Des Plaines River at Flood

I recently spent an afternoon at Ryerson Farms, to walk along its muddy trails, sit under the shade of an Oak Tree in a meadow, the soundtrack a hum of honey bees around a hive or the occasional screech of a Red-tailed Hawk. Along the rushing waters of the DesPlaines River I stopped to capture a small grouping of trees leaning over the coffee-colored waters that rushed by. Several feet below me on a bank next to the water sat an American Bullfrog motionless the entire afternoon basking in the warm summer sun while I sat painting.

Des Plaines River at Flood
Watercolor on hot press paper, 9 x 12

More Underwater adventures

Another piece I am currently working on which is titled "School's Out" started out as a crappy video I took on my iPhone while snorkeling a couple of months ago. Swimming between coral heads just off shore with my wife, we were instantly surrounded by a school of thousands of 3-4" fish flashing brilliantly in the sun. As we moved, so did the fish, swooping and diving in shimmering synchrony.

After coming home and reflecting on the experience and then watching the video, I started doing some oil sketches to play with color and composition. The images below are studies for this piece as well as playing with color from underwater images take around Vancouver Island from a trip a few years ago. 

In the meantime, I've been so taken with the underwater world, that I am reupping my scuba license (I was quite active in the sport about 25 years ago, including a stint as a Coral Reef Diver at Shedd Aquarium in Chicago) with my son who is getting his for the first time. My goal is to return to Vancouver as well as a number of other spots in the world to gain reference for future paintings. Stay tuned!

School's Out - Oil Study, 8 x 10

Abyss - Color Study

Vancouver on My Mind - Oil Color Study. 
Looking up through the kelp beds
 towards the shimmering sun. 

Completion of Moray

The month of May disappeared as my three kids all graduated college over the course of three weekends, so I've spent a fair amount of time on the road visiting them. Now that things have settled down a bit, I've been able to get on with my latest paintings.

I put the finishing touches on Moray! which is shown below. If you are curious to see what the preliminary studies look like, please visit my earlier blogposts from April and March which show sketches and some oil studies. It is the result of a chance encounter I had with a Moray Eel while snorkeling near Stingray City on Grand Cayman back in March.

Moray! 18 x 36, Oil on Panel

A Fish Tale: More Island Inspiration

Years ago, I spent hours underwater as a scuba diver while many a Midwestern lake or quarry and a few warm water locales floated in front of my mask. But it was long enough ago, that what remained were mere wisps of memory, more emotional traces than visual imprints. Until recently. 

The trip I took with family last month triggered something in me that won't rest. I feel as if I were set back in my native environment, my gills breathing anew after having flopped about on the beach of life. Having long been a tropical fish aquarist, I set up a saltwater tank (reef-friendly) to remain a bit closer to the source while continuing to draw inspiration from video and images shot on site and underwater. While not yet having a specific image in mind to make into a larger piece, I am exploring a variety of themes for which I created a couple of oil sketches. 

The first is based upon a pen sketch I published back in March just after returning, in which I was snorkeling in about 10' of water and leveled off at the bottom to swim up to the base of a coral-head. As I approached it a fairly large Green Moray Eel swam out to greet me. Lodged in my head is the moment she came rushing out taking me by complete surprise. 

Moray! 12 x 6, oil on panel

The other image is based upon one of many videos captured using my iPhone with a plastic-bag type affair. Though close to shore and fairly picked over, the diversity of life on the reef was none-the-less stunning. Every nook and cranny was filled with life as schools of fish worked their way around sea fans and coral, the scene caressed by the dappled sun. 

I hope it is none too soon before I once again feel the stinging of the salt in my eyes as I am bathed in the crystal blue waters of life. 

Karen's Cove, 12 x 6, oil on panel

A Quick Portrait and Remembering the Falls

While trying to get my feet back under me after returning from the recent trip, I returned to Richard Halstead's studio for a visit a couple of weeks ago. I was able to do an oil sketch of one of his regular models. Thank you as always Richard, for your kindness and ready access to your vast knowledge of portraiture and all things art-related.

Steve, Again. 9 x 12, oil on panel. 

Ryerson Farms Falls

As the snow took a while to leave the area and I didn't feel like donning warm clothes to paint outdoors, I decided to dig through some reference material taken over the past few months and came across a great series of photos I had take of one of my favorite nature preserves in the Chicago area, Ryerson Farms. If you haven't been there, plan on spending part of an day walking around their grounds, which includes a farmstead with a number of animals and fowl, a new visitors center and miles of walking trails in the Des Plaines River basin. 

At the end of one of the trails sits a cabin at the river's edge, sidled up to gently rolling falls. It was a fall day with all sorts of great colors, all reflected in the water on the upriver side of the falls. 

Ryerson Falls, 11 x 14 oil on panel. 

