Glimpses of Eden

Portland Head Light

This is my third painting of Portland Head Light, one of the most scenic lighthouses anywhere. This view is from a different position than either of the first two paintings; this is the lighthouse as viewed from the plateau behind it, overlooking the ocean.

This picture is larger than the other two, which allowed me to add more detail into the picture.

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Mount Washington from Brimstone Corner

If you stop at Brimstone Corner in South Paris, Maine, you get a lovely view of Mount Washington in the distance, on a clear day. There are also some farms, silos, and rolling hills all about that I may paint someday.

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In the Woodlot

In the fall of this year, my father and I went exploring in his woodlot, with the intended goal of marking a rough boundary line using his GPS. The trip was a bust - there was a beaver dam that had caused huge tracts of land to be flooded, so we couldn't mark waypoints.

Here is a portrait of my dad as he is coming out of the woods, holding the GPS in his hand.

The background was very low-lying swampy land, which is really not at all attractive, so I chose to simply surround the subject with a deep green background without any detail.

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Blue Seal Feeds

This is an interesting building in South Paris, Maine - just a couple streets down from where I live. Initially I wanted to paint this as it appears during a snowstorm, but I quickly realized that it was going to be far too gray for my tastes (I can't stand not having some blue in the sky!)

This is the day after the storm, when the plow trucks had been through and cleared the road (more or less!)

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Acoustic Guitar

My goal here was to create an unusual perspective on an object that is a part of my everyday life - my acoustic guitar. In composing this, I laid the guitar down against the hardwood floor and stood with my camera at different angles, snapping pictures of the guitar.

Then I perused those pictures until I got an angle and perspective I liked. I wanted the sound hole, the bridge and the pick guard to be the focal point of the painting, so I chose not to paint the entire guitar; leaving out the bottom and left-hand side of it allowed me to centralize my focal point.

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Sugarloaf over Stratton Brook Pond

In my opinion, there are very few places in the world that rival a good rugged mountain summit for sheer beauty. Once in awhile, though, in the process of making my way toward one of those summits, I find a spot - like this one - that is almost too lovely for words.

This is the Stratton Brook Pond, a body of water at the base of Bigelow Mountain, near Stratton, Maine. As you stand at this pond, you can look in one direction and see views of Sugarloaf Mountain (depicted here) or you can look in another direction and get lovely views of Maine's massive Bigelow Mountain.

I plan to do a series of Bigelow Mountain paintings, and this one is the first.

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Bird on Old Speck

Old Speck is a great mountain to hike, if you enjoy hiking. The views from the observation tower at the top are wonderful. One of the surprises along the way was the many birds that are quite fearless, and hope to be fed by hikers.

This bird sat on the top of a very scraggly tree (there are many trees that look like this one, once you get about 4000 feet above sea level!) and stared at us as we hiked on by.

This is the second painting I've done of this bird; the first one was part of the painting Land, Sea and Sky.

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Jerusalem Skyline

I think the Jerusalem skyline is one of the oddest skylines I've ever seen. As I stood on the far side of the courtyard in front of the Wailing Wall, I could see both the Wailing Wall (on the right) and the Dome of the Rock on the left. What a strange mixture of Islam and Judaism in one spot!

It's more than just the religious mix, though; Jerusalem seems to be a conflict between old and new. Look at the buildings and you're looking at some of the most ancient structures you have ever seen, but now look on the right and you see radio and antenna towers, and satellite dishes above the buildings. What a strange juxtaposition!

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Portland Head Light

This painting of Portland Head Light takes a side view of the lighthouse, so you can see the rocky shelf on which it is situated.

The actual painting is slightly wider than appears in this photo; more of the rock and ocean appears on the right-hand side.

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Portland Headlight

Portland Headlight has as its claim to fame that it is the most photographed and most painted lighthouse in the world. This is a small painting of the lighthouse, as seen from the rise above it, facing toward the ocean.

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