Biscuit Flat Bread, Interesting Stats. A new WIP

Painting of the Day




Three Palms
4x6 inches
gouache on acid free mat board
mounted to 5x7 for easy framing

40.00
2.00 shipping

I Have been reading my stats for my web site and my blog. My highest views come from Florida, California, and New York, followed by Texas, then Georgia and New Jersey. I was surprised. Here I am a country painter from the South and people in California and New York are visiting my web site and blog. Go figure. Internationally, they come from UK,Italy, France,and Australia. With the overload of landscape painters in California, it really surprised me that so many viewers visit. You would think they would be plein aired to death by now, since California is the plein air capitol of the USA, according to the California plein air painters ;>).






I got started on a new WIP today. I finally got over to Evinston to paint by the side of the road for a bit. I didn't bother to go into the farm but found a nice view on the roadside. This one is 18x24 inches oil on stretched canvas. I pre-toned this canvas with a very pale red iron oxide, using some of that tone in the cloud masses. This is a simple composition and I won't overwork it much. The focus is in the sky. I also am using a limited palette with:

Utrecht red iron oxide
Daniel Greene sap green
Daniel Greene FUB
Daniