"Mountains of Home" (paintings on display at Porter Mill)

On February 5th, some of my mountain paintings were hung in the lobby of Porter Mill Studios here in Beverly, MA..  The title of this show is "Mountains of Home," all paintings of my home state of Colorado. After all my were on the wall, I took this video.  

"Winter Sunrise" (Drawing Video)

Yesterday I created this little drawing video on my iPad. I am sending this out to wish everyone peace, love, health, and hope in 2026.

Snow on Ski Trails (Painting as of Dec. 23, 2025)

I finally got this painting started on December 23. I changed the plan again, deviating from my (revised) reference photo by simplifying the foreground even more. I used acrylic paint to rough in the sky and the mountains in the background, and the ski trail in the foreground.  I created the forested areas with collaged tissue paper.  This was quite rough but the main parts of the composition were in place, but with more changes to come.

Mountain Lake (Near DIllon) Painting as of December 21, 2025

Here is my painting as it looked on December 21, 2025.  I had two or three painting sessions that day. Working from my reference photo, I revised the sky and added snow to the mountains.  I added more texture to the mountains in the background, using a monoprint technique.  I also worked on the lake, adding some highlights and reflections.

Menorah on the Beach (Drawing Video)

Here is my menorah video for 2025.  I wanted to create this menorah to remember the victims of the attack at Bondi Beach and in honor of the Jewish community of Australia.   I created this on my iPad with the Procreate app.  

Snow on Ski Trails (Reference Photo Revised) as of Dec. 20, 2025

On December 19th, I had used Painter to edit my vacation photo so that I could use it as a reference photo for painting.  The next day, December 20th, I printied it out and took it into my home studio, but almost immediately decided to make changes.  I thought the foreground was too complicated.  So I revised it by drawing into the image (printed on computer paper) with conte crayon. I eliminated a ski trail on the right by drawing over it in green. I used white conte crayon to simplified the center ski trail, covering up a road and a stand of trees. I sketched in an area of green where I planned to join two areas of trees.  This is what my plan was when I began to lay out the composition on the canvas.  But there were more changes to come.

Reposting: Menorah in Window

Back in 2016, I used the Brushes app on my iPad to create this little video.  (Like the Procreate app, the Brushes app captured  a stroke-by-stroke drawing video.  I have already posted this video a couple of times but decided to repost it this year because it shows a  menorah in front of a window. Chanukah celebrates religious freedom and displaying the menorah a way of claiming that freedom. In some times and in some places, Jews can do that confidently. These days there is enough to be afraid of just about everywhere, apparently, but still you see menorahs in the window, outside the synagogue, in the town square, on the beach. . . .  

Reposting: A Quick Little Menorah

I made this on my iPad back in 2021, a year in which Chanukah came very soon after Thanksgiving and I was very pressed for time.  I wrote that I was thinking, "I don't have time to make a Chanukah video this year.  And then I thought, maybe I do.  So I opened my Procreate app on my iPad and drew this little menorah.  It's not fancy; I didn't even use a stylus.  But still it makes me happy and I am glad I did this. So if you want to see the candles light up, just press play."  And I am still glad.  So here's a menorah for times when it just doesn't seem possible (we are too busy, too discouraged, too sad) to light that menorah.  Light it anyway. . .

Snow on Ski Trails (Reference Photo for Painting as of Dec. 19, 2025)

On December 19, I opened my travel photo in Painter and started editing on the computer My goal was to turn my snapshot into a  as a reference photo for my painting.  With a combinaton of cut-and-paste and digital pastel, I eliminated road signs, concrete barriers, vehicles, and other evidence of construction in the foreground. To replace what I had removed, I sketched in some additional trees and trails, using digital pastel. Then  I cropped the photo to 8 x 10. (My paintings are 16 x 20, so printing the photo at half size helps when I am making grids on each.)  At this point, for the most part I was happy with the composition, but thought the foreground needed work.  But I printed it out so I could get to work.

Tree Line and Ski Trails (Inspiration for Painting)

I took this photo back in 2018 while we were touring in the Colorado Rockies with our old friends from Brazil.  I think we were headed to Vail when I took this picture. The title says "Inspiration for Painting", but it doesn't look that inspiring, with all the road signs, cement barriers,  and other evidence of construction.  But I liked the view of the mountains beyond so in December of 2025, I decided to use this photo for a painting, though I knew it would take a lot of digital editing to turn this into a photo reference.