An exhibition at the Yellow Barn, August 16 & 17, 2025
For many years, I’ve looked forward to traveling for the purpose of collecting images of beautiful landscapes on which to base my paintings. In 2024, I was given the opportunity to see two places that were high on my list of sources for images: Venice, and the Dolomites. The twist was that the workshop that offered these destinations was built around plein air painting — an activity I had always found too daunting to attempt. I rose to the challenge, though, and came back with at least two works that were executed on site and worth exhibiting here. I produced several other paintings for this show in my studio; many others are based on photos from earlier travels to Mexico, Canada, and Europe. Hence, the title for this show — paintings I created “there” as well as when I came “back again.”
I’ll try to organize the pictures soon into thematic groups, but for now — you can just scroll through them and read the text I put on the labels for the show.
Oil on canvas 36”x18” $725 SOLD
Painted in my studio, from a picture I snapped thru the window of the bus taking us down out of the Italian Alps toward the airport in Venice. Dawn was just breaking, and the views were stunning.
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Oil on canvas panel 16”x20” $350
A long-time friend found an old photo of her grandmother lighting the sabbath candles, and asked me to create a painting based on it. This is a study for that painting, which will aim to be more faithful to the heirloom silver candlesticks shown in the photo.
Oil on canvas 18”x24” $450
These crags form the very western-most point of the Eurasian landmass. We visited them on our trip to Portugal in 2021, and I didn’t put my camera away until I was sure I had the makings of a dramatic and colorful landscape.
Oil on canvas panel 16”x20” $125 SOLD
My friend Heidi Garret lost her husband last year. I remembered that I had photographed the two of them together when I’d visited in Portland, and dug out the files. I decided to do this double portrait as a tribute to their abiding love.
Oil on canvas 16”x20” $325
Daniel and I were both in the wedding party when my son Jesse married Kate four years ago. As we sat getting to know one another in the ‘ready room’ before the service, I began thinking more and more that the scene would make a fine portrait.
Oil on canvas 18”x24” $450
Another painting based on my trip to Portugal, and another attempt to push myself away from a too-literal interpretation of a scene. I did manage to show an increased contrast between light and shadow, increased texture in the pavements, and a greater sense of the steepness of Lisbon’s streets.
Oil on canvas, 24” x 18” $450
This painting was my final project in Gavin Glakas’s cityscape class in the fall of 2024. I based it on a photo I took from the vaporetto as it motored along the Grand Canal in Venice, during Walt Bartman’s painting workshop.
Oil on canvas 32” x 24” $550
I based this painting on a photo from my visit to New Mexico in 2021. As Georgia O’Keeffe is a long-time favorite of mine, I took the time to visit Ghost Ranch, where she lived and painted. I took inspiration from the light and scenery there, while avoiding the temptation to imitate her style.
Oil on canvas 20”x 20” $375
Some musicians I know formed a trio they called the Sunshiners, writing and performing songs to aid in the fight against climate change. They asked me to contribute art for the cover of their CD; this is one of the results. It shows a fearsome sun, seen thru wildfire smoke, suggesting the dangers of intensifying heat.
Oil on canvas 20”x 20” $375 SOLD
This is the second painting for the Sunshiner’s CD cover. The harmony it shows suggests the benefits that could flow from working with nature, rather than against it. I based it on a photo I took of a sunrise over the Chesapeake Bay.
Oil on canvas panel 18”x14” $225
I based this seascape on a photo I took on a business trip to Coatzacoalcos, Mexico, in the early 1990s. It’s the only ‘old’ painting in this show; I wanted to include it as another example of my practice of using the images from my travels for my art.
Oil on canvas 16” x 20” $275
For a long time, I’ve been intrigued by the shapes and colors of sycamore bark, and thought a series of paintings based on them would be effective. I ended up — to my surprise— with four very distinct paintings
Oil on canvas 16”x20” $275
Sycamore bark usually starts as a pale and smooth, then darkens and hardens before flaking off to reveal the next pale layer below it. The shapes and colors all seem to relate to each other — so a painting inspired by the bark has a very natural cohesiveness.
Oil on canvas 16”x20” $275
This painting is another attempt to use the related shapes and colors of sycamore bark to create an essentially abstract image with an underlying unity. The shadows cast by the knots on the tree, though, gave the painting an unintended realism.
This painting started out as sycamore bark, but got transformed almost beyond recognition before I committed it to canvas. I sketched it loosely in Procreate, then reversed the colors (light for dark, blue for orange, etc.) I used that image as the basis for the painting, which is essentially an abstract at this point.
Graphite on paper, 16”x11” $125
The Washington Revels lost two of its most charming members recently — Albert Rogers and Joicey Granados. I had photographed them during a Revels event inside the National Cathedral, and planned a double portrait based on a particularly joyful picture. This sketch is as far as that project has gone.
Oil on hardboard panel, 16”x20” $225
I drove upcounty one night a few years ago, hoping to see a comet in the sky over Sugarloaf Mountain. I was disappointed by the comet, but stuck around long enough to get some interesting landscapes. I wasn’t happy with this painting until I cropped it down to focus just on the mountain and one graceful tree.
