5×7″, oil on canvas covered hardboard, unframed
Email me at JamieWG@aol.com if interested in this painting.

This painting was done on location at Peach Lake in the Hudson Valley of New York State.

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6×8″, Oils on sealed, primed hardboard
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It was so cold standing in the wind at Olana while painting this that tears were running down my face!

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5×7″, Oil on canvas covered hardboard
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This old stone barn at Ward Pound Ridge Reservation is just loaded with character. It’s a wonderful subject in any season, but of course nothing beats fall!

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Click to enlarge:

16×20″, oils on sealed, primed hardboard
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From this spot nestled in the Catskill Mountains, there are gorgeous views from every angle. I can’t wait to go back in different seasons to experience the changes. This was painted from a photo I took while vacationing there with my husband, though I have painted here en plein air as well.

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8×10″, Oils on canvas covered hardboard
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This is the back yard and cottage of the place where I’m staying. Fall foliage is in full swing here, and I’m painting up a storm!

I didn’t have a chance to do a watercolor today, so it looks like Watercolor Wednesdays will have to resume next week.

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8×10″, Oils on canvas covered hardboard
Email me at JamieWG@aol.com if interested in this painting.

At the workshop today, Kenn spoke about hard and soft edges and did a beautiful painting demonstrating the topic. Then it was our turn to try our hand. It was freezing cold outside and raining on and off. Sometimes on those overcast days, the skies can be grey and dreary, but today there was lots of variation and color in the sky as the rains came and went from west to east. I had my painting umbrella, so I fared better than most.

I don’t have my light box setup here to photograph my paintings. The lighter clouds are much warmer in color. I’ll get a better photo once I get home and will then swap the images.

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36×24″, Oils on stretched canvas, unframed
Email me at JamieWG@aol.com if interested in this painting.

This large oil painting is a scene painted from a photo I took on Indian Hill Road in Garrison, New York. It is a mostly-unpaved road that leads down to Constitution Marsh. The fall foliage there is always the best anywhere!

For those who like to see things in progress, below is an image of how things began. I worked off both a computer monitor and printed photo, and used them more or less as a springboard to create the painting. I washed the background with yellows to start. This would give the feeling of the light filtering through the fall leaves as I added more layers. Once that yellow wash was on the canvas, I went right to the darkest darks and mapped out the painting in light and shadow.

The image below gives you an idea of how I go about laying in the leaves and colors.

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Cloudy Day Fall Hike
7×5x11″, Watercolor on 300# Saunders Waterford CP
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I started this yesterday on my usual Watercolor Wednesday, but amidst interruptions and having to take our Sun conure, Cookie, to the vet, I didn’t get a chance to finish it. You can see the work in progress that I posted yesterday by scrolling two posts down.

I painted this from a photo I took on Monday, when my husband and I went hiking around Lake Minnewaska. Although the day was heavily overcast, the foliage was at peak, and the vistas along the carriage trails were a treat.

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6×8″, Oils on sealed, primed hardboard
Email me at JamieWG@aol.com if interested in this painting.. Special: Free shipping within the Continental US until 10/16/08

This is my favorite tree along the lakeshore here. It turns this bright crimson color in fall, and I love the twists and turns of the trunk.

I painted this with my new little pochade box! It is the Guerrilla Painter Thumbox with the palette extension and watercolor palette. I filled the watercolor palette up with oil paints. That palette gets covered with the mixing palette, so the paints stay wet and it’s really fast to set up. Here’s a picture of the new box with a progress image of the painting:

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6×8″, oils on sealed, primed hardboard
Email me at JamieWG@aol.com if interested in this painting.

It was raining pretty heavily at 6:30am and I wondered if I should go up to the beautiful home of Hudson River School artist Frederic Church for the day. I finally decided to take the chance, and drove up to Olana.

It was heavily overcast when I got there, but the rain had ended. I set up my easel along this path winding down through the fields, where I enjoyed the serenity, atmospheric light, and fading distances.

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8×10″, Golden OPEN Acrylics on Canson board
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I love this spot in the Catskills with the little red barns. I’ve been doing a bunch of compositional and color studies to select a composition for a large painting of the scene. This is the third one I’ve done. It was painted mostly on location, and touched up a bit in the studio.

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12×12″, Oils on canvas covered hardboard
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This painting was started on dull, dreary, rainy Sunday. It was lifeless and boring, so I went back to Tilly Foster Farm this morning when the sun was shining to “turn on the lights”. I like it much better now as a happy day painting!

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12×16″, Oils on canvas covered hardboard
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This 12×16 oil painting was started on location, and finished up today in the studio. It highlights the strong oranges present in the landscape in fall. Nowhere is that more apparent than on the blazing orange-red fields at Ward Pound Ridge Reservation, where the brilliant tree in the foreground is lit up with additional rusty and orange tones.

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10×8″, Golden OPEN Acrylics on sized Canson board
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Painted on location in Acra, New York.

