Painting The New England Landscape

The New England landscape makes up the majority of my work. I work using both oil paints and watercolor paints. I am often asked whether I prefer watercolor or oil painting and more often than not my answer is, it depends. It depends on my mood and it depends on the subject. I do prefer watercolor for floral paintings, and my watercolor paintings tend to be more detailed but other than that it is whatever medium .

I also have painted the same scene in both watercolor and oil paints. It is an interesting exercise. They come out differently, but not extremely so. It also gives has me looking at the scene differently, because the approaches are different between watercolor and oil painting. I think in so doing it help keep me attentive to a range of both color and styles

The other question I am often asked is "Do I work from photographs?" And, like the watercolor vs. oil paints is it depends. But more often than not I work from photographs - I also work plein air, even in the winter months. However I do prefer painting outside when its warm.

The diversity of the New England landscape keeps me interested. Painting the mountains is a favorite so that I can create the depth of looking across the hills which can go on forever, when you look out from a mountaintop. Mixed into many New England scenes are rocks. I enjoy painting rocks to create the ruggedness of them and the colors that are hidden in them. The small New England towns, with their steeples and old architecture is also fun to explore. Moving across the New England landscape, traveling east, there is that beautiful rocky coast with the added benefit of fishing boats.

Truly though, the icing on the cake for the New England artist is the changing of the seasons - a different pallet every few months. Painting the same scene in different seasons is an interesting and fun exercise. A scene rich in color in Autumn looks entirely different when covered in snow. The summer foliage with many shades of green, can hide mountain peaks with are more obvious in the bareness of winter.