Melrose Arts Festival

I'm participating in the Melrose Arts Festival this weekend, with paintings ranging in size from 4"x4" up to 24"x30". If you're in the area, please plan to stop by Saturday or Sunday. Information is available here.

Daily Paintings This Week

Daily Paintings will be sparse this week, as I'm in the final stages of preparations for a show this weekend (updates on that tomorrow). In the meantime, I've added a few new pieces into my eBay store, please click on the image to see them.

Thanks!

Painting A Day: Sushi No. 13

"Sushi No. 13"
Oil on masonite, 6" x 6"
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I'm essentially just a dilettante in the kitchen, but I have a lot of respect for people with real skill. For me, the pinnacle of culinary art is sushi. This isn't because it's my favorite food to eat (not even close), but because it appeals to so many senses. The incredibly refined and elegant visual component is of course what keeps me coming back to it as a still life subject, over and over again.

Painting A Day: Fate

"Fate"
Oil on masonite, 6" x 8"
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Sometimes, but not always, a particular still life setup will suggest a story or a theme... occassionally it's the other way around. In any event, still life painting does have within it the potential for real metaphor. When it does happen, intended or not, I always enjoy it.

Painting A Day: Glass Jar

"Glass Jar"
Oil on linen on panel, 10" x 10"
As this is a somewhat larger work than my usual dailies, I'm offering it as a fixed-price item in my online store rather than as an auction.
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Glass has always been a favorite subject to paint, but I've been away from it for a while... too long, actually. To make up for that, I decided to spend a good while on a medium-sized piece. This is one of the dozens and dozens of glasses, jars, and so forth crowding the shelf space in my studio.

Painting A Day: Sushi No. 12

"Sushi No. 12"
Oil on masonite, 6" x 8"
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Sometimes big paintings begin life as small sketches. Here the opposite is true; I've been working on a large sushi painting all week, and I've enjoyed it so much that I decided to use the composition for a smaller daily painting... hopefully you enjoy it as well!

Day Trip to Providence

I had an excellent trip to sample some of the artistic life in Providence, RI today. Although I'm only an hour away, it's been close to 5 years since I've been there; it was way overdue.

First stop was Shawn Kenney's studio - he's an artist whose work I admire a lot. Check out his daily food paintings, and also his Will Paint For Food project- some of the proceeds go to support local food banks.

Lunch at the Providence Art Club was a delight. The dining room was pretty much what I image an 18th century tavern to be like; dark, cozy interiors, panelling and fireplaces everywhere, with the twist that a lot of the decorations have been done by generations of members - little gems of decor sparkling everywhere. It's unique... unfortunately so, becuase every town in the world should have a place like this.

After lunch, visits to a number of galleries - starting with the member's exhibit at the Providence Art Club. Then a stop a Design Within Reach - a national design/furniture store that also displays works by local artists. Gallery Z is a small and eclectic gallery offering some painting and a lot of photography (at least in the current show). Somewhat unusually for me, I spent most of my time looking at the photography, especially Dorthe Alstrup.

I rounded off the afternoon (after some terrific carrot cake) with a little wandering - just driving and walking pretty much aimlessly, getting a sense of the city and reaquainting myself with it. In short, I rediscovered that I loved the place - it has a comfortable, intimate feel to it that I find endlessly appealing, and a really vibrant arts scene (of course I only saw a few of the galleries in town). It won't be 5 years before my next visit, I'm pretty sure.

Painting A Day: LEMON

"LEMON"
Oil on masonite, 4" x 4"
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Occassionally the simplest subjects can be the most gratifying to paint. With this piece, I took a lot of pleasure in trying to describe the curve of the lemon and the radiance of the light hitting it against a dark background.

Painting A Day: Sushi No. 11

"Sushi No. 11"
Oil on masonite, 6" x 6"
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And another one... boldly lit, chopsticks at the ready, and absolutely irresistable to me. Although this is a regular-sized "daily", I'm working on a larger version of this painting, to be displayed soon.

Painting A Day: Roofline No. 1

"Roofline No. 1"
Oil on masonite, 4" x 4"
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For some reason, rooflines - particularly irregular ones - have always intrigued me, so I'm basing a new series of paintings on them. This is from a local Chinese restaurant. I've never actually eaten there, but I've admired the roof many, many times.

Painting A Day: Silver Handle

"Silver Handle"
Oil on masonite, 4" x 4"
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Continuing the theme of cropped images which I've been exploring lately, today's painting is the handle of a silver creamer. I've probably painted it in a dozen other still lifes, but in this focused composition it felt like a completely different object.

Painting A Day: Sushi No. 10

"Sushi No. 10"
Oil on canvas on masonite, 5" x 7"
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Anyone who has watched these pages for a while knows that I have a real weakness for painting sushi. The forms, colors, textures, the way each grain of rice captures the light just a little differently... it all adds up to the perfect still life subject!

Daily Painters Guild, Part 2

By coincidence, the Daily Painters Guild was featured today in Lines and Colors. Thanks Charley!

Lines and Colors is the best general art blog I know, and a must-read for anybody interested in representational art. When they start giving out Pulitzers for culture blogging, this one goes to the front of the line.

Announcing the Daily Painters Guild

I'm delighted to announce the Daily Painters Guild, of which I'm one of the founding members. This is a group of 15 of the finest artists practicing the Painting-A-Day discipline... for that matter, it's a group of some of the finest artists I know, period. I'm very proud to be in the company of these painters.

We have a number of exciting events in the planning stages right now, so be sure to check these pages often for updates!

First Friday

Just a quick thanks to everybody to showed up for the First Friday opening at my studio tonight. In spite of the awful weather earlier in the day, things cleared up nicely by the evening, and we had a great time. See you all next month!

Cue the Lights!

"Lemon, Peppers, Goblet"
Oil on linen, 11" x 14"


Tonight is First Friday at my studio, and I'll be hosting an open house from 5:30 to 8:30pm. Up on the wall tonight are many of my new still lifes (like the piece above), as well as a number of larger landscapes, including some I haven't shown before. The weather forecast for this evening looks great (despite what's going on out there right now), so plan to swing by to say hello and enjoy some art.

450 Harrison Ave, Studio 201
Boston, MA 02118

Directions can be found by clicking here