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8×10″, Golden OPEN Acrylics on sized Canson board
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Painted on location in Acra, New York.

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5×7″, Oils on canvas covered hardboard
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This is a scene from Ward Pound Ridge Reservation in Pound Ridge, NY. This county park is over 4,700 acres of rolling fields, beautiful trees, and hillsides with dramatic vistas. This is a 5×7″ plein air painting—done on location. The sun was in and out of the clouds and it was a real challenge to catch the light!

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12×12″, Oils on canvas covered hardboard
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The Catskill Mountain area has some of the most exquisite vistas in the Hudson River Valley. Roads that wind through woodlands suddenly open up to fields with tremendous, breathtaking blue mountains looming in the distance.

This scene fell so perfectly into a square format that I considered myself very fortunate to have a 12×12″ panel with me! I started this painting in early afternoon, and the light on the scene got better and better as the afternoon went on.

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6×8″, Oils on board (sealed, primed hardboard)
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I just got back from a plein air painting trip to the Catskill Mountains. This little 6×8″ oil painting was done beside a charming pond in Acra, New York. As I approached the pond from the far side, it didn’t look all that interesting. Then I turned around and saw that huge mountain looming in the distance! Wow! I’m told it is Windham High Peak.

It felt wonderful to pull out the oil paints again! I’ve gotten really hooked on the Golden OPEN paints, but oils sure are great too.

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Click to enlarge:

24×18″, Golden OPEN Acrylics on canvas covered hardboard
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This large painting was done using my plein air study, “The Base of Kaaterskill Falls”, as a reference image, along with a photo I took at the scene. I did a value underpainting in Transparent Red Oxide before going in with local color. One of the things I love about the Golden OPEN paints is the way the underpainting shows through without mixing and muddying the color. I would have had to wait for my oil paints to dry before continuing in order to achieve some of the effects I got here with Golden OPEN.

This was one of the spots painted by many of the old Hudson River School painters, and many of the new ones too! This painting is just the bottom tier of the falls; there is another tier above!

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11×15″, Pastel on LaCarte sanded pastel card
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This used to be my favorite tree along the lakeshore here. It had such an interesting shape, and the colors were beautifully vibrant as they changed with the seasons, leaving the intricate branchwork in winter. The entire left part of the tree came down in a storm last winter, and I miss it! It was one of my favorite painting subjects. Now the fullness of the leaves is gone, and the shape is not as inviting. This one was done from a photo taken before the tree’s mishap.

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16×12″, Golden OPEN Acrylics on canvas covered hardboard
Email me at JamieWG@aol.com if interested in this painting.

I’m one of those lucky plein air painters who has a default painting location right outside the studio door. In previous years, I painted here by the lake quite a bit. This year I seem to be traveling more and painting at home less. I think it may have something to do with the fact that my favorite tree to paint was decimated by a storm during the winter. Somehow, painting here just isn’t the same without that tree, but it made me turn my attention today to a different tree.

This little point juts out from the shoreline, with a charming willow tree at the end. I love painting willows, with their graceful clusters of leafy branches, and subtle color and value shifts. The wonderful early morning light and serenity made me realize that I need to paint here more often!

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12×16″, Oils
Email me at JamieWG@aol.com if interested in this painting.

Join me and the other members of the Hudson Valley Four for our show opening this Sunday, September 14, from 4-6pm. In addition to the small format works that Bannerman Island Gallery always carries of mine, I have many in this show ranging in size up to 12×24″. They are all oils and acrylics, beautifully custom framed with my wide, gold, plein air style frames. The show will run through the first week of October, in case you can’t get there this weekend. It’s already hung, so can be viewed before the opening as well, and on the evening of Beacon’s “Second Saturday” (Sept. 13). Call the gallery (phone number above) for their hours. I’ll be there on Sunday the 14th from 4-6pm.

My works for this show include work done in the Catskills area of the Hudson Valley, as well as paintings from Olana, Cold Spring, Garrison, and Hastings. My good friends Suhua Wood, Daisy Deputhod, and Phyllis Tarlow are also in the show. We all show together sometimes as the Hudson Valley Four.

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5×7″, Golden OPEN Acrylics on Ampersand Gessoboard
Email me at JamieWG@aol.com if interested in this painting.

A few weeks ago, my husband and I drove to the other end of the lake to get western views of the sunset. We took loads of photos. This is my first painting from that series of images. I managed to stop myself a few times along the way to take some photos and post a demo.

I set up to paint with more colors on my palette than usual in order to get the more highly saturated sunset colors.

As you can see above, I used a more expanded palette for this painting than usual. My color choices were:
Titanium White
Cadmium Yellow Primrose
Cadmium Yellow Medium
Cadmium Orange
Cadmium Red Light
Pyrrole Red
Quinacridone Magenta
Ultramarine Blue
Jenkins Green
Phthalo Blue
Carbon Black

When I paint on a small board like this 5×7″ Gessoboard above, it’s hard to hold it and paint edge to edge. I use “blu tack” and affix it to an 8×10″ board. Then I can hold the larger board and be able to paint all the way to the edges without getting paint on my fingers, or I can set it down on a little tabletop easel.

