Enchanted Rock

I learned quite a bit doing this. For one thing, I didn't realize that a painting of mostly saturated color was going to be so visually fatiguing. Also simple shapes and decisive paint handling helps with strong color. I ended up using larger brushes as I got further along, which is a sign I misjudged how this was going to develop. 30" x 40"

sliced apples

Small, easy painting I made while preparing a big panel for a landscape. 14 " x 17.5"

Subway sandwich

This was my pay for helping a friend with a condo renovation. 24" x 32".

Central Grocery, New Orleans

Based on a photo of my nephew in an old grocery near Jackson Square. He didn't want his picture taken, so the face is minimal. As much as possible, I'm painting abstract color masses rather than objects. I'm pretty happy with the way the shelves of bottles dissolve in the light. 100 cm x 56 cm.

lunch

From a photo of a sandwich I ordered at a coffee shop a couple of blocks from my studio. I went a little overboard with color saturation and with detail on the peeled orange. I prefer the sandwich to the orange because it's looser and more abstract. The greens started warmer, but I came to prefer cool pthalo greens. 18" x 18"

Paluxy River, Opossum Branch

Painted from a photo I took a few years ago near Glen Rose, Tx. I used my Scene
Sketcher app to simplify the image. Otherwise, I would have lost my mind struggling
with minutiae. 60 cm x 80 cm.

new studio

About a six weeks ago, I leased a studio on the 3rd floor of the Continental Gin Company Building in Deep Ellum (Dallas) Tx. The decision to look for a studio kind of bubbled up out of nowhere, and I'm really glad I acted on it. I'm in a beautiful old cotton gin factory that has been converted to artist studios. My studio is spacious and north-lit. I'm fortunate to share the building with a great collection of artists in a vibrant, redeveloping area. Working here has completely changed the scale, time frame, and je ne sais quoi of what I paint.

This is a work-in-progress shot of my current painting of a local beer garden with food trucks around a junked sedan. I use my Scene Sketcher Android app to abstract the photo source. It's still pretty rough and needs further balancing of value and atmospheric saturation, but i'm enjoying working on it. 100 cm x 45 cm.