Rainy Laconia Morning

Rainy Laconia Morning

8 in. x 8 in., acrylic on gallery-wrapped canvas

$200 unframed (no frame necessary)

I see this intersection several times a week. The intersection of Court Street, Union Ave and Main Street come together in a perfectly symmetrical intersection entering or exiting downtown Laconia, New Hampshire. The dueling spires of the courthouse and South Baptist Church stand opposite each other in the middle distance. It was very early on this particular morning in late March. All the snow had melted, and the still-dim sky was darkened further by low, thick clouds and heavy rain.  Headlights, traffic signals, and signs glow brightly, casting skewed and distorted reflections everywhere in the puddles and wet atmosphere.

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Bay View Summer - SOLD

 

Bay View Summer  ~ SOLD!  Somebody liked this!

11 in. x 14 in., acrylic on cradled Masonite

$240 unframed (no frame necessary)

This painting began as a lovely photo taken by a fellow member of a Facebook interest group to which I belong.  She posted it and it and the row of colorful kayaks caught my eye and I thought, gosh, I'd love to paint that.  I commented on her post and asked her permission, and she graciously granted my request.  I found out this is a very special place on Lake Superior where her family goes every summer: Bay View Campground in Hiawatha National Forest. I painted the underpainting bright magenta to warm up the very cool greens and blues of the trees, sky and water, and to keep the sandy shore glowing and sun-kissed.    

Photo reference courtesy Carolyn Steenrod

Roses on Royal Albert - SOLD

 

Roses on Royal Albert

6 in. x 6 in., acrylic on gallery-wrapped canvas

$100 unframed  ~ SOLD! Somebody Liked This!

This piece originated as a fun little prompt from Instagram's #foodpaintchallenge and I had never painted a fussy china cup like this one.  I really wasn't sure I was going to enjoy it, but it was tremendously fun and I loved every stage of the process, which you can see if you follow me on Insta at @shawnemorrillrandlettart where you'll see some still shots and video of me painting this one.  I looked up this china pattern, because, well, I'm a curious girl.  It's a Royal Albert pattern called American Beauty, with it's lovely large roses and leaves swirled all over it.  I hope you like it!

Photo reference courtesy Dennis Pfeil @dennispfeil.art

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Emmaus Heart

Emmaus Heart

16 in. x 20 in., acrylic on canvas

Prints of this piece are available at my online print shop:

https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/shawne/

(Original not yet priced; unframed)

You might be familiar with the oft-seen "sacred heart of Jesus" image, on fire, wounded, topped with a cross and surrounded by thorns, popularized chiefly in the painting by artist Pompeo Batoni (1708 -1787). Batoni's painting is based on a supposed apparition of Jesus to Catholic nun Margaret Mary Alacoque in France in 1673.

This is not that.  Quite the opposite.

While the flaming "sacred heart" imagery is supposed to be a depiction of the love that Jesus has for mankind, frankly, I'm a Biblicist.  And the only reference explicitly describing a burning heart in the scriptures is in Luke 24:32.  And the heart doesn't belong to Jesus.  It belongs to His disciples.  

His disciples, who have just experienced the presence of the living, resurrected Jesus, Himself.

This painting uses iconography elements and is based on a stunning incident from Luke 24:13-35. 

On Easter evening, Jesus, after his resurrection, catches up with two disciples walking the seven miles from Jerusalem to Emmaus where they live.  They don't recognize Him, and He doesn't immediately reveal Himself. He asks what they are talking about, and they tell Him about "all the things that have happened as of late" in Jerusalem over the Passover weekend.  He plays dumb and asks, "What things?"  They are incredulous and remark that He has to be the only person who hasn't heard all the news.  They express their great grief over the murder of their Rabbi by crucifixion, their dashed hopes that He was the promised Messiah, and their perplexity that they've heard rumors of His resurrection... and they don't know what to think.  Jesus chides them that they don't know the scriptures well enough, because if they did, they'd understand that the Messiah was foretold to suffer in like manner.  For the rest of the walk to Emmaus, He explains the scriptures to them to put together the puzzle pieces they aren't seeing. Upon arriving at their house, they invite Him in, and as He breaks the bread for supper with them, suddenly, they recognize Him!  

