Elephant Rocks

Egg Tempera
24 x 35

I struggled with this painting, and I'm not entirely sure I'm done with it. It's turning into one of my bone pictures, pieces that I keep going back to and playing with like an old dog with a bone. Anyway it's a view of another state park, this one featuring these huge granite outcroppings. Everybody climbs around on them and has a fine time. One thing that I always found strange about the place is that puddles form in the little depressions in the rocks . That in itself isn't odd, but every one of these little puddles is filled with tadpoles if you're there at the right time of year. The idea of frogs jumping around on the rocks just seems odd to me.

I love the textures and colors of the rocks. That plus the light filtering down through the trees onto the granite is what drew me to this particular piece.

Pickle Creek

Watercolor
15 x 22
For purchase information follow The Art Gallery of Hog Hollow link

It's cold today with a forecast of colder for the rest of the week. So I'm pulling out a nice warm, sunny summer scene to look at today. This is Pickle Creek from a state park / natural area a bit south of here. It's one of my favorite hiking spots and the creek running through it is beautiful.

Spring Storm on the Mississippi

Oil on canvas
20 x 48

This is a painting of one of my favorite places, the bluffs on the Mississippi. The Illinois side of the river has the bluffs so the best place to actually see them is on the Missouri side. The river itself is really best, but I don't have a boat which makes that somewhat problematic. At one time this section between Alton and Grafton was known as Mt. Radiance. Now, the bluffs are maybe 200 feet high. In my book, that doesn't quite qualify as a mountain, but when the sun hits the bluffs it is indeed radiant.

I've done a number of paintings of this part of the river and will probably do more. This time I went for a more dramatic, romantic version with a spring storm just breaking up.

Discovering Dore

Oil on Canvas
27 x 30
Sold

I've got to start somewhere so maybe an art blog should start with a picture of someone looking at a picture. I did this one about two years ago. It's a fairly common scene from an art museum, the St. Louis Art Museum in this case. The painting on the wall is by Gustave Dore. He's known mostly for his illustrations, but he was a pretty fair landscape painter too.

Getting started

Now I've done it - I'm a blogger. Let me explain what I plan on doing here. This will primarily be a place where I can show my art, both paintings and drawings, get some more exposure and maybe some feedback. It will also be a place to announce any news concerning what's going on in my art world as well as a place to share any wit and wisdom I have acquired. I'm not all that wise so don't expect much on that front, but you never know. The first few days I will probably be posting a representative assortment of my work. It won't necessarily be my best or my newest, but it should give you an idea about what I do.

Rather than continuing on about what I plan to do, I'm thinking it would be best to just get on with it. That's what we're here for right? So I'll run off for a bit and find something for us to look at.