This is a study of Wychmere Harbor. This is just how a study of mine looks on site. Loose, heavy rich paint and soft edges.

This new painting is available.  Just email for details or contact one of my galleries.

No one likes to fly. Too many people packed into small seats, breathing recycled air.

We got to the airport early so we could get to the lounge early, eat,  relax  and listen for our boarding call. Immediately we found the convenient automated check-in for our luggage.

Only then did I learn that I was “Tagged.”

What does that mean?

It means you cannot put your luggage through early. It means you must first speak to an airline steward and then hopefully, zip, zip I’m in, I guessed.  So we were still really early and there was plenty of time to get through this check-in process.

Air Lingus opened my bags, inspected my easel, asked a lot of questions, stated how happy they were with me painting there lovely country, and sheepishly informed me there was “no way I would be boarding this flight with a box full of oil paints.”

I haggled and reasoned and pleaded to them that they certainly were not in the habit of confiscating every artist’s oil paints from all the artists like myself that travel, to paint their marvelous Island.

I reasoned all the previous times I have traveled there and other international destinations to paint on location, and no airline ever took away my paints. Or even looked twice at my cadmium and ochers . (Except for the years I painted with the big tubes of lead white which always set off the security x-ray machine alarms and they thought it was a gun.)  But even then, they just taped over the hinges of the paint box to secure it for the flights and always let me keep my lead white.

But they did take all my oils this day.

They confiscated my dangerous, toxic very expensive oil paints and they are probably sitting in some drawer somewhere being very dangerous.

But it didn’t end there. Air Lingus searched my bags again and again at every stop, before I boarded.  Then when I finally got into my seat after waiting in long now late passenger lines,  I relaxed for a minute, only to be asked to get off the plane with my bags to  meet with additional security personnel.

Here I was patted  down, apologized to, and my nearly empty carry-on searched once again.

They were so nice and let me keep my brushes and my paintings.  And actually after being searched so many times, I had to wonder while I stood there watching that last search,  how they could continually miss my palette knife and mat knife in plain site.

It’s been windy (we are high) and that has really been my only challenge to paint. I get past this by weighting down the easel, hanging my paint bag off one of the legs.

On the downside there are tiny ticks everywhere and I can see how the mosquitoes are going to be thick shortly.(glad to be missing that).  It’s frustrating to only work small with such big views, and it’s hard to narrow down the subjects to paint with the strong landscape vistas everywhere. I have been told I can paint anywhere and not to worry about trespassing on any of the farms, so I don’t.

I have done seven studies here in three to four days and am sad to be leaving this area today. I like the feeling that I will make it back here again to continue to explore such a vibrant array of subjects. This is my fifth trip to Ireland  and could very well be my last with so much else to see in the world. It’s hard to immerse yourself in such a beautiful place, soak it all in, capture the essence of a land, and then abruptly leave forever.

But that is the reality of traveling to paint.

My peeps and I are off today, heading back towards Dublin City unless we see an intriguing area along the way and then we will stay there a night or two.

Dublin has more to paint then I’ll ever get to. But I try.

I was able to paint two studies on location in St. Stephens Green, going for the urban landscape.  The weather has been excellent, sunny, warm and comfortable. I have also taken a lot of photos around the city in preparation for a series of paintings I have been thinking about doing for years. These will be large major paintings for studio work.

Below is the windowsill in our B&B. When you travel and paint on location, knowing you eventually have a flight to look forward to,  everything must fit into your limited space…without sticking together. You must keep the oils in locations conducive to drying.  Keep them in the sun.

More soon from Donegal.

I seized them greedily, as this picture displays. Yes, they break but I like the weight of them. I like that they were eaten off of by my aunt for years. Now they live in the studio and soon a couple small plates will make it to Dublin in my paint box for a trip abroad.

Have you seen what they are selling in art stores for palettes?  What  a waste of money. Round plastic saucers with no place to mix your colors.

This shot is of my easel and the bottom of a Manhattan painting in progress. With the display of my aunts dishes, which mirror this paintings colors. To me it displays a comfort zone of a work station showing studio tools of the trade.

By Monday I will be in Ireland with my portable studio, ready to work under unforeseeable conditions and subjects.

I am still young enough to hike around the moors and go trespassing, after a long day of driving on the other side of the road. It will not be a successful painting trip, till some farmer hollers at me from across his field. These trips are all about pushing it and getting out of your comfort zone, and having fun.

I will be posting from Ireland about this trip, my fifth here and most likely my last last to the Emerald Island.  The world is so big and there is so much to see.

The roses  in full bloom, and island ferry boats going in and out of the harbor every few minutes for Nantucket.

I painted this Hyannisport view quickly, listening to the sounds of the harbor, mixing for the purist colors , talking to the tourists while trying to keep my Jeep from being towed.

Here are some of my students on location at Hyannis Harbor yesterday. We concentrated on working small, fast, color studies.  Our ferry boat subjects moved in and out of the harbor to Nantucket. Everyone did a great job in the heat.

I have a new 6 week class beginning at the Cape Cod Art Association on Monday June 25, 2010.

Check out some class videos on Youtube.

Email any questions.

There are so many great places to paint on site in Boston, especially on a rainy Saturday. With the warmer weather,  I have put the studio work aside and am traveling around and painting on location.

This work is refreshing and a needed balance to the larger, winter, studio paintings I have been finishing recently.  I am trying to balance the existing work with these new pieces, balance the inside paintings with working outside now.

This is a photo of a roughed-in start. The third painting of a new Boston Waterfront Series  I’ve begun for my late summer show “The Bean and the Cod ” in Orleans at the Elizabeth Rowley Gallery.

Oyster River runs through Chatham Massachusetts. As a child my father and I weaved down it through the idle boats out to fish in the dark mornings. That’s what I remember most.

And for the time being I am still close enough to come down and paint along it’s banks whenever I choose. There are a lot of paintings here. The last couple weeks I have come back here to see Mrs. S. We can talk about people my parents were friends with forty years ago.  She has a garden built over her old chicken coup and the soil is like gold to this gardener. I have come by twice this June and her roses are still not open, so I painted looking back toward Oyster Pond and the town center.

I had noticed this view last week and have been painting it in my mind. She made us coffee as the fog rolled in.

There are probably a lot of artists out there that hide their art too.  There is something very refreshing about putting new work away, out of site, out of reach, out of mind, whether you are really conscious of it or not.  Before you know it you are busy on something else, then something else, and then one random morning you are holding  a new  French study that hasn’t been seen in four years. That’s what happened to me recently.

I was busy doing something in the studio and I came across this small study, and immediately I knew it was  from Sarlat in the Dordogne  region.  It’s funny how you can lose a whole painting for four years but remember precisely how you painted it that morning. It was misty and damp. I headed right out to paint first thing, finding a view,  working just off of one of the main roads leading into this Medieval town.  It was beautiful out, distant smoke and  rolling small farms.

But my study did not go so well. When your work doesn’t go well it usually means you don’t know what you are doing or you just can’t fix it  then. Sometimes it can be hard to paint on location when the view in front of you, everywhere around you looks so foreign and rich. When I came back to Massachusetts from France I put it away out of view.

So it was very cool to find this hidden study left in its state of discontent.

This was painted in France on a historic morning in my life. This day I realized granola tastes just fine without the milk. You can eat it right out of the box driving down the road looking for a strong place to work. When I found this small oil waiting patiently,  I immediately wanted to paint back into it.  It came together quickly.  It’s probably been percolating in the back of my mind over many  breakfasts.

Feeney,  “Salat France”  9×12 Started on location.

Available at the Rowley Gallery.

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