Yankee Road 4

If you're taking Yankee Road up to Middletown for the First Friday/Second Look Saturday, look for these trees on the edge of a farm field, on the left just past Lynn Road. Two old maples that might not last too much longer.

SWOPA at Hyde Park

This Thursday was the second time I've painted "en plein air" at Hyde Park Square in Cincinnati this summer. Less people in the square this time (not a Sunday Farmer's Market) and the weather was cooperating. See my previous post on June 12 for my rendition with some of the folks enjoying the Kilgore Fountain.

SWOPA Thursday

This "View from Fernbank" (9x12, oil on canvas panel) is of the Northern Kentucky shore. Fernbank Riverside Park is in Saylor Park, Ohio and was the site of one of the "Great Steps." A series of dams as aids to navigation, started in the early 1900's and finished in 1929. Most all, including Fernbank, were destroyed by the great 1937 flood.

Gregory Creek 7– Study

This 8x10, oil on canvas panel started as a demo on blocking in darks, background trees and sky for a art lesson. I completed it Monday at the Mason Area Painters group. I'll probably work this up on a larger canvas in the future and with this painted on a lesser quality canvas panel, showing some "holidays" (unpainted canvas showing through), I consider it a study.

Trumpet Flowers 4

The next small painting in the Trumpet Flower Series, this 8x10 is oil on canvas to match Trumpet Flowers 3.

Milford Paint Out

I spent the day on Saturday at Ohio Plein Air Society's Milford, Ohio Paint Out. Painters from all over Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky come out for this event and there were about 25 artists. I didn't paint in town this  year. Instead, I went out to farmstead within the city limits and painted this c. 1820s house.

What really drew my attention was the large tree stump in the foreground of the painting. It was about 7-8 feet in diameter and 10-15 feet tall. This Maple must have been 100-125 feet tall, when standing. What looks like re-growth of the same tree, is really a different species growing from seed in a hollow of the stump.

I was lucky enough to find someone else that also liked this scene. A kind lady from Milford purchased this painting at the wet paint sale that concluded the day.

Plein Air Alms Park

Continuing SWOPA's tour of regional parks, this is a painting of "Pavilion– Alms Park", 9x12, oil on canvas panel.

Overlooking the Columbia-Tusculum neighborhood in eastern Cincinnati, this park sits on the hill's brow with views up and down the Ohio River and Lunken Airport. The pavilion is built from local limestone and is very appropriately Tuscan in flavor.

Trumpet Flowers 3

I'm going out to paint with the SWOPA group this afternoon at Alms Park in Cincinnati, but before I do that, I wanted to finish this 8x10, oil on canvas.

The Trumpet Flower Series is a group of paintings that are like close-ups from the Fence Row Series. I started painting these trumpet flowers just after doing some research for one of my stained glass windows. They are a native species to this region and can be found climbing over fence rows and up telephone poles out in the rural areas around here. The humming birds love them and they bloom for an extended period, from about mid-June till the end of August.

Going Backward– Beckett Ponds 28

Just off the easel and waiting for the heavy white paint to dry… Beckett Ponds 28, 42" x 54", oil on canvas. This one may be too big for me to frame, so I just painted the edges of the canvas. Don't know where it's going either, but it better be a big spot. We only have one wall in our house where I can hang it. Maybe it needs to go straight to the gallery?