New Brunswick Salt Marsh, Two Ways

This is the first, small oil that became the study for the larger painting I completed last week.  It is quite traditional and peaceful....

"Salt Marsh, New Brunswick"

8" x 10" - oil on canvas

The painting below is based on the same photos of the same marsh.  But it is different in many ways from the study.  I wanted to show the liveliness of the grasses and the light of the day which give a different feel to the experience of viewing the work....

"New Brunswick Marsh Land"

36" x 40" - oil on canvas

I hope I was successful in communicating the brightness and excitement of the natural landscape.

Poppy and Sunflower Linoleum Prints

For a change of pace, I am going back to an old love, printmaking.  The two prints here were made awhile ago and my thought is to create a series of floral linoleum prints and maybe turn them into a calendar.

"Poppy and Sunflower"

9" x 12" - lino print

"Poppy and Sunflower"

9" x 12" - hand colored lino print

This second print is hand colored with Prismacolors.  Wouldn't it be fun to use the calendar as a coloring book?  If the prints for each month were in black and white, everyone could do their own hand colored versions.

Nebulae: First in the Orion Series

The beginning of my latest Nebula series is based on Hubble photographs of the Orion Nebula. This is a cavern of gas and dust, forming thousands of stars. The energy released by these young stars whips their surroundings into fantastic forms.

ORION #1

Although the tumultuous clouds of gas and dust are illuminated by ultraviolet light from four hot, massive stars within Orion, still the Hubble images are more lovely and pastel than those of the Veil and Eagle Nebulae which inspired earlier abstract paintings in the nebula series.

In this painting, I tried to capture the feeling of movement and transparency that exists within this vast space and to contrast the mysterious darks and lights created by the collision of forces inside the Orion Nebula.

Nebulae: the Veil Series

The Veil Nebula is part of the Cygnus, or Swan constellation. This nebula is the remains of a supernova that exploded between five and eight thousand years ago. What we see now are the wispy leftovers of this explosion. It is a dark place, veiled with bright streams of multicolored light, difficult to see and wonderful to behold....

My interpretation of this nebula is a series of mixed media pieces in which I used modeling paste, acrylic paint and collage on gessoed paper. For me, the gold lines and shapes represent the human intrusion into space--into all of nature.

"Veil Nebula One"

acrylic and collage on gessoed paper - 18" x 22 1/2"

"Veil Nebula Two"

acrylic and collage on gessoed paper - 18" x 22 1/2"

"Veil Nebula Three"

acrylic and collage on gessoed paper - 18" x 22 1/2"

"Veil Nebula Four"

acrylic and collage on gessoed paper - 18" x 22 1/2"

"Veil Nebula Five"

acrylic and collage on gessoed paper - 18" x 22 1/2"

I'm happy that recent repairs to the Hubble telescope will make it possible to capture more of these wonderful images. My paintings are a far cry from the original Hubble photos, however. For me, the photos are only a starting point. I hope they capture a bit of the feel of that amazing, long ago time when there was a clash of energies and the Veil Nebula was born.