A View from the Islands

While traveling with family in the Cayman Islands recently, we snorkeled the reefs along Seven Mile Beach, Stingray City and Smith's Barcadere. The sketches below were completed after returning to shore, so that I could remember some of the sea life for later identification.


After a longer, deeper dive, I captured these images from Cemetery Reef, which was 20+ feet below the surface with the distant coral heads presenting as ghostly shapes outlined by brilliant white sand, through the translucent water.

Cemetery Reef, 5 x 7, Watercolor

Coral Life, 4 x 5, Watercolor

Follow the Path of Inspiration

The painting called Perserverence, shown further down the page, began as an exploration of texture and ended in a complete theme. It underscores how one has to be aware of possibility, letting things unfold without hurry, having the courage to follow turns and accidents as they occur, while not really knowing where they will end. Many times it ends as an interesting study that joins others in a drawer. Occasionally, they come to fruition like this particular painting, pushing beyond the limits of where we thought we could go, whether it be subject matter, technique or style. 

Bark Study, 11 x 14
Acrylic on Masonite

A number of years ago I was visiting family in the Pittsburgh area and their yard was filled with amazing pine trees sheathed in bark of varying hues of deep red, burnt siennas, grays, ambers, blues and greens. I found a particularly intriguing slice of bark laying on the ground at the base of a tree, which I decided to render. I had a gesso panel with me as well as my acrylics and started exploring the color and texture of the bark. I let my eyes run over the rough and tortured surface, leaping down into the perfectly round insect borings, out again over the checkered surface and through the valleys running between the individual blocks that made up the tree’s rough outer hide.

The study itself started with a series of thin washes of ochre to give the painting a base and a bit of tooth for the following layers to adhere to. For painting on gesso board, I sometimes thin my acrylics out to a watercolor consistency, allowing me to put down a series of quick drying luminous glazes that provide a really great base layer. I then used a small sea sponge to place down a layer of random texture, not so thick that it obscured the warm layers behind it, but enough to add visual interest. I then worked in areas of more solid color and drew in the forms of the bark blocks extending out to the edge of the drawing. I finished the sketch with some opaque whites and grays to simulate the reflective blue color appearing in the woody finish. The result is shown at left. I found the original piece of bark so interesting that I still have it today, stored along with the studies shown here in a flat file. 

Sawn Log Study, 9 x 12, Graphite

Still intrigued with the challenges of rendering bark, I did a follow-up drawing of a chain-sawed log that I pulled from the wood pile behind our house. The mechanical texture left by blade passing through the wood contrasting with the rough surface of the bark caught my eye and made for an interesting exercise. The result is at right.  

Several weeks after starting the process of studying bark, I was still not thinking of a painting, choosing to let it gestate while I gathered more reference. My wife and I were walking through a local forest preserve and discovered a Green Stink Bug making its way up the side of the tree. We watched as it slowly traversed the cavernous gullies in the bark. It made me think how if we humans were reduced to its size, this daily walk for this insect would be a challenge for even skilled mountaineers. It makes sense that it evolved wings to make the whole enterprise much easier! We took took a series of photos to capture its struggles and the sense of scale of the bug against the tree and set them aside for future reference.

Returning home, I went back to the wood pile for a bit more inspiration and came across another log that looked like it had started to sprout a limb before the tree was felled. From around this stump, the bark had pulled away, revealing a weird moonscape so I brought the log into the house and set about examining it with a magnifying glass. While doing some sketches of this particular log, reflecting back on the images we took in the forest as well as the earlier studies, the final image started to come together in my head. 

Composition Sketches

To capture the sense of vertical drama I had seen with the Stink Bug's climb, I chose a 12 x 36" format. Gessoing the Masonite surface with a roller, I put down three layers, sanding between each coat for a smooth finish with just a bit of tooth. I spent a fair amount of time completing a series of pencil and colored pencil sketches to get the composition just right, since it was an odd working size. 

Perserverence, 12 x 36
Acrylic on Masonite

The final result is shown right. The piece was done with acrylic, using a bit of retarder mixed in to do the main blending in the large woody area in the middle. I then painted my details on top of that using opaque mixes. For the bark, I used the sponge technique I had practiced with my smaller piece, adding in the details to the bark, leaving the rendering of the Stink Bug itself until the final phases of the painting. I then varnished it with a semi-gloss finish to bring out the color.

Since completing this painting, I have had a great regard for the silent sentinels that make up our forests, standing as mute testimony to the passage of time. I often will put my hands against them, feeling the sun warm their cold skin as they rise from their winter torpor or cool in the shadows they create as respite from summer’s hot breath. They are some of the oldest living things on Earth, with some species suspected of being in excess of 30,000 years old. To their kind, our brief Mayfly lives flit by around their bases as they push their leafy arms skyward towards the sun.