La Villita Bakery (click here to bid on this painting)

Oil - 12 x 16"
Painted two weeks ago on location, a few blocks from my house. This is one of the last remaining untouched icons of the neighborhood which is unchanged since the time I moved here, to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, almost twenty years ago (hard for me to believe!). The little store is "La Villita Bakery". You can read about at the Free Williamsburg website by clicking here.

Union Square from Broadway (click here to bid on this painting)

Oil - 9 x 12"
I painted this last week. It was a beautiful, cloudy, overcast day, in fact foggy. I always like those days in New York city because of the way the buildings are softened in value and the fog envelopes the tops of the buildings; there is a wonderful "lost and found" quality to it. Juxtaposed against that are the optimistic yellow-greens of the newly-leafed trees. I observed this at 2 or 3 in the afternoon and rushed home and rushed back to the scene and there was enough light to paint for close to two hours before the light began to lower and everything took on a more cool cast as the sun got lower. And I stopped at that point to be faithful to the light I had observed.

Upstate Fall Colors (click here to bid on this painting)

Oil - 11 x 14"
This is a study of fall colors, on an overcast day. Focusing on the contiguous (red, orange, yellow, yellow-green and green) autumn colors in this "interior scene" painted in Brewster.

Hunt's Mill, Clinton, NJ (click here to bid on this painting)

Oil - 11 7/8 x 16"
This was painted in 2003 in the winter. This is really a classic scene as you can plainly see, little changed since the time this mill house was built in the 1700's. It is known as Hunt's Mill and you can read about it's history by clicking here. The mill is located in the historic town of Clinton, New Jersey, where I exhibited paintings at a gallery in the town. I was so impressed by the mill and environs that on several occasions I drove back from Brooklyn, NY in order to paint there. In my research on Hunt's Mill, I found that an artist named Ranulph Bye (who died the very year that I painted this painting) painted a watercolor of the same exact spot in 1991 and that painting was sold last year at auction for $1,500. Click here to see the painting by artist Ranulph Bye.

East Boothbay at Dawn (click here to bid on this painting)

Oil - 11 7/8 x 15 7/8"
Painted at Boothbay Harbor, Maine in June of 2003. This is one of the last paintings available from that trip. The paining shows a view in a small park in the vicinity of East Boothbay. An idyllic scene really, at an idyllic time - about 7 AM. Poplar trees on the left remind one of timeless paintings by Claude Lorain or Poussin (to my mind anyway) and the archetypal New England church spire adds the final note of classicism to the painting.

Westfield Sundown (sold)

Oil - 9 x 12"
I painted this in summer 2005. The location was Westfield, New York (near Lake Erie) and the scene shows a large field with a house out in the country. The view is looking toward the sun on a cloudy day at sunset. I was up there to participate in a plein air event at Portage Hill Gallery and I recieved an award for my work that day (for another painting).

Williamsburg Bank, Spring 2008 (sold)

Oil - 11 x 14"
Painted weekend before last (April 5, 2008). It is a study of the Williamsburg Bank and environs on a calm, quite weekend, late in the afternoon. There weren't many people about except for a number of young people at the cafe behind me. This is a view from Broadway, in Brooklyn, looking up, or I should say West toward the bank, which is a historic monument. The scene is in my neighborhood just blocks from where I live.

Japanese Hill-and-Pond Garden in Spring (sold)

Oil - 12 x 16"
This was painted in 2006 in the Brooklyn Botanical Garden by Prospect Park in Brooklyn, NY. Done in the spring when the cherry blossoms were in full bloom. The painting shows groups of people out and about at the Japanese Hill-and-Pond Garden.

Bryant Park in Summer (sold)

Oil - 9 x 12"
Friends and couples enjoy lunch or a snack in the afternoon in the shade on a sunny summer day at Bryant Park in Manhattan (which is behind the entrance to the New York Public Library). Behind the people enjoying their leisure is the William Cullen Bryant Memorial, whom I know from the painting called "Kindred Spirits" by Asher B. Durand which, until recently, was housed at this same institution.
Done last summer, 2007, this small painting, or etude, shows a transient light effect. At this time of day, a shaft of light emanates from the narrow spaces of tall buildings and steadily transverses the back of the library building. from left to right. The short time span of this effect, demanded that much be done from memory. A clear distinction is made between the warm sunlight and the cool shadows. The foreground figures sitting beneath large beach umbrellas occupy the cool shadow space and the tops of the umbrellas receive cool skylight. Beautiful color harmonies resulted from the light hitting the building, dappled in some areas, set against the cool foreground.

Red Gerbera with Market Flowers (sold)

Oil - 14 x 18"
Painted last week (March 2008). This is a demonstration painting, done alla prima (meaning all at once). It shows market flowers with a red gerbera as the flower of main focus (pink lilies and white daisies are also in the painting).
In this painting I condensed what would normally take a few days into several hours. It is a great opportunity to show one's capabilities to paint in a summarily fashion and one's strengths and potential weaknesses are on display. In other words, it is a real challenge and forces one to call upon all his (or hers) capabilities. I feel I was succesful in showing the red gerbera as the center of focus in the painting.