Chickie in the Snow The assignment was to pick from an assortment of bird pictures, and, using glazing, add measuring techniques to paint. After a year of painting into abstraction with reckless abandon, it was quite a pivot but a needed one. Since I began painting, too often for success is the result of uninformed… Continue reading Pivot
About Last Night
A little over 30 years ago I was hanging out at the house of an acquaintance near the densely populated Ohio state university campus in Columbus, Ohio when two armed young men entered the house and told everyone gathered there too surrender our valuables. Many elements of that evening have faded from my memory. Even… Continue reading About Last Night
Demand and Supplies
1”x2” oil on bored I have a well-known diet Coke addiction that serves no other purpose, except to introduce as much caffeine to my system on a hot day as possible. I have another addiction - art supplies- that’s possibly almost expensive as the diet soda, but, unlike any other habit, this one with a… Continue reading Demand and Supplies
Analytical Creativity
For the better part of the last few decades, phonics has often been taught using an analytical approach — embedding phonics instruction into broader reading lessons with varying degrees of explicit instruction, depending on the school. Research has shown, however, that a synthetic approach – – putting explicit instruction in phonics in the center of… Continue reading Analytical Creativity
Practice What You Teach
Unreal Saturday morning I came across a Facebook post by a musician friend describing the “unifying breath” taken by a choir or orchestra before they begin to make something beautiful that brings them and their listeners together. It was still in my head later in the morning as Thing2 and I were driving to Home… Continue reading Practice What You Teach
No Regrets
North With one of my kids, recently grown and flown (Thing1), and the other, starting to contemplate his life outside the nest (Thing2), I find myself thinking more about what might have been if I made different choices. I used to wish I had made different choices — better choices. I am not naïve enough… Continue reading No Regrets
Hat Season
Color is Coming, 8”x10”, Oil on Canvas Monday, less than a week after I got my studio back and functioning, I put on my student hat again as my fall courses started. Tonight, I am putting on my teacher hat to get ready for the in-service days that precede the arrival of middle schoolers into… Continue reading Hat Season
Cast of One
Dead Heads, 8" x 10", Oil on Canvas Click Here if you would like this painting to live on your wall. This was the second of a pair of paintings that upended my outlook on landscapes. For the past few years I've been painting the scenes in Southwestern Vermont and Michigan, and it wasn't until… Continue reading Cast of One
Overcast
Overcast, 18"x 24", Oil on Canvas The punches of color are showing up more frequently along the southern Vermont roadsides, and this painting started as an attempt to keep the glory of late summer early fall in my head. Instead, on this last weekend, before school and graduate work, begin again, I found myself returning… Continue reading Overcast
Talking to Trees
Talking to Trees, Oil on Canvas, 24"x24" Click here if you would like this painting to live on your wall. The last few lazy days of summer, and right now, it’s the light and the lines of the trees that compel. There are some red hair in there, but mostly the mountains are a jumble… Continue reading Talking to Trees
Too Soon
Please contact me if you would like this painting to live on your wall. Too much rain has brought out the fall colors far too soon. They are just starting to peek through, and it would only have been noticed on a day like today when the sun makes an all too rare appearance for… Continue reading Too Soon
Hill Climb
Please contact me if you would like this painting to live on your wall. This past weekend Manchester/Sunderland, hosted the annual hill climb — a bottom to top tour of the Equinox mountain in Manchester, Vermont. The hitch is that all of the cars doing the climbing are classics, and none of them are equipped… Continue reading Hill Climb