Paintings in Progress

This page shows a selection of oil and pastel paintings in progress

to demostrate some of the steps involved in my methods

Above, "September Serenity," Celebration Series painting No 3/25 (sold), shown in progress

My Celebration Series shows available series paintings and several in progress, the point at which many of them are sold.

The photos of in-progress paintings on this page (one small pastel at right) are taken with a cell phone by natural north light at the completion of my painting work day, which often means in dimming light conditions.

Colors of original paintings are always best viewed in person. Cameras, programs and varying monitors and devices all show colors differently. Hopefully, what you see will be a good approximation of the creations you're viewing.

In progress at right is an 11" x 14" pastel on Canson paper, as yet unnamed. The loosely applied squiggly lines in the foreground are temporary chalk marks to show the general direction of future rivulets n the sand.

"All Creatures Great and Small"

24" x 18" oil on Italian linen on birch wood panel in progress

We are working on developing a new website, is still waiting for the final brush strokes.

Almost ready to sign. I've got it in the public studio today and it was good backing away a good distance and seeing it with fresh eyes, even on a very cloudy day.

Image 1 - This is where the painting started, with a drawing to familiarize myself with the subject's shape, shadows and feathers.

The original drawing has been traced and the traced image was then transferred to the smooth surface of my five times oil-primed 24" x 18" Italian linen panel.

The lightly transferred image has been gone over with blue watercolor pencil, I've applied a sheet of self-adhesive frisket film over the egret and then did my first color glaze of the sky.

A closeup of the plastic frisket that was carefully cut out, leaving it on the egret and tree limb so they remain white while a blend sky colors all over the linen panel.

I use disposable foam plates occasionally when blending large amounts of a color range so I don't mess up my multicolor palette (shown at the top of this page).

After the crimson wash thoroughly dried two days after applying it, I've glazed some of the blues that will be the foundation of the sky, warmed by the crimson underneath.

Three days later, I'm shown very carefully removing the frisket film with a thin palette knife. It's a delicate process.

Finally, I'm beyond the must delicate area of the egret's head. The rest of the frisket comes off more easily.

After the frisket is entirely removed, I'm shown using my palette knife to very, very carefully scrape down small ridges where the wet paint met the frisket.

More cleanup is done with tiny brush strokes in the direction of feathers to cover the little bit of paint that bled through.

Finally I get to start glazing in thin layers of color on the egret.

Deepening the first glazing.

Final steps will be refining the shading of feathers and doing the veil of very fine feathering across the egret's legs and darkest areas of the tree limb.

When I stopped working yesterday, my tired eyes thought the tree was finished. It's not. The darkest shadows need to be lightened and more color in the lower limb's rough bark is needed. The last touch will be the egret's gently blowing fine feathering.

The painting with my iPad showing one of the images I'm working from. I've deepened the sky colors so egret's fines tail feathers will show up. Next photo is closer up.

I've covered tail feathers I painted earlier with a deeper sky color. When the sky is dry, I'll recreate the feathers by removing some of the sky colors to reveal the white underneath and add more very fine feathering with titanium white and a very slim Rosemary sword brush.

I badly wanted to show a lot of progress today, our first day with adequate light for painting in more than a week - but the background still wasn't dry! A fan is blowing on it gently and the dry heat going almost nonstop because of the cold winds outside will hopefully dry it enough in another day. The white paint needed for the fine tail feathers will drag instead of flow if the background isn't dry enough.

I'm embarrassed to even show this at this point. Some of the painting has progressed nicely, but I've redone the back tail feathers at least five times, finally coming to the conclusion that it will take more individual steps. Every time I did the cross feathers, something smeared. Step one here - again - drying.

Beginning the Egret's "bridal veil " of aigrette feathers. When completed, the aigrettes will extend well beyond the bottom of the bird's tail and off to the side, blowing gently in a breeze. (Sky colors in the photos vary with lighting, but in person are the same.)

First 3 pics taken 1/2/26 in blue winter light before painting session. Tail feathers & shading not done.

This is the same photograph as the next one here, just cropped and different exposure. The actual image is somewhere in between. but the best way to see its true colors is in person.

Today, while the sun lasted, I added shading, increasing depth. More shading, finishing legs & feet, and refining the long aigrettes still ahead. Adding my signature, too. Best seen in person!