And then He just... vanishes.

This piece is an illumination of their wild exclamation to each other, right before they put their sandals back on and ran back to Jerusalem to tell the others:

"Did not our hearts burn within us while He talked to us on the road, while He opened to us the scriptures?"

The hand in the icon is Christ's.  Is the heart yours? 

For those who may be unfamiliar with Greek icons, allow me to decode what you're looking at. The IX XC inscription is a Christogram: the iconographical shorthand for Jesus Christ.  The Greek inscription Εμμαύς Καρδιά is Emmaus Heart.  The circular nimbus around the hand holding the heart with the cruciform elements around the outside edge denotes Christ and the Greek letters contained there Ὁ Ὤ Ν means "He who is."

Protest Art

 

Protest Art

8 in. x 8 in., acrylic on cradled wood

$170 unframed (no frame necessary)

Ubiquitous in gardens across the UK and Europe, tasty gooseberries of many varieties, used in jams, pies and sauces, or eaten out of hand, are found everywhere.  Everywhere over there. 

Let me explain.  When I was a little girl, I started life picking these wonderful sweet-tart, vaguely grape-like berries every summer from the sprawling, thickety, green bushes, careful not to catch my fat little fingers on the thorns.  My parents had them on their property when they bought their house in the 1950s.  I was born in 1969 and relished the cool pop of gooseberries on my tongue every July.  I remember my dad, an avid gardener, wanting to add to the ones we had, and browsing the Miller Seed Catalog from Canandaigua, NY, discovering other varieties, purply-red ones, golden ones, and other kinds of green ones like these.  He mailed in his order and that was that.  A week later, he received a call from the nursery at Miller's.  "I'm sorry, Mr. Morrill.  I'm afraid we can't ship you the gooseberry bushes you ordered."  The nurseryman explained that in the early 1900s, a federal ban was issued on all Ribes family fruiting shrubs, because they could carry a blister that harmed white pines.  Mainly aimed at black and red currant varieties, the family also included, unfortunately, gooseberries. They pulled them up wherever they could find them, and burned them, nearly eradicating them.  That's why most Americans now have never heard of them.  And until the day of the phone call from Miller's, dad had never heard of the ban.  Apparently, the bushes we owned had been missed during the gooseberry and currant holocaust, and dad had no idea.  The plethora of big white pines crowding the driveway by the woods never seemed to care about our little bushes way over on the other side.

He dug them up and took them when we moved to a different house in second grade.  The bushes were looking pretty ragged, weathered and old by the time I left home and got married, probably getting punky with old age.  The pines there never once even had the sniffles.

The rest of the story goes like this:  In 1966, about 55 years after decimating Ribes in this country, the US lifted the federal ban and now you can grow them in the US.  Yay!  However, a handful of states still have them on the banned list or tightly regulated.  My state is one of them.  

I'm mad about it, and this is my protest art.  I can walk down the street and catch the whiff of a skunky cloud of smoldering marijuana that muddles the brain and stunts the spirit and no one does a thing about it. But I never smell gooseberries on anyone's breath.  If I did, I'd have to call the Agricultural Schutzstaffel with the shovels and blowtorches. 

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Winter at Portland Head Light - SOLD

Winter at Portland Head Light ~ SOLD!  (Somebody liked this!)

12 in. x 24 in., acrylic on canvas

$300 unframed

I love the coast in winter, at least to paint from.  The mood, landscape and colors are often more interesting than summertime, which can often appear bleached and muted by the full summer sun.  We were on our little annual winter trip to Portland this year and it had been a while since we pulled in to Portland Head Light in Cape Elizabeth.  This lighthouse is one of the most photographed places in America.  Even Edward Hopper gave it his treatment.  It's hard to get a unique view of this lovely place, but the view from the cliff walk, with the ragged, rocky cliff wall, the dead grasses, and the fickle winter sky was enough for me.  I hope you like it.

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The Work of Your Fingers

Psalm 8

O LORD, our Lord, 

how majestic is Your name in all the earth!  