My computer monitor yields stronger, more accurate color and chroma than a printed out photo, so I like to set up like this for small works and paint right off the computer screen. I use the old telephone book on the right to wipe my brushes before rinsing. It’s a great way to conserve paper towels and simultaneously recycle and old phone book. When the page gets filled with paint, I just tear it off, toss it, and go to the next page.

When a painting has areas of light, highly saturated color, I always put that down first. That holds the chroma, and then I can paint into it. It’s a lot easier to dull down strong color than it is to get this kind of brilliance on top of a grey or dark color. You can see how I reserved all the areas of strong color here:

Once the base colors and values have been laid down, I can start painting into them, creating variation, adding details, and adjusting edges. From the step above, it isn’t a long way to the finish line:

Available, Demos/Work in Progress, Golden OPEN Acrylic Paintings, Hudson River Valley, Landscape, Sunrise/Sunset | 1 Comment »

Click to enlarge:

24×30″, oils on stretched canvas
Email me at JamieWG@aol.com if interested in this painting.

This painting was done over a period of several days on location from one of my favorite painting spots at Ward Pound Ridge Reservation in Cross River, NY. It is a view of an old farmhouse currently occupied by one of the preserve managers. The fields turn brilliant colors starting in late summer and continuing through the fall.

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9×12″, Golden OPEN Acrylics on Arches 100% rag hot press watercolor paper. Painting is double matted in ivory/gold to 16×20″, to fit in any standard 16×20″ frame.
Email me at JamieWG@aol.com if interested in this painting.

This was painted here in the Hudson Valley, by the lake next to my studio. I was so excited about getting out to paint that I ended up getting up at 4:30, while it was still pitch black. I dawdled at the computer and then all of a sudden realized it was already getting light out! Hoping to not miss my opportunity, I raced out the door just in time to catch this dramatic lighting on the lake and in the sky.

My palette for this painting was Hansa yellow opague, Ultramarine blue, Phthalo blue, Napthol red light, and Titanium white.

Available, Golden OPEN Acrylic Paintings, Hudson River Valley, Landscape, Plein Air--painted on location, Sunrise/Sunset | 1 Comment »

5×7″, Golden OPEN Acrylics on Fabriano Artistico 100% rag watercolor paper
Email me at JamieWG@aol.com if interested in this painting.

I am painting a number of views of this charming red barn in the Platte Clove area of the Catskills. One of them will become a large painting at some point this year. I’m testing out a number of vantage points, crops of the scene, and colors on my palette on small paintings to decide which I like best. I am liking this one a lot!

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8×16″, Golden OPEN Acrylics on canvas covered hardboard
Email me at JamieWG@aol.com if interested in this painting.

This is the third in my series of paintings from Platte Clove in the Catskills. This road to the distant mountains, with the tall post entryway, in the strong, late day light, provided a view that was truly irresistible to paint!

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6×8″, Golden OPEN Acrylics on Raymar smooth canvas panel
Email me at JamieWG@aol.com if interested in this painting.

Anybody who’s taken a drive through the Platte Clove area of the Catskills understands the incredible beauty that abounds at every turn and offshoot along the road. This was one of the spots where my husband and I just had to jump out of the car to take photos! I didn’t have time to paint on location there, but I’ll be doing more from my photo references for sure, and plan to make it a point to allow time for plein air work there next time around!

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8×6″, Golden OPEN Acrylics on Raymar smooth canvas panel
Email me at JamieWG@aol.com if interested in this painting.

I’ve finished posting the plein air paintings from my Hudson River School trip, and am now beginning to work from the photo references I took. Many of these are deserving of large canvases. I’ll be doing these small ones now, then selecting from these scenes to do big paintings once the weather turns cold and I’m in the studio for the winter.

This charming red barn by the stream in the Platte Clove area of the Catskills yielded lots of potential paintings, so there will be more to come from different vantage points of this charming little burst of color amist the greens. The stream there was the icing on the cake!

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8×10″, Golden OPEN Acrylics on sized, “Pearl” Canson board
SOLD! Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com to inquire about a similar painting.

Many Hudson River School painters, including Thomas Cole and Jasper Cropsey, painted from this spot high above North South Lake. I can see why they derived so much inspiration from this location.

Although the view faces west and offers spectacular sunsets, my husband and I opted to make the one mile climb up there in the early morning to beat the heat. I sat on a large rock slab in the shade provided by the huge Sunset Rock, and used my small, foamcore pochade box, which was a real godsend on this trip!

Golden OPEN Acrylic Paintings, Hudson River School Sites, Hudson River Valley, Landscape, Painting/Pochade Box, Plein Air--painted on location, Sold | 1 Comment »