12×16 oil on canvas panel
Painted during the 2024 Paint Grand Marais competition. The fire ring at the Hungry Hippie Hostel, where I was staying, just begged me all week to paint it!
18×14 oil on linen panel
This was painted on a dirt road outside of Grand Marais, Minnesota. I pulled off the road and sat above this lovely creek. This became more of an impression of the patterns and waves I saw in this lovely spot.
16×12 oil on canvas panel
This was painted at a YMCA camp in Northern Minnesota. It was cool in the woods, and I wanted to capture this sense of coolness and serenity by emphasizing the blues.
18×14 oil on canvas panel
Painted near Grand Marais, MN. This grove of birch trees was on the road to the Hungry Hippie Hostel, where I was staying during the plein air event. I loved how it glowed in the afternoon sun!
12×16 oil on canvas panel
My week in northern Minnesota had been amazingly warm and sunny for September. I loved the morning mist on Lake Superior just miles from the Canadian border. Halfway through this painting, Mother Nature decided it was time for a downpour, the only rain of the week. Me, my pallete and paints, and the painting, all became soaked!
14×18 oil on canvas panel
This was painted in Northern Minnesota, almost on the Canadian border. I was on a dock looking down at the plants floating in and on the water. I found the patterns that formed made a nice composition.
14×18 oil on canvas panel.
Painted in Port Washington, WI, during the 2023 Paint Cedarburg event. The wind was so fierce that I had to lash my tripod and palette to a railing. It was also very cold, which sent me home. I returned the next day hoping the boats would still be there. They were!
oil 18x14
This was painted during the 2023 Brushstrokes competition in Dubuque IA. It’s a gas pipe which I had seen during the day. When I went back that night I was glad the gas was still on and on fire!
oil 18x14
Painted during the 2023 Cedarburg, WI plein air competition.
16x12 oil
Painted in a park near Mahtomedi, MN while I stayed at my son’s apartment watching his cats, as he was on a trip to China! I needed something to do…
oil 20x16
Painted during the 2023 “Paint the Point” plein air competition in Mineral Point, WI. It was during the hazy days due to Canadian wildfires, and the whole atmosphere was an eerie orangish white. I tried to evoke the feeling of otherworldliness this gave me.
2ox16 oil on canvas panel
I had painted this scene the year before near Jefferson, WI. I wanted to revisit this place and try a new take on it.
oil 16x12
This was painted outside Plum Bottom Gallery in Door County, WI. Since I didn’t make my own shade by putting my umbrella up, this work fell prey to the dreaded painting in light phenomenom, a too dark painting! So…it was touched up in the studio!
16x20 oil
Painted in Augusta, Missouri on my birthday. It was a miserable day, cold and windy. I could barely keep my easel up, and certainly no umbrella! I tried to evoke that weather while looking at this beautiful valley.
oil 12x16
Winner of a Purchas Award at the “Shorewood Fresh 40” art show.
This was painted outside Plum Bottom Gallery in Door County, WI. I loved the tangled mess of the wild grape vines along with the early autumn color!
18x14 oil
Painted in Augusta, MO. I love the bright yellow of this building, which is an art gallery. The title refers to the fact that yellow and purple are complimentary colors!
oil on canvas 14x18
This was painted during the 2023 Bluff Strokes plein air competition held in Dubuque, IA. I was painting near Sinsinawa, a Dominican retreat center located in Wisconsin just east of the Mississippi River. It was early morning and mist was rising from the river in the humid air.
oil 18x14
Painted in Port Washington, WI. I wanted to challenge myself by painting boats. Boy, was it a challenge! Not because of the subject, but because the weather was cold and extremely windy! I had to batten down my hatches!
14x18 oil
Painted in Augusta, MO. How could I not paint this beautiful blue barn? It looked so striking! Later, I found out that it has been a popular subject for others to paint, for years! I know why!
24x12 oil
Painted in Dubuque, IA. I loved the abstract quality of the shapes and lights on this downward sloping road.
20x16, oil PB
Painted during the “Paint Grand Marais” event in Northern MN. The weather in northern Minnesota in September is very unpredictible! During this week, though, there was only one terribly rainy day, and I didn’t let it stop me from painting! This is a view from under the canopy of my camper in the state forest where I stayed. Never let a little (or a lot) of rain deter you!
16x12 oil PB
Painted during the “Paint Grand Marais” event in northern MN. It was a half-mile hike to these falls. Well, 1/2 mile to set up, 1/2 mile back to get my forgotten phone, 1/2 mile hike in again, then a 1/2 back trip when I was finished. Well worth 2 miles of hiking!
14x18 oil PB
Painted during the “Paint Grand Marais” event in northern MN. Can you tell that I was sitting precariously on the jagged rocks with all my “hatches” battened down? Lake Superior in September-well worth the travails!
oil 20z16
Painted during the 2022 Waukesha, WI plein air competition.
PBG
14x18, oil
Winner of Best Nocturne in the 2022 Waukesha, WI plein air competition.
