New Works

Mountain Paintings | on linen

Living out west and being surrounded by beautiful mountains inspires much of my work. The mountain view changes from moment to moment with the gradation of light, precipitation or lack of it, and I am fascinated. Trying to capture what I see and feel using painting techniques, new as well as those familiar to me, provides a source of discovery, joy, and sometimes frustration.

On the Edge depicts the beautiful peaks at the Snowbird Resort here in Utah and is painted on linen. (I typically paint on metal). We had a little mouse problem over the holidays so I cleaned out my storage room and found a lot of canvases that had been tucked away. I wanted to use this store of materials and revisit some of the techniques I learned that apply only to the woven cloth of linen or canvas. In this technique, the paint is applied and then removed from the surface of the painting to reveal the brightest white. I did this to reveal the highlights on the mountains and left the white of the gesso in the foreground for dramatic effect.

Since this big canvas had been in storage, it had a small hole at the base which I figured would be covered by the frame and wouldn’t be a problem if I applied a patch to contain it. Wrong. After the piece dried, (which took forever since I used a different medium for the color wash effect), it went to the framer. They framed it and the hole was just barely visible but did show. I ended up spending a few days un-framing, patching, drying, and re-stretching it so the patch would not be visible. Still not good as the linen had a ridge along the top from being on the stretcher bars for quite some time. It is now at the frame shop and they are building a new smaller stretcher for it. With a bit of luck, it will be in the gallery next week, good to go.

Mountain Paintings | on aluminum

This is a smaller version of the Snowbird ridgeline on metal. Leaving the metal exposed above the ridgeline lends a clean, modern feel to this mountain oil painting. The highlights here are exposed metal; no white pigments were used. The dripped effect accentuates the slope of this iconic mountain.

Mountain paintings | on steel

Ice Fields is another example of different surfaces on which to paint. With the disruption of supply chains in the US these days, it was challenging to get the aluminum panels on which I paint most often. This contemporary oil painting is on steel. It has a different, raw, industrial feel to the exposed portion that surrounds the painted image.

Mountain paintings | on gold toned aluminum

Sometimes I experiment with other metal base colors, like in Peaceful Moments, which is painted on a gold toned brushed aluminum. The warmth of the gold carries through the paint and makes the whole piece more cohesive.

Stop by the Summit Gallery and check out the subtle difference in these contemporary mountain paintings and all of my work. The gallery is located at 675 Main Street, Park City, Utah.