You have set Your glory above the heavens.   

Out of the mouth of babies and infants, 

You have established Your strength because of Your foes, 

to still the enemy and the avenger.  

When I look at Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, 

the moon and the stars, which You have set in place, 

what is man that You are mindful of him, 

and the son of man that You care for him?  

Yet You have made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.  

You have given him dominion over the 

works of Your hands; 

You have put all things under his feet, 

all sheep and oxen, 

and also the beasts of the field, 

the birds of the heavens, 

and the fish of the sea, 

whatever passes along the paths of the seas.  

O LORD, our Lord, 

how majestic is Your name in all the earth!

The Work of Your Fingers 

(An Illumination of Psalm 8)

7 in. x 15 in., acrylic and gold metallic on canvas

Prints of this piece are available at my online print shop:

https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/shawne/

$250 unframed (no frame necessary)

While reading in the Psalms, the imagery of the eighth psalm filled my mind with idea of the fingerprint of God.  I thought of the whorled pattern of galaxies and neurons, of suns and moons tracing their predictable paths, of planetary movement, our own system a labyrinth of ellipses.  The whirlpool of air currents and waters, the striated rows of both waves and plant cells and the helix of plant growth and DNA. All of these bear the characteristics of the divine fingerprint; the poetry rebounds from metaphor and surprises us with the nearly-literal.  This offends our sensibilities.  There's a certain amount of safety in keeping God cloaked in symbolism and simile.  We can play about with metaphysical wordplay, impress each other with our profound-sounding platitudes.  And while it is true that God is mysterious and beyond our ability to fathom, He also puts Himself right. in. your. face.  He writes His name with a child's fat-fisted scrawl; He pushes His signatory crayon hard into the pulp of His creation, watching you to see if you will be willing to notice the deep trenches of his patterned marks, or else turning aside to be preoccupied with the randomness of the errant wax flakes.  In all these things, everything lives and moves and has its being, from divine creatures and stars and angels to people and animals and plants and microbes and cells and elements.  And in the center, a single red blood cell, signifying the One who took on flesh and poured Himself out for humanity and creation.

Also, I dig groovy fonts.

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Tuckerman Ravine Trail - SOLD

Tuckerman Ravine Trail ~ SOLD!  (Somebody liked this!)

6 in. x 6 in., acrylic on gallery-wrapped canvas

$150 unframed (no frame necessary)

A four-plus mile trail to the Mount Washington summit, the Tuckerman Ravine Trail isn't quite as steep as one might think, thanks to several switchbacks on the way up.  Some trail reviews, however, say things like, "wandering off the trail could have devastating results."  So, while there's definitely a way up the bowl-like ravine carved into the side of the Mount Washington rock pile, there's one SAFE way up.  In this painting, the clouds at the top aren't sky clouds.  It's mist surrounding the area above the tree line.  Welcome to New Hampshire.

Photo reference courtesy Mick Haupt @mickhaupt102085

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Acadia

 

Acadia

 20 in. x 20 in., acrylic on canvas

$650 framed

This is a fairly large piece.  It needed to be.

Unless I'm in the White Mountains, Maine always feels so much more wild than New Hampshire.  Yet, because I've spent so much time there, it's so much like home.  In fact, geologically, it's much closer to New Hampshire than Vermont, which is made of very different stuff.  That's obvious just by crossing to the Shire-esque west bank of the Connecticut River.  No, Maine is largely made of great slabs and piles of igneous granite just like New Hampshire, along with pine needles and sand banks and brushy barrens and swamp maples and oak groves and clover-covered fields.  But the interaction of granite cliffs and salt water is what makes Maine so different from New Hampshire.  We've ruined our meager 18 miles of coastline with ugly traffic tangles, shops and arcades and sidewalks with parking meters that would steal one of your kidneys for payment if they could (I won't apologize for excoriating whatever leaders of state and coastal towns for overdeveloping it into abject ugliness... fight me, shameful scoundrels).  But Maine has managed to keep bit and bridle firmly attached to the would-be ravishers of much of its coastal natural spaces, and for that I'm thankful. 

