"Cloud Forming"
5 x 7 (plein air)

I wrote earlier about the postcard project.  I have done the Plantation Wildlife Arts Festival in Thomasville, Georgia for the past six years.  It's a great show with some high caliber artists.   Last year with the economy in the pits it was a slow show all around.  I decided in May that I would do something different for me.  I would bring 100 small 5 x 7 paintings of landscapes of the local area.  I ended up with a total of 105 and I put them up unframed with velcro on a big board.  They were lined up together in rows.  I sold them for lower than my normal prices at $110 each.  Heres a photo of the set up.

    

Not a great photo but you get the idea. 

And  . . . . well it went over very well.  I got nothing but very nice comments.  I ended up selling 21 of them during the show.  I thought that was pretty good considering that crowds did not seem as numerous as usual.  It was fun to see people agonize over one of two paintings and end up buying two or three.  Not sure I would do it again to such a large degree.  But who knows.  I did feel like it was a great practice and I definitely feel like I learned something.

The show was at the end of November so when it was over I took the remaining 85 to my gallery in Tallahassee.  They had the velcro already on their wall for the framing business so they just hung them up right there for their Christmas show.  They have sold about fifteen more so its all good.  If your interested in whats left, email me.  They make great Christmas gifts.
 


5 x 7  Inlet fishing


Thanks for looking.

Guana Sky
11 x 14

Just got back from the Crescent Beach Paint Out 2009.  Great time.  Crescent Beach is just south of St. Augustine.  I got to stay in a nice beachfront condo and got to paint everyday.   Full time artists don't know how good they have it.  Well they probably don't get to stay in beachfront condos, but they do get to paint everyday.   A paint out is a plein air painting event with a bunch of other artists.  Everyone goes out and tries to create their best work.  At the end of the week the art work is exhibited. 

The above painting was done at Guana State Park.  It is just north of St. Augustine on A1A and south of Ponte Vedra.  A beautiful and wild place.  I hiked about a mile through old Florida woods (jungle) to the intercoastal waterway and did this painting and three others.  For this one I walked out to the end of an oyster bank and put my hands up and framed in this big sky.   It's a different composition but I went with it and I really liked the way it turned out.  I got some nice comments from a number of artists which is always nice.   It was a great week.  Artist, by and large, are just nice and fun people.  And getting to paint everyday, all day, well it doesn't get any better than that.  Here's a link to the website for the paint out: www.Crescentbeachpaintout.com

Check it out.

Thanks for looking.

20 x 16

5 x 7


From the postcard series of local landscapes.

Can you imagine how loud it is in the bedroom when a train rolls by at 1 am? And how does someone go about picking out a lot that close to a railroad. Or imagine the day the lawyer knocks on your door and says "you know that easement that was on the deed that you signed. Well that notation "RR". That actually meant railroad, not rest and relax. But the good news is they are building a slick new railroad crossing gate with a fancy bell. Some people are just lucky."

Cherokee #3  11 x 14


Ridgecrest Swimming Dock 5 x 7

All of my children have gone to Camp Ridgecrest (boys) or Camp Crestridge (girls) in Ridgecrest, North Carolina every summer for the past . . . well a bunch . . . of years.  It is one of those special places.  And they looked forward to going there for two weeks every summer.  One of them has even worked there the last two summers as a counselor.   I recently started doing some paintings of the place and now every time I finish one someone is "putting dibs" on it.   That is a good thing.  It is very satisfying to create something that sucessfully captures a place that has special memories.  

Thanks for looking.

 

6 x 8

I am back from a vacation to South Florida. These were painted from the Lake Trail, a bike trail on Palm Beach. I took my daughter, Kendall, every morning to the trail that is on the intercoastal side on Palm Beach so she could run in the shade of the tall hedges between the mansions and the water. She is a serious runner on her high school cross country team. Palm Beach in the summer is a hot place, so you look for shade and run early. The trail is a beautiful and peaceful place. It is very well maintained almost like a nice golf course. In morning you hear the sound the gas powered lawn equipment. You don't get to see much of any of the houses unless you can find an empty spot in the hedges. The people on the trail are generally older and nicely dressed and more than a couple women smelled of expensive perfume. Everyone was very friendly. Kendall's workouts lasted just about an hour, so these got done quickly.

 
5x7
These were a great way to start the day. I wish I had had more time, but I was glad to be able to wear the Dad hat, and coach hat, for maybe the last time after ten years of helping kids run during summer vacation. Kendall is a senior this year and over the last ten years I have gotten up with first, Stephen, then Zack and now Kendall, and helped make sure they did their summer training. If you think that is crazy, then you are probably right. Having been a runner myself, I know how tough it is to get this done, even when you are not on vacation. And the fact is, looking back on all those years of riding bikes and searching for trails, and early morning wake ups, and after run coffee and donuts and conversations, I would definitely do it again.

Thanks for looking.

"Beach Colors"

Just got back from a week at Palm Beach.  We stay on Singer Island and just chill (not temperature wise) and soak up the sun.  I paint.  Yes, it is what I like to do.  It is not a job.  It is slightly anti-social, I will admit.  But it is not anymore anti-social than sitting there reading a book.  So the whole family on my side with my three brothers and their families hang out at the beach.  We have a tent that is about twenty years old.  (Really, no exaggeration.  I was looking at some old family vacation videos and saw my Dad getting it out its original box and my twenty years olds were new born babies.  AND I think we bought it at Walmart.  Can you imagine?)  Everyone brings chairs and extra umbrellas and we sit around and soak up the sun and have fun.  I painted a total of about twelve paintings which sounds like a lot, but my other choice was reading "Lonesome Dove" and I probably wouldn't have made much a dent in it.  

One of the hard things about painting at the beach is the big horizontal.  It is hard when you are sitting there looking out at the ocean to see anything but ocean.  The one above was done looking at the changing colors of the shore break right in front of me.  That's not easy because each wave is as different as a fingerprint.  So, you get one idea and then watch what the waves are doing give it a shot. 

Check out my website under the "Postcard" section to see more work from the week. 

Thanks for looking.

"Sunday Morning Thomasville"


18 x 24

I have change my "About the Artist" information.  Here's what is says now:

You could call this "A Lawyer Paints" or more accurately "A Painters also a Lawyer".   The marketing gurus would say keep these things separated.  Your legal client doesn't want to know about your artistic ability, and the collector wants to deal with a true professional who is struggling with his life and art.  Well, this is me.   If art paid like law, I would certainly give up the legal part (except those clients that are pleasure to help).  But the reality is that is not going happen soon.  So I have decided to embrace my circumstances.  I am an artist who can afford to do whatever he wants to do artistically.  If you want an artist who is willing to change a painting so that it matches your living room couch, then you probably have the wrong guy.  I paint what I want to paint because it inspires me and I want to try to communicate that inspiration.   I do enough of it that I like the idea of it hanging on your wall and you enjoying it, rather than it gathering dust in my closet.  So there you have it.  My name is Steve, and I am a lawyer.   Thanks for checking out my artwork.  Enjoy.

What do you think?