Lobster Pot Lights, 20x20" (top) - Late Afternoon on Commercial St, 20x20"

Room 28, 16x20" (top) - Room 14, 14x18"

It's been a while since my last post. I haven't blogged or updated my website for many months, and now we're into the new year! Geez, I really have been slack.

Since my trip to NYC I've been back to the Cape, and had a weekend in Salem, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. I love Cape Cod. I embarked on a Hopper pilgrimage of sorts in an attempt to track down some of the Truro and Wellfleet locations he immortalized in his paintings. I was somewhat successful, but even when I wasn't, at least I had fun en route.

My most recent paintings have, of course, been of the Cape. I painted two interiors of the motel rooms I stayed in, and several street scenes from Provincetown. I've found myself wondering about the people I paint in my street scenes, what lives they lead, their relationships with each other. It's the same with my interiors. Despite their emptiness, my intent is to make the viewer curious about the previous occupants, or the occupants to be.

I have a few more paintings yet to post. I've also just completed a Monet forgery for the upcoming Fakes & Forgeries exhibition at Spring Bull Gallery in Newport, RI, and in the next few days I'll start on my next painting project. A new year, and a new start. Hopefully it'll be a successful painting year!

ALRI Associate Members Show

"End of Winter Sale" 2009 - 16x24"

It's showtime again. This time I entered a painting into the Art League of Rhode Island exhibit "End of Winter" at Spring Bull Gallery in Newport, which opened tonight. I named my painting "End of Winter Sale". Not very original, I know, but I was trying to be clever.

I've also just completed two other paintings for the Portsmouth Arts Guild Annual Members All-Media Exhibition which starts March 12. I went for a floral theme, inspired by some beautiful pale pink tulips I'd been given in February for my birthday. My style was much more representational with these pieces, only because I wanted to render the beauty of the flowers more accurately.

I have one more month to paint and prepare for the upcoming shows before I'm away on holiday for 3 weeks. I'm going to New Zealand in April to visit family and friends. I only get back home every 2 years or so, so I'm really looking forward to the trip, and hoping for a lot of photo ops so I can paint up a storm when I get back.

"Ballerina" and "Tulips" 2009 - 11x14"

Fakes and Forgeries

"The Dream" (Original by Pablo Picasso), 18x24"

I finished my Picasso forgery this week. I learnt a few interesting facts about "The Dream", or "Le Reve" as it's also known, while painting it. Firstly, as I think I mentioned in a previous blog, the lady in the painting is Marie-Therese Walter, one of Picasso's lovers whom he had a child with. On researching Ms Walter, I discovered she was only 17 years old when they met, and though their relationship didn't last, Picasso supported her financially for the rest of her life.

Most curiously, I discovered that Picasso liked to include the image of a penis in some of his paintings. I didn't notice it at first, but it seems pretty obvious now. Just take a look at the top half of Ms Walter's face. Yes, there's a penis! In this case, I read that the penis represents Ms Walter's sexual dream.

I also found out that the original painting is currently owned by Steve Wynn, a wealthy art collector who was on the verge of selling "The Dream" when he accidentally damaged it. While showing it to some friends, he lost his balance and put his elbow through the canvas, tearing a small hole the size of a silver dollar. An expensive accident! He decided to keep the painting after that.

I still like this painting a lot. Despite having a penis on her head, I think Marie-Therese is beautiful in her own way. I'm putting it in the Fakes & Forgeries show at Spring Bull in February.

Late Night Movie

Inspiration can come from anywhere. Yesterday it came from glancing at a postcard from Spring Bull Gallery in Newport, RI. They sent me a Call for Entries, listing the shows they're holding over the next few months, and one in particular called Ticket Please caught my eye.

Sometimes I'll create a painting specifically for a show, which is a fun way of getting the creative juices flowing and perhaps painting something you wouldn't normally paint. The theme for Ticket Please is the "creative expression of an event in which you purchase a ticket" so I decided on "going to the movies" as my subject matter. As it happens I'd actually taken photos of the inside of a cinema a few months ago, as strange as that may seem, so I had reference photos on hand. I'm a big fan of Edward Hopper and his painting "New York Movie", which inspired me to take the photos in the first place.

I did a sketch yesterday, and began painting today. Hopefully in the next week or two I'll have the finished result.

"New York Movie" 1939 - Edward Hopper