I used to have my studio in Waukesha, and this quarry facility is on the road which I would drive to get there. I swore I would paint it some day. Though I no longer have that studio, the Waukesha competition gave me the perfect excuse to paint it! As usual, I finished up around 11:30 pm, cold but feeling accomplished!
14x18, oil
Painted behind Commerce Street in Mineral Point WI. There was a car parked next to the building. A woman stopped by and we chatted. She told me it was her car and she would move it. The next day, at the show, another woman told me it was her building, and another woman told me it was her sister’s building. You always hope for a sale at these events and I thought this one was in the bag! It can be yours…
SOLD
16x12, oil
This view of Quarry Lake in Harrington Beach State Park was painted on a dreary and rainy day. I managed to almost avoid the rain but wanted to give a sense of the dampness this day was dishing out!
11x14, oil
This was the “Quick Paint” for the “Paint the Point” event in Mineral Point, WI. We had 2 hours to paint and turn in a framed piece. I’ve painted this slightly run-down building before as I really like the shape of it and the lovely blue doors.
14x18, oil
This was painted during the 2022 Cedarburg plein air competition. Most artists paint this part of the creek looking the other way. I like to go against the “flow” and looked in the opposite direction because I loved how the water cascaded over the rocks!
24x12, oil
The weather in Jefferson, WI was either super hot or windy and rainy that week. Guess on which kind of day this was painted! Only a die-hard would set up in the grass next to an asphalt road in temperatures heading toward 90 degrees!
20x16, oil PB
Painted during the 2022 “First Brush of Spring” plein air event in New Harmony, IN. I was enchanted by the way the trees looked in the early spring, with sparkles of light glimpsed through the half budded trees.
14x18, oil PB
Painted on yet another rainy and windswept day! This time in Plymouth, WI. I won’t say I even tried to paint this scene without windy brushstrokes-it was impossible!
18x14, oil
This nocturne was painted next to a garbage bin behind a restaurant in Mineral Point, WI. It was finished around midnight. I didn’t mind though, as the yellow umbrellas really caught my eye! Ah, the life of a plein air artist!
18x14, oil PB
Painted during “The First Brush of Spring” plein air event in New Harmony, IN
16x12, oil
Painted at Governor Dodge State Park, WI. On a hot and sunny day, I always try to find a spot in the shade so that I don’t burn up. I found this shady nook in the state park with the perfect view, and with the aid of my battered hat I turned out only slightly pink!
Painted at Plum Bottom Gallery and available at www.plumbottomgallery.com
18x14, oil PB
Painted during the 2019 New Berlin (WI) Plein Air Competition.
20x10, oil PB
The colorful leaves and the lovely Fox River in Waukesha were a challenge to paint, as to get this view I had to scrunch up in a corner of a fenced-in area under a hot Autumn sky. Painted during the 2021 Waukesha Plein Air Competition.
12x9, oil
The wall behind Fiddleheads coffee shop, painted during the Cedarburg Plein Air Competition. 2018. Blue Ribbon Award of Excellence from the Wauwatosa Artists Workshop exhibit at the Cedarburg Cultural Center, 2021.
12x24, oil
Painted during the 2019 New Berlin Plein Air Competition. I love sunsets so much that sometimes I practically leave out the landscape altogether! Here, I was on a hill overlooking an orchard with apples and plums (but you’d never know it)!
14x11, oil
The old fire house-painted during the Cedarburg Plein Air Competition, 2018.
9x12, oil PB
Painted during an outdoor concert in Jefferson, Wisconsin as part of the Jefferson Plein Air Competition, 2018.
11x14, oil
This was the “Quick Paint” during a Jefferson, WI plein air competition. The color of this restaurant, light, and shadows just had to be painted-and they were-in less than 2 1/2 hours!
12x12, oil
Painted during the 2018 Jefferson Plein Air Competition. This is an iconic pedestrian bridge in Jefferson. I loved the way it looked at night with its slightly odd curves lit up at night.
16x12, oil PB
Painted during “The First Brush of Spring” in New Harmony, IN on the Wabash River.
11x14, oil PB
Painted during “The First Brush of Spring” plein air event in New Harmony, IN
18x14, oil
It really was before the storm! Painted in Waukesha, WI it started to drizzle but with my 2 umbrellas I could still paint. Then it really exploded! I managed to run the painting to the car, but all my gear and me got drenched. All needed to dry out overnight but the painting survived!
14x11, oil
Painted during a plein air workshop given by artist Shelby Keefe. One of my first plein air paintings!
oil 18x14
This was the “Quick Paint” for the 2022 Bluff Strokes competition in Dubuque, IA. It was painted in 2 hours, and shows two of the many church steeples in this beautiful old river town.
14x18 oil
Painted during the 2023 “Paint the Point” event in Mineral Point, WI. This area is in the middle of the “driftless” area of Wisconsin, which means the glaciers didn’t come through, leaving rolling hills and deep valleys.
