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Thanks to a recent commission, I had the opportunity to paint a night scene of a West Village bar in NYC. It’s a small painting, and I did a lot of glazing using an alkyd medium (partly also to speed up drying time since the commission had a deadline). Glazing is basically a technique where you apply multiple transparent layers, which I found was a wonderful way to develop the “glow” of lights in an otherwise dark scene. I worked with the client to develop the composition from the beginning, and along the way – which resulted in the addition of the four figures towards the end. See how the painting came about in “Works in Progress.”
“Drizzly Morning Downtown” sold on eBay yesterday. An attentive collector seized his opportunity to buy one of my paintings at a cut-rate price. Kudos to him! Of course, timing is everything.
I decided to go ahead and create an alternative auction for one of the paintings rejected by the Salmagundi Club (see entry below) on eBay. The auction for “Drizzly Morning Downtown” will start this Thursday, March 19, at noon EST, and end on Sunday, March 22, at noon EST. The starting bid is $250 just as it would have been at the Salmagundi. If this goes well, I may try another. Looks like I may be starting my own “Salon des Refusés”!
Who knows how these things work, but much to my surprise, none of my three submissions to the Salmagundi Club’s spring auction were accepted. So, that left me pondering whether to put those paintings on EBay for my own auction! In the meantime, I was invited to show a painting in the National Arts Club’s annual Roundtable Exhibition, April 6 – 17. That seemed like a wonderful opportunity, indeed more than a consolation prize. They are located at 15 Gramercy Park South, NYC. Hope you’ll stop by to see, “Early Evening on Garfield Place”, an oil on linen painting, 24″x30″.
This is a view from Prospect Park West looking east on Garfield Place. The buildings looked like individual characters jostling to get a chance at the last warming rays of a short winter’s day.
Thanks to my handy-dandy pochade box, a new kind of plein-air painting panel from ArtBoards (a Brooklyn-based company – rah! rah!) a couple of days off from skiing plus gorgeous scenery, I came home with three 9″x12″ paintings of a couple of ski runs. We just don’t get blue skies like out West here in Brooklyn! (nor the snow, but they are forecasting up to a foot of snow here by later tomorrow!! Although I have to admit I’m starting to feel ready for spring.)
“Beaver Run, Breckenridge, CO”
“Cabin Fever,” Bachelor Gulch, CO
Bachelor Gulch, which is part of Beaver Creek, is at a lower elevation than Breckenridge, hence the large growths of aspen trees in between the pines. At first I thought they were dull-colored and was reluctant to paint this scene, but then realized they added interest to the composition and in fact there were reds and yellows to be played with to depict the leafless trees. Painting all the different shades of white – in the snow on the ground, the snow on the trees, clouds in the sky, snow on the distant slopes – seemed daunting at first, but I made myself focus in on each area I was painting and mix colors based on my observations and impressions (especially how colors look next to each other). It ended up being incredibly satisfying to capture the nuances of snow in the shade, snow reflecting the sky, clouds with different relationships to the sky.
There’s one more painting in my studio awaiting a few finishing touches. I’ll post that one as soon as it’s finished.
