A Blog About Oil Painting

Conceptual sketch. 16x20, pastel on paper. 2017...

Carkeek Shore 2.0 (plein air/studio). 8x10, oil on linen panel. 2016. Back in May of this year I painted on location at Carkeek Park in Seattle. Although the day was really pleasant and there was no time pressure, I wasn't able to get the painting to a place where I was truly happy with it. After a ...

Rain Over Winslow. 6x10, oil on linen panel. 2016. As the pile of sketches in my studio can attest, trying to paint the Puget Sound in winter is a recipe for failure. Studio or plein air, it's especially hard to do because there's so little to actually build a painting around. The only thing that br...

  Dancing With the Light. 6x10, oil on linen panel. 2016 There is something particularly special about the light in winter in the Pacific Northwest. There are many days when the sky is completely overcast and the day is totally gray, yet sometimes the air is clear and the clouds race across th...

Impressions of the Sunset. 5x7, oil on linen panel. 2016 Despite the obvious challenges, I really enjoy painting from less-than-perfect references. Having to bring something extra to the easel makes the result feel more like a personal statement than a slavish copy of an image. Here, I filled in the...