son "rescued" a stray chicken from being run over by cars on a busy street. Wrapped in his jacket on the bicycle, he brought the animal home. Unfortunately, this first chicken grew into a crowing rooster. The crowing did not work well in our suburban environment with neighbors being close all around. So we found a farm that adopted him. However, my children grew so fond of this original chicken that they begged me to replace him with (this time) females and this is how this adventure started. We are up to 20 hens now in all shapes and sizes!! They are all pets, meaning there will be only eggs and no chicken soup!! They are quite interesting characters, each one in her own way. Now this is a painting from a photo of our oldest hens as they walk across the back porch looking for treats.... This painting was also an entry to DAILYPAINTWORKS.COM.

Glove & Ball

It has been a while ...this baseball theme has been my latest still life. I am also working on some plein-air-landscape paintings that are large format and need to travel to the on-site location a few more times to get finished. I hope I can post them soon.