I hope you like this piece of coastal Maine, with its tenacious, weathered conifer trees, its wildly changing skies and unrelenting tides.  A dear friend camped near here with her family and graciously allowed me to paint from what she captured while she was in Acadia National Park.  

Photo reference courtesy Kate Goodin

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Sunny Side Up

Sunny Side Up

8 in. x 8 in., acrylic on cradled panel 

$200 unframed 

Last year I painted bacon.  At the time, it didn't occur to me to move on to the obvious eggy follow-up.  When I paint, one thing does not automatically lead to another.  But of course, now I'm thinking about toast... anyway.  This wonderful fried egg was a fun and interesting challenge to paint, from the crispy golden edges to the scattered salt and pepper.  There's not actually a lot of pure, straight-from-the-tube white in this piece; the subtle pale colors swirling in the cooked egg white are surprisingly convincing and I was able to reserve the white for the few highlights. 

 

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Moonrise

Moonrise

8 in. x 10 in., acrylic on canvas 

$160 unframed

The moon rising in the inky darkness over water. As it peeks over the horizon, it casts a complementary glow up into the cloud cover and across the surface of the lake.  It faintly illuminates the grasses and earth on the near embankment between the trees. There's something cozy in a nocturnal landscape, and I aimed for looser, expressionistic brushwork here in an effort to capture the fleeting moments of cresting moon and the rapidly changing turbulence of the clouds.  Photo reference Jill Hatfield.

 

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Pocket Lindt

Pocket Lindt

6 in. x 6 in., acrylic on gallery-wrapped canvas 

$100 unframed (no frame necessary)

The reference for this piece is courtesy @dennispfeil.art who manages Instagram's #foodpaintchallenge, which I've made use of frequently for fun and interesting subjects for painting.  Originally, the photo was a grouping of four of these wonderful chocolate bonbons but I chose two of the four to focus on and paint.  The crispy, dented foil-lined cellophane wraps were fun to render in acrylic, and who doesn't love a Lindt Chocolate? I hope you like it!

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This Little Light of Mine

This Little Light of Mine

8 in. x 10 in., acrylic on canvas 

Not yet priced; unframed

Yet another painting of a shiny object.  This is from a photo my son Dave took of a glass-bottomed oil lamp happily glowing on the wooden dining table at his home.  The bright flame and reflections in the chimney against the warm darkness feels like security, safety and hope.  Isn't that what we are called to be, the darkness be damned against the light that is in us, but does not originate with us?  This little light announces to the the darkness who we are, and Who we serve. That little light tells it, "You cannot pass."  And it knows it can't.  It knows.

Red Velvet on Gold

Red Velvet on Gold

6 in. x 6 in., acrylic and metallic paint on gallery-wrapped canvas 

$100 unframed (no frame needed)

The holiday season is the perfect time to make use of metallic acrylic paints, and about halfway through this little poinsettia study I decided to cut some bright gold metallic into the background around the bright, velvety red bracts. Did you know that poinsettias don't actually have true petals?  Those red things that look like leaves are actually, well... leaves.  The flowers are actually those tiny little yellow doodads clustered in the centers. I hope you like the festive gold against the soft, layered reds.  This piece could brighten a mantel, a bookcase or a wall where the light can play on the metallic gold during the Christmas season.

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Jingle All the Way

 

Jingle All the Way

6 in. x 6 in., acrylic on gallery-wrapped canvas 

$100 unframed (no frame needed)

I've been on a shiny kick lately, appropriate for the Christmas season.  It's a great exercise in creative self-mastery to hold back from punching in the lightest lights (or the whitest whites) until very late in the painting process so that you intentionally work from dark to light.  I find it keeps me from getting ahead of myself to hold the dark and mid-tones within a controlled range until it's time to go in with the lightest of shades, and, of course, titanium white, when there's cause to use it.  The curious little shapes of the reflected colors and lights in the surface of the polished sleigh bells are a scream to paint.  They're just SO WEIRD, and it forces me to have to trust my eyes and simply paint the shapes I see in the colors they are.  It's like a little miracle when they begin to add up to a convincing illusion of real reflective surfaces.  I hope you like it.

