New Works on Exhibit Now

Yesterday I hung a joint exhibition with my friend and fellow artist, Sarah Harvey, at the Foxdale Gallery in State College. Sarah is a watercolorist and oil painter originally from Maine. I'm showing recent plein air landscapes as well as some larger studio landscapes. Most of my works are themed upon central Pennsylvania with a few smaller pieces inspired by my travel throughout the eastern United States.

The exhibition continues through December 4, 2007. Our opening reception is this Sunday afternoon from 3:30pm - 5:30pm. The gallery is in a public space of the Foxdale Community and it's located at 500 East Marylyn Avenue in State College. You can find driving directions to it by visiting Mapquest.com. Here are a few of the most recent works off of my easel that you can see in the exhibition:

The Pennsylvania Wilds 32" x 16" pastel on board.

First, "The Pennsylvania Wilds." This is a larger piece done in my studio based upon a smaller, in-the-field study that I worked on a few weeks ago up in Black Moshannon State Park. My intention had been to finish the plein air piece, but ominous rain clouds threatened as I worked and I was not quite able to wrap up the idea out in the field. I may still finish the smaller piece in my studio because I think that the initial effort has a lot of potential, even though I really had to hustle to beat the approaching clouds. I had Annie with me, which further complicated matters because then it's two of us trying to avoid getting soaked before we get back to the car.

Now, you may be thinking...."Aw, c'mon, the colors aren't *really* like that, are they?"

They are. In terms of the progression of fall colors, the upper elevations of central Pennsylvania are always a couple of weeks ahead of the rest of the area. And especially in those higher elevations, you get vibrant reds, vivid oranges, and a sprinkling of golds to create a remarkable scene. Even on a cloudy day.

Smolder 16" x 8" pastel on paper.

The next two pieces are also small studio works. In both of these, I wanted to "push the color." Much of my work is motivated by the color in the scene, and in both of these pieces I intentionally stylized what I saw, but not by much. Nature provides remarkable raw material and if there's any tweaking involved, it need only be a minor amount. The first piece is "Smolder." This was along one of my favorite places to work, Nixon Road, just outside of State College in the rural farming country. I caught this particular piece in June, at the conclusion of one of the longest and warmest days of summer.

October Ablaze 12" x 8" pastel on paper.

The next piece is "October Ablaze." With fall colors, timing is everything. Two days after I caught this scene, the trees were stripped bare by high winds up here. I was glad to have discovered the scene when I did.