I did this little 9×12″ watercolor across a two-page spread in my Fabriano Venezia sketchbook to show you what my new blog looks like! If you’ve enjoyed seeing my sketches, hearing my rambles about the artistic process, and looking on while I varnished paintings, primed panels, mixed paint, and built foamcore pochade boxes, most of those things will be posted only on the new “Sketches” blog from now on. That blog is at http://HudsonValleySketches.blogspot.com. You can click here to head over there now, and subscribe there to continue to receive all my posts online.

Don’t worry; this This Hudson Valley Painter blog isn’t going away! It will still be here, and will contain my completed paintings that are available for sale. The sketches, product reviews, and thoughts on the artistic process will be on the new site.

24×18″, Oils on Ampersand Gessoboard

6×8″, Acrylics on linen. Matted to 8×10″
Email me at JamieWG@aol.com if interested in this painting.

Whew, was this ever hard! I thought it would never get finished. Sometimes these little ones can take as long as a much larger painting to complete. This one certainly fell into that category, but I am pleased with the result.

Palette:
Cadmium Yellow Medium
Cadmium Red Light
Ultramarine Blue
Titanium White

10×8″, Golden OPEN Acrylics on “Pearl” Canson board
This scene is available as a studio/commission original painting in any size/price range. Please email Jamie at JamieWG@aol.com if interested.

What is the tallest waterfall in New York State? Niagara? Nope, guess again. It’s Kaaterskill Falls!

My first opportunity to paint on our trip, following in the footsteps of the old Hudson River School painters, was after climbing a half mile up to the base of Kaaterskill Falls. You wouldn’t think one would have to climb so far uphill to get to the bottom of a waterfall, but it is indeed far up the mountain. I don’t think I would have made it without my new ultralight painting box in my backpack. I didn’t have to carry a thing, and my pack was nearly weightless. Here’s a photo of the new painting box and my palette for this painting. I’ll be posting more photos of how the box was constructed in the week to come. You can see that I’ve added an extension to it, which can hold my brushes and palette cup.

In the early morning light, most of the fall was in shadow, so I chose a scene that focused on the waterfall/cascade right at the base, where the light was strongest. By the time I was finishing up this painting, a little light was just beginning to hit other parts of the falls. I stayed to do a second painting that included the top tier of the falls as well. I’ll be posting that one tomorrow, so stay tuned!

Thomas Cole and many of the Hudson River School painters painted from this very spot. There are beautiful cascades all the way up the trail to the base, inviting a series of paintings. In fact, the beautiful Bastian Falls is right at the bottom before the trail even starts to ascend, but it’s definitely worth it to make the climb to the top to experience Kaaterskill. I’m sure I’ll be coming back here many times in the years to come to take advantage of other locations along the way.

We intentionally went the day after a heavy rain, figuring that there would be a significant increase in the amount of water coming over the falls and the drama it created. We were right! Most of the paintings and photos I’ve seen of this waterfall display a far narrower stream of water. We chose the right time to go, even if the way up was a little wet and slippery!

Edit: I just checked the image above on a different monitor and it looks a little too light, so depending on your monitor, this image below may be more accurate:

The River Behind Tom’s House
12×16″, oils on canvas
NFS

Please click here to play the audio file of Andy Lafreniere and me playing a pair of Humphrey guitars while you read this post. The piece is “The One”, by California composer Peter Madlem.

When my Ramirez classical guitar slipped from my grasp on a flight of stairs in 1979, splitting in three places, it led me to the doorstep of classical guitarmaker Thomas Humphrey. As I rang his doorbell on West 72nd Street in Manhattan, with my damaged instrument, I didn’t know that I was about to meet one of my closest friends, or that I’d end up owning four of his amazing guitars, or that our future spouses and children would play together in the brooks behind our house and his, and that we’d watch them grow together until his untimely death last Wednesday.

Tom’s entire workshop at that time was crammed into a small bedroom in his New York City apartment. He worked day and night, tirelessly unlocking the secrets to producing instruments with a sound he heard clearly in his head, but not yet in a classical guitar. Already well-known as a luthier in New York, his apartment was affectionately referred to as Grand Central Station. Musicians would congregate, friends would come and go, and there were more fabulous spur-of-the-moment classical guitar performances there than in the concert halls of New York City. Tom’s magnetic personality, wonderful sense of humor, and beautiful-sounding instruments drew guitar players from near and far. His reputation sky-rocketed when he developed and patented his Millennium design, and his name became a household word for guitarists world-wide. The elevated fingerboard gave players easier access to the high reaches of the instrument, and combined with his unique bracing design, increased it’s projection.

When C.F. Martin approached Tom about making two models that copied his design, my husband and I tried talk Tom out of it. But those who knew Tom know that it was always futile to argue with his vision. While we were afraid that it would lead to loss of business for his own handmade instruments, Tom felt it would force him to have to invent something even better. And so his search for the next great breakthrough continued. Like all great artists, Tom was never satisfied. He always wanted more volume, fuller sound, better sustain.

Tom was as much a philosopher as he was an artist and inventor. He looked at life as a creative journey, and pressed ever-onward along his ingenious path. It wasn’t unusual for my phone to ring early in the morning, with Tom’s excited voice on the other end, explaining his idea for a new bracing pattern. Once Tom and his wife Martha moved up to their estate in Gardiner, NY, I’d often bring my paints along on visits to capture the Shawangunkill River that wound through the back of their property, or the white cliffs of the Gunks that faced the front. But often as not, we’d get absorbed in conversation, talking away in the workshop for the day, or playing his latest batch of guitars one by one, and the brushes would remain in my easel.

When I rang that doorbell in New York City in 1979, and as we had our first philosophical conversation, I didn’t imagine that his voice would be silenced at the young age of 59. Tom’s sound will forever live on through his instruments, and I am grateful that I will hear him speak every time I pick up my guitar.

You can click to read the New York Times Obituary.

It’s been very hard to get serious paintings done with the holiday looming this week and all the framing I need to do for upcoming shows. I’m hoping to be able to get back to doing some oil paintings next week, if not sooner, and will be keeping my sketchbook, pens, watercolors, and colored pencils close at hand for the remainder of this week!

This is my little buddy Mango. He loves to swing on just about anything. Here he is on his playset swing out on the porch, doing what he does best. He’ll be a year old next week. Maybe I’ll have to do an annual portrait of him. Mango loves to sit on my shoulder in the studio, but he’s not allowed down there when I’m working in oils. This one is currently not for sale because…well….because he’s my lil baby! Besides, there are still one or two little things I need to tweak in the painting.