Final touches are coming, then done! In the next photos, darker colors were added where in prep to paint the white aigrettes over them.

This photo was taken in dim light but I'm afraid contrast is blown out. Super thin feathers and the tree were worked on - final tweaking, signing and better photo next session!

This image and the next show sky colors better but are not showing the egret's shading or tree limb's colors well. I think this one will be best seen in person.

"Toward the Dawn"

A great blue heron emerges from morning marshland mist in this 16" x 20" oil

on portrait grade canvas

The finished painting. A few of the steps are shown in the next photos.

The foundation of two 16" x 20" paintings began with the same color but different waterways drawn in blue pencil. A collector chose the one on the left, which became Winding Peace. Here I'm playing with paper bird drawings to show ideas to the collector.

What would become Awakening was left by itself on the easel to contemplate.

I missed taking pics of some steps. Here, I've laid out the marshes in shades of ochre, Van Dyke Brown and several other translucent colors and deepened the sky color.

A back bay pastel in the works

Dramatic pastel sunset across a bay with an osprey nest and marsh grasses in the foreground.

This glowing sunset is beginning to take shape, here with a NuPastel stick being used to create highlights on the clouds.

This is the start of a 27.5" x 19" pastel of the back bay area of coastal Delaware at sunset. I'm trying a new type of surface, PastelMat, in this case in the color Sable. It's interesting to work with. The jury is out.

Introducing blue. The golden tones underneath influence the shades of blue.

Opening up the sky with passages of blue.

Adding more blue and darker underpainting for cloud formations.

The "ugly stage" roughly blocked in underpainting everywhere.

Once clouds are fully laid out, they'll be softened, blended and highlighted.

Blocking in more clouds and strengthening the blues.

I'm' discovering that pastels (chalk) don't glide over the surface of PastelMat the way they do on rag paper and other pastel surfaces. Time will tell.

Highlights are being added to the clouds in this pic. A lot of refining is coming.

I've softened the dark clouds and deepened the orange/red on the horizon as underpainting, which I'll go back over with lighter tones, then use those same tones for glowing highlights on the clouds above. Patches of blue will shine through the grey in the mass of upper clouds on the left. It's a process that will make sense in the end. Once the horizon is the way I like it, an osprey's nest will appear.

A sky I saw coming home along the marshy back bay area near Dewey Beach, Delaware,
called me to paint it. You're invited to follow along and watch it develop here.

You can read about my approach to and reason for using chalk pastels and
my other chosen paint mediums on this page.

Children's Portrait Commission

Below is one of my favorite portraits, painted last year for grandparents of the children in the painting to give as a Christmas gift to their daughter. Slideshow of progress stages is coming.

A seaside oil portrait of sisters looking at each other with love on the beach.

"Always Your Friend" in different lighting. Progress shots coming.

"Let There be Light"

I put this oil aside for quite awhile when I took on several large commissions. It's out on the easel again, and the original and a small number of prints will be released in print when satisfactorily completed.

The finished painting, now in a private collection. Prints debut in November 2025. Click slideshow or hit Play to see a brief tour of some of the steps involved in painting it.

And more underlying colors, not worrying about exact placement. This is still underpainting.

I taped off the horizon line using archival artist's tape. This helps keep the horizon line straight, but care must be taken not to build a ridge of paint along the tape's edge.

Different lighting. The blues laid over the oranges and reds are completely dry before pulling the tape.

Tape removed, I determined that the underlying colors of the water and beach needed to be lighter.

Still very rough as I lay in the forms, determining what goes where, and taking shape..

NOT FINISHED!!! (despite people thinking it is). There's still more color glazing to do mostly on the water and sand.

Letting it sit for awhile to decide if it's finished.

Yes! "Let There Be Light"....

12" x 12" oil portrait of a Tortie European Burmese kitten named Tipper

I hoped the owner would feel like she could almost touch the soft fur

of this little one when looking at Tipper's painting.

Finished portrait.

First I sketched the kitten, working out composition, then, after oil priming the canvas and letting it dry, I transferred the outlines of my drawing onto the canvas.

The first work with oils was basically sketching with an almost watercolor technique using professional grade burnt umber oils mixed heavily with Liquin to begin laying out color patterns. The photo was provided and the owner wanted the color background to capture that point in time.

