Tuscan Sunset

This is one of my earliest half sheet paintings. My old tutor Les, keep encouraging me to paint large. 'It's liberating' and I agree with him. It is very liberating. Until I took his advice, the largest painting I had completed was 12x18. A slightly oversize quarter sheet. I had just purchased some 26x40 260# Saunders-Waterford thinking I was getting a heavy weight paper. When you consider the weight and run the numbers, it turns out to be equivalent of 156# 22x30 Imperial. Slightly heavier that the standard 140# Imperial size sheets, but no where near 200# rough that I currently use.

This is also one of my earliest cityscape-urban landscape paintings. Urban landscapes is starting to become a genre that I enjoy painting.

17x22 Saunders-Waterford rough

Blue and Gold Manhattan

I painted this Manhattan skyline from my imagination back in January. Only the Chrysler Building and the Empire State Building, both in the background, actually exist. The Blue and Gold comes from the Ultramarine Blue and Raw Sienna, the only two pigments I used in it. Perhaps I flatter myself in thinking I tried to give the New York skyline a turneresque rendition. This is somewhat like I imagine that the great JMW might have painted if he were here and had visited New York.

My fan club tell me this is a love it or hate it painting. Neither Rob, another JMW fan, nor Susan, a native New Yorker like this one though Jill thinks it one of my better paintings.

half sheet 15x22 Saunders-Waterford 200# rough