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Wet Sand and Crimson - SOLD

Wet Sand and Crimson ~ SOLD!  (Somebody liked this!)

8 in. x 8 in., acrylic on traditional-depth canvas 

$140 unframed 

Back in 2020, we decided to take our annual Christmas shopping trip up to South Portland earlier than usual to avoid the crowds because of the pandemic.  So we went in early October, when Moody's Motel and Cottages hadn't yet closed for the season, and it was glorious.  Dustin booked us in one of his very quiet rooms at a time when not many people were going places like Wells, Maine. The best thing, however, is that the beach is literally across the street.  A short stroll across Webhannet Drive will take you to the ramp at the corner of the sea wall.  There we were, enjoying Crescent Beach... and in October, nearly by ourselves.  One of the two evenings we were there, the sunset on the beach was an otherworldly kind of beautiful, the tide was going out, and the wet beach was like a mirror. The firmament was on fire for fifteen minutes, burning up the whole world with yellow and orange and pink and crimson... and then it was gone.  If you can believe it, this painting is an attempt to capture it, not exaggerate it. 

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Mulled Pears - SOLD

 

Mulled Pears

8 in. x 10 in., acrylic on cradled panel  

$180 unframed  SOLD~ Somebody Liked This!

A couple of falls ago I put up several jars of mulled pears to give away for Christmas.  If you don't know what mulled pears are, they're quartered pears stewed briefly in sugar and sweet red dessert wine with orange peel, cloves and cinnamon. As they sit on the shelf after canning, they continue to soak in the flavors, getting better with age.  To serve, you drain the juice into a small saucepan and simmer it over heat until it thickens a little.  Then you spoon some pear slices over vanilla cream and drizzle the warm sweet wine sauce over all.  In lieu of an actual jar of mulled pears, I offer you this portrait of a pint jar of mulled pears, which, with all the shine and embossed glass, was a fun challenge.  I hope you like it!

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Hazy Saltwater Reflections

Hazy Saltwater Reflections

9 in. x 12 in., acrylic on canvas    

$160 unframed 

I never tire of painting New England salt marshes. We frequent the Maine coast and the marshes along the Webhannet River and estuary there look different from morning to afternoon.  This piece, with the sun overhead at midday in summer, leaves the colors soft and slightly muted.  I love the hazy clouds reflecting in the tidal water.

 

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Mount Willard Trailhead - SOLD

 

Mount Willard Trailhead ~ SOLD!  (Somebody liked this!)

6 in. x 6 in., acrylic on gallery-wrapped canvas    

$100 unframed (no frame necessary)

A couple of springs ago my son Sam and I hiked Mount Willard up in Hart's Location, New Hampshire, and it was a fabulous hike.  A short 3 mile out and back hike with one of the most stunning views available in the White Mountains. The trailhead for Willard starts out fairly level with young trees before rising sharply after a shallow wet crossing. The spring foliage letting the light through onto the young green grass dancing along the path seems fresh and promising here.  I hope you like this little piece!

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Heirloom Pumpkin Trio

 

Heirloom Pumpkin Trio

6 in. x 6 in., acrylic on gallery-wrapped canvas    

$100 unframed (no frame necessary)

A fellow gardener grew a few heirloom pumpkin varieties last fall and had these big, blocky specimens posing in a perfect little grouping on the sideboard in her kitchen. The pinky-orange one is an Indian Doll pumpkin and the others were a more traditional orange variety.  The interesting ribs and chunky textures were fun to paint.

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Plum Island Sand Dunes

Plum Island Sand Dunes 

8 in. x 8 in., acrylic on traditional-depth canvas    

$220 unframed

I can't stop painting Plum Island.  Most of the island is protected land and part of the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge. Venturing through Newburyport, MA and out to the island brings you into a wonderland filled with songbirds and seabirds, rabbits, coyotes, horseshoe crabs and wild, salt-tolerant vegetation of all kinds. In this painting, I'm capturing a glimpse of the sun-kissed sand dunes and beach grass just uphill from the high tide line.  Can you smell the salt and feel the hot sun on your shoulders?  This piece welcomes you to heady, salty, coastal New England, where, 70 miles of coastline south of here, Pilgrim feet waded ashore and here praised God for the wild land that promised a free future.