A little farther along. There were many hours spent making sure this Tortie European Burmese's color patterns were portrayed accurately.

More touchups.

The almost finished painting. As soon as I posted this I saw a minor change to make, maybe two. Click the arrow to see several stages of this 12" x 12" oil on cotton canvas.

Still more.

"Sunlit Sonata"

A 6" x 8" oil on a very finely textured Belgium linen panel (sold)

Sunlit Sonata

Searching through my pics, it looks like I missed the first session on this one, laying in a couple of glazes, covering the oil-primed fine linen in a peachy white. In this photo, I've painted wet into wet with a mix of blues, burnt umber and white for general placement of the surf.

Here I've deepened the dark areas of sand, defined the general shape of waves with highlights on top that pick up on the peachy base color in the sky, and introduced pale and dark green showing sunlight passing through the wave.

Here I've accentuated what was done in the last session, deepening shadows and adding bits of clear water revealing sand under the sea foam.

Working quickly because the studio's dry heat is drying paint too quickly for me, I've added a lot more detail in the foam, sand, shadows and breakers.

Definition in the ocean beyond the breakers adds depth and motion.

"Summer on the Shore", a 12" x 9" oil on Belgium linen (sold)

You can see the completed painting and purchase prints here .

This is an iPhone photo taken with light coming from the left side, highlighting the Belgium linen's slubs. The original is sold, but prints are available..

"Best friend" portrait commission of late friend "Abby"

Sometimes there are no photos that show a departed loved one as you'd like to remember them.

Here, numerous pics were used to recreate a favorite memory of a couple's late fur child on her favorite beach.

Portrait of a dog on its favorite beach with a lighthouse in the background and intricate footprints in the foreground.

Signing the finished oil portrait of "Abby" on her favorite beach.

Photo 1 - I started underpainting with a neutral tint of white, let that dry, then did a wash of Alizarian crimson, let that dry two days, then went back and started on the blues in the sky, blending and blending for more than an hour to create movement and using the same mix of blues to create shadows in the sand.

Photo 2 - Next came thin washes of ochre and umber to create a warm, sunny glow on the base of the sand.

Photo 3 - Next came darker washes of the same colors. Remember each wash requires drying for more than a day before going on to the next.

Photo 4 - I decided the washes weren't dark enough for the shadow colors of the sand, so went darker with thin glazes of umber, ochre and Payne's grey mixed together, recreating the hues I saw in the photo I'm working from.

Photo 5 - After the last session was completely dry, I started speckling the foreground with a variety of colors to bring out the grainy texture of the sand. Soon will come a few more speckles and then footprints of my subject.

Photo 8 - waves and more texture and shading in the sand were added. See the progress by clicking the right facing arrow.

You can see this painting progress by clicking the arrows or Play. Here, I'm sketching the subject of a beach portrait with white oil paint, removing paint with a rubber tipped tool to loosely show dimension. The background painting is already dry. When the dog's underpainting dries I'll begin adding color.

First layer of white undercoating and shadow completed. Now the base must dry two days.

Beginning rough blocking in of colors on face.

Starting to rough in colors over dog's body, wet into wet over dried white, not refining features yet.

"Nor'easter Blowing" (sold)

I hope you can feel the wind!

Soft morning light in the sky contrasts with wind blowing the tops off waves in Nor'Easter Blowing oil painting.

This image and the last in the slideshow are of the finished oil in different light situations.

In the second stage of glazes, I have added a mix of Payne's grey, manganese blue and white to the sky area except for the break in the clouds, which has more of the original yellow, crimson and white mix, blended with the blues.

This is underpainting. The first layer was a mix of Titanium white, Naples yellow and Alizaron crimson over the entire canvas, followed by washes of a sand color of Payne's grey, white and burnt umber where the ocean will be.

I used a thin mixture of Payne's grey and indigo as a glaze over the underpainting to create ocean colors, dabbing more concentrated color in linear dashes to indicate what will later be whitecaps.

All of the foreground was done at one time working over the dry dark underpainting with shades of blue, grey, green and white. While this may look finished to some, it still requires refining from top to bottom, beginning with softening the clouds at top and adding more seaspray over the wave.