Graphite with white chalk on paper, 11”x15” $85
This is a pencil drawing from Gavin Glakas’s portrait & figure class at the Yellow Barn. Arriving late, I was offered an easel close enough to the model for me to do an actual portrait. The model responded positively to what I was able to do in my limited time, which I took to be a good sign.
Oil on canvas 24”x18” $450
I keep an extensive file of cloud photographs, and often scroll thru them with an eye toward a series of paintings. I kept coming back to one particularly expressive image, cropping and recropping it to make the most cohesive composition. I finally used it as the basis for this painting; it’s close to the source, yet has an abstract feel.
Oil on canvas 24”x 18” $375
This painting is based on a photograph said to show van Gogh, Gauguin, Emil Bernard, and others at a Paris café. I loved the idea of great painters sharing each other’s company and ideas, and started wishing I could have joined them. In a quirky modification, I inserted myself, consoling a troubled van Gogh.
Oil on canvas 30” x 15” $450
I based this painting on a panoramic photo I took in a dark, 13th-century church that still shows the scars of earthquakes and fires. The panorama let me capture most of the nave in one photo, while it distorted the architecture in intriguing ways.
Oil on canvas, 30” x 20” $500
This painting resulted from a family trip to Nova Scotia. The vessel is “Acadia” — the last survivor of the explosion that devastated Halifax in 1917. I chose this subject for Gavin Glakas’s cityscape class — it’s not exactly a city, but required a similar approach to composition and perspective.
Oil on canvas 24”x 24” $450
I painted the cloud first — and then waited for inspiration for the foreground. The figures are based on statues of pan-like figures at Hillwood Gardens, and once I sketched them in I decided to surround them with a fantasy landscape. The title, incidentally, is from Kenneth Grahame’s Wind in the Willows.
Oil on canvas panel 14”x 11” $175
A friend (and patron!) showed me a fine photo she’d taken on a trip to the Southwest, and asked me to create a painting based on it. She left the style up to me; I wanted to try something semi-abstract, and did this small study to see if she (and I) would like it. The final version ended up quite similar, tho’ more elegant.
Oil on hardboard panel 14”x 11” $275
This painting is based on a photo from an art-heavy trip to Paris. After visiting the Louvre, we wandered thru the sculpture gardens, where I saw an intriguing statue shrouded in cloth. Later I learned that the statue is of Cain, hiding his face after killing his brother — so the cloth might even enhance the message of shame.
Oil on hardboard panel 14”x 11” $175
Another painting that came out of the week we spent in Paris. I did a rapid sketch of the Pont Neuf from a photo I took there, and liked the freshness and somewhat distorted perspective. I based this painting more on the sketch than the photo, and tried hard to use colors that were expressive rather than realistic.
Oil on hardboard panel 14”x 11” $175. SOLD
This is the result of another practice session for the plein air workshop — I was getting the feel of painting alpine scenery in a small format, using quick brushstrokes while eschewing detail. Not having been to the Alps at that point, I used a photo from my daughter’s stay in Switzerland.
Oil on hardboard panel 14”x 11” $175
This was part of my of my effort to get ready to paint en plein air on Walt Bartman’s workshop in Italy.
I painted this scene from a photo I took in Iceland, but tried to make the painting process similar to what I’d be doing in the Dolomites: same small hardboard panel, same speedy execution, same lean paint.
Oil on canvas mounted on hardboard 12”x 9” $225
This is the first painting I did using the plein air setup I developed for the workshop in Italy. It was a trial run, conducted in my backyard; I deliberately minimized the realism and aimed for the broken brushstrokes that I imagined Bonnard might have used for the same scene.
Charcoal on hardboard panel 14” x 11” $150 SOLD
We found an out-of-the-way spot with a fine view of the Grand Canal, and I tried making several sketches there. This was the most successful — just charcoal, blended to some degree with water and a paintbrush. I’d intended to add color later, but my friends encouraged me to leave well enough alone
Oil on hardboard panel 14”x 11” $175
This painting resulted from my decision to break utterly with my tendency toward realism in landscapes. I aimed for Fauve-like color, and shapes that bore only glancing resemblance to the Alpine scenery. I ended up as pleased with this one as with any of the plein air paintings I completed in Italy.
Oil on hardboard panel 11”x 14” $275
Perhaps my most successful plein air painting, I started and finished it in the same afternoon. As expected, the light kept changing, requiring me to paint out and then restore the shadows more than once. The broken brushwork I’d practiced at home worked well, I thought, in the foliage and the structure.
Oil on hardboard panel 11” x 14”. $225 SOLD
Views like this one — from a footbridge over a small canal lined with buildings in various shades of ocher — were everywhere in Venice. The light on the water begged to be painted, but had to wait until I returned home: the authorities apparently frowned on painters blocking the paths with their easels.
Oil on canvas panel, 14” x 11” $250 SOLD
In preparing for a large painting of a dark church interior, I amped up the saturation and brightness of the photo to help me see the subtle variations of color within the grey stone columns. I was surprised by how much I liked the ‘false color’ image that resulted, and painted a version using that prismatic effect.