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Strawberries

Strawberries 

10 in. x 10 in., acrylic on traditional-depth canvas    

$250 Framed

My fellow artist friend Pam of @arthavenstudios picked a whole bowlful of strawberries last June and had the audacity to post them on social media.  Her photo was so delicious I told her she ought to consider using it as a reference for art.  She is an accomplished print maker and I could envision a beautiful print of speckled strawberries done in her lovely, organic style.  She, instead, suggested I use her photo for a painting, and she might think about a print.  It was deal, I said, and this became by studio work-in-progress that I'd fiddle with over a busy summer as time permitted.  I still hope to see Pam's interpretation of her beautiful strawberries; maybe we could show our pieces side by side some time in the future.  I hope you like this one!

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Garden Radishes - SOLD

 

 

Garden Radishes  ~SOLD Somebody liked this!

6 in. x 6 in., acrylic on gallery-wrapped canvas    

$100 (no frame necessary)

This was a fun and and challenging little still life of fresh radishes dancing across a surface with their wonderful green stems and leaves trailing behind them.  Painting this reminded me of walking barefoot in the garden as a kid and pulling a fresh, crispy, red radish from the rows, wiping the dirt off on the grass and crunching into it right there where I stood. I love their peppery bite and crisp juiciness. The reference for this piece was a photo by Fiona of @still.shapes who shared it for the painting pleasure of others.  The colors in the shadows were particularly delicious to paint.

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OMG Bacon!

OMG Bacon!

8 in. x 10 in., acrylic on canvas    

$160 unframed

Well, that's what everybody said who saw this painting in progress.  What can I say? Who doesn't want their art collection to reflect the things they love most?  I mean, I love landscapes and still life pieces of pretty fruits and veggies and even donuts.  But is there really anything any more beautiful than a crispy slice of pork belly, glistening with hot, bubbly fat?  The fork in the second photo is a real fork from my kitchen, and sorry, it doesn't come with the painting, but it sure makes it irresistibly lifelike.  

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The Pink House - SOLD

The Pink House ~SOLD Somebody liked this!

12 in. x 12 in., acrylic on cradled panel    

$200 unframed

It's a colorful, abandoned house on the edge of the salt marsh in Newburport, MA on the road going out to Plum Island, and a landmark to multitudes of people who live in or visit the area.  It hasn't been lived in for decades, and a little while back the local government wanted to pull it down.  The people of Newburyport responded immediately in protest and moved to save The Pink House.  It's been photographed, painted, drawn, cartooned and become a fixture, despite its deteriorating roof, siding and paint.  Here's my hot, hazy, high summer portrait of the familiar, glowing, retro manse basking in sun amid the long, overgrown grasses and shrubs, still tethered to an old utility pole high in the salty air.

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Big Sky at Chapman's Landing

Big Sky at Chapman's Landing

11 in. x 14 in., acrylic on cradled wood panel    

$240 unframed

A spring trip through Stratham, NH when the new grasses were green green green brought us by Chapman's Landing, a little salt marsh pull-off, boat launch and estuary area where the Squamscott River joins Great Bay at the New Hampshire seacoast.  This piece is painted on a cradled gessoed wood panel, which was great fun, since the paint moves across the surface with little drag compared to canvas.  I very much enjoyed the brushy marks I was able to make and decided I liked the look of leaving some marks a little raw with the warm brown underpainting peeking through. 

 

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Great Neck, Ipswich

 

Great Neck, Ipswich

8 in. x 10 in., acrylic on traditional-depth canvas    

$160 unframed 

When you're stomping around on the southern end of Plum Island in Massachusetts, you look across Plum Island Sound and you see a little community dotting a couple of hills and wonder what's over there.  Well, upon taking a drive up and over and down and around, you find out that it's coastal Ipswich that's over there, that's what.  Topping a little rise, the road on Great Neck rolls down the hill and overlooks the Atlantic Ocean here, with late afternoon clouds building in the moody, hazy summer sky.

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