New Directions

I have really been enjoying getting back into landscape painting. It is a quite a challenge for someone who has for so long painted in a rigid, geometric style. I've been doing a bunch a small studies in oil on canvas board to get back into practice.

I've also been experimenting with landscape in egg tempera and doing some work that I think is good. Once again edge tempera proves itself to be a versatile and beautiful medium... no wonder Wyeth used it so much!

The goal is to do a number of small egg tempera landscapes, and some in watercolor as I did about 12 years ago, and then to do some larger landscape paintings in oil on canvas. For some reason when I paint in oil I need to work larger.

I am still working on my older stuff. Just recently I completed a very small icon commission of the Virgin and Child (picture below - sorry for the glare in the photo), and I am currently working on a largish icon of the Descent of Christ from the Cross. The Sunday school kids are fascinated by it! (I do my iconography at my office.. well, any egg tempera work, for that matter.) I also just completed a large oil painting of the Conversion of Saint Paul.

Yesterday I began working on a graphite portrait of a horse, and soon I'll be taking on a commission to paint a large ship - that one will will probably be executed in watercolor, but I haven't decided yet.

I'm really enjoying breaking out of my artistic habits - always painting one or two things/sticking with on for two subject matters. I am also enjoying getting back into watercolor, pencil and charcoal, and painting subject matter in oil and egg tempera that I have not done before. I am also hoping to do some work in pastel as well - a medium that I have little to no experience with, but yet somehow I have ended up with tons of soft and hard pastels in my studio! Might as well use them!