Oil on hardboard panel 14”x 11” $225 SOLD
This is another painting from Gavin Glakas’s cityscape class. It’s based it on a photo I took in Paris, which had a striking contrast between the shadowy area under the awning and the buildings at the right, dissolving in the morning glare. For fun, I added myself twice in the foreground, enjoying a café.
Oil on hardboard panel 11”x 14” $150 SOLD
Alan looked fabulous in his costume for the 2023 Revels show, which was set in King Arthur’s Court. I particularly admired his ‘sneer of cold command’ (as Shelley might put it). I took a few pictures during intermission, and based this portrait on the best one. I designed it as a companion piece to the one of Eleanore.
Graphite on paper 8”x 10” $65 SOLD
This is the sketch that I used in preparing for my painting of Alan in his costume as King Lot.
Oil on hardboard panel 11”x 14” $150
Eleanore was my stage wife in the 2023 Revels, so I was able to develop a strong appreciation of her appearance as the sorceress Nimue. I asked a fellow cast member to photograph the two of us in costume, but ended up using only her image as a portrait.
Graphite on paper 7”x 9” $65
This is the sketch that I used in preparing for my painting of Eleanore in her costume as Nimue.
Graphite on paper 9”x 12” $65 SOLD
Riding the vintage electric trams on Route 28 is a popular tourist activity in Lisbon. We didn’t take that particular route when we visited in 2023, but saw the iconic vehicles often. I did this sketch in preparation for a painting — which has yet to materialize.
Mayor of Norwich
Burnt-umber oil sketch on canvas 12”x 16” $125 SOLD
In the 2018 Revels show, I was cast as an artist in the village of Norwich, England. I felt, then, I should paint some of the leading citizens of the town — the mayor, for example, played by John Butterfield. I never got further than this burnt-umber underpainting — but it’s still a handsome picture of a handsome man.
Oil on canvas panel 11” x 14” $150
I’m often looking for subjects for portraits, and long conversations over coffee give me a chance to study my tablemates’ faces and consider their suitability. This portrait is a good example of that pattern — it grew out of several mornings spent at Peet’s with my next-door neighbors.
Graphite on paper 6”x 7 1/2” $50
This sketch is another example of what happens when get a chance to talk with someone for a good stretch of time — I study their faces and often get interested in doing a portrait. If I happen to be on Zoom with someone, it’s tempting to take a screen capture. That’s the origin of this drawing of a favorite Reveler.
Graphite on paper 6”x 7 1/2″ SOLD
Paul and I became friendly on Walt Bartman’s workshop in Italy. One of the most enjoyable aspects of the trip was getting to know our fellow artists over meals; certainly, Paul appeared to be enjoying himself when I took the candid photo I used as the basis for this sketch.
Oil on canvas, 36”x 24” $650
An Sgùrr is a striking landform on the small Isle of Eigg, off the western coast of Scotland. We spent a day there in 2017, before heading “over the sea to Skye.” I found the contrast between the homey farm buildings in the middleground and the giant pitchstone ridge looming over it, to be irresistible as a subject for a painting.
Oil on canvas panel, 16”x 20” $325
This is a copy of a 1935 portrait by Hungarian-born British painter Philip Alexius de Laszlo. It was an exercise in one of Gavin Glakas’s on-line courses — and one of my most successful class projects at that. I’m hoping to have opportunities to create portraits that are as successful, and are not copies.
Oil on canvas, 36”x 36” $650
The scenery along the Ring Road in southern Iceland is astonishingly rugged and imposing. This scene, from a couple of miles east of the town of Vik, is a prime example; it called for one of the largest canvases I’ve used.
Oil on canvas, 36”x 24” $450
My impression of southern Iceland, which we visited briefly in 2017, is of a narrow strip of habitable land practically crowded off the island by the edge of a rugged volcanic plateau. This painting, I think, expresses those circumstances well — the farm is dwarfed by the cliffs above it.
Oil on canvas, 30”x 24” $400
This painting was based on a photo I took from my own front walk — though the location is largely irrelevant if the focus is on the evening sky. A truly striking skyscape, I’ve read, needs clouds at different altitudes, for variability in illumation and color. That’s certainly the case here, with that bright diagonal and dark lower layer.
Oil on hardboard panel, 12”x 16” $125
The title of this painting comes from the espresso-based drink — or rather, the swirls of foam on top of a drink I had at Peet’s. Basing this abstract on what I saw in the foam gave the shapes an underlying logic and relatedness; the logic in the abstract color relationships, by contrast, I needed to develop on my own.
Oil on canvas panel, 12”x 16” $125
I based this portrait on a screen capture from a Zoom session Amanda led early in the Covid epidemic. The likeness was good enough for Facebook to ask me, when I posted it, if I would “Want to tag Amanda Poppei?” Sadly, Facebook no longer offers that precise kind of validation.
Paintings... Drawings... Jack o' Lanterns. 