Florida Beach House

Florida Beach House

the intense tropical light, blue shadows, and lush colors are what I sought to achieve in this sketch of a Florida Beach House in Key West

More from New Smyrna

A few more paintings and stuff from last month's New Smyrna Beach painting trip.

Moonrise over the palms

16" x 20"

oil on linen

 Sunrise

 New Smyrna Beach View

Palms

 Morning on the Beach

Blue Jay Nest

One spring a blue jay family raised up their young right next to the back porch at the Vermont house oin Stowe. I always had some paints and an easel setup out there and just sat down and painted.

Poet "O" of Central Park

I was painting en Plein air one fall day in Central Park and ended up doing a scene near the bandshell. On this occasion, as I was painting, a homeless person ambled up to me with what I thought would be a request for money. Instead, this scruffy character recited a poem he had conjured that very moment in homage to all Plein air painters everywhere. I was flabbergasted! When you paint on the street in Manhattan you develop a bit of a thick skin as its hard to not be conspicuous with a tripod and a pochade in open view. My normal (cynical)reaction would be to
try to avoid this guy but to my amazement, he gave me a gift of great eloquence. As I would later find out this fellow held degrees from NYU but had crashed and burned along the way of life and here he was and there I was.

The Persian Vase

I painted this exquisite Persian vase with its emerald glaze and thought the purple plums and Chinese lanterns would compliment it nicely.

High and Dry

This is a painting I made plein air at the Conservancy of Southwest Flordia in Naples, Florida. Not far from the Carribean Gardens zoo, the conservancy occupies the Flieischman property which once was vast orange groves. As I was painting this scene I became lost in thought, as plein air painters often will, to be startled back into reality by the roaring of a lion. My first thought was that it must be a Florida panther and I kind of freaked. After a moment , I realized it was coming from the zoo, but the sound of the roaring lion carried through the orange groves and palms and really sounded like it was very close!

North light studio

Whilst painting the figure one morning in my friend Alex's studio, I opted to make my fellow sketch group artists the motif.

Honeymoon Island.

North of Clearwater is a favorite place of mine. It;s called Honeymoon Island and there I can indulge in painting one of my most favorite motifs- palm trees.

Along a Naples Canal

I was scoping out suitable places to paint one morning and found this little scene nearby.
The bougainvillea was crawling all over a column from a retaining wall that reminded me a lot of French rococo artists- Fragonard in particular. He popularized a type of garden landscape painting that collectors prized. This view was also an excuse for me to paint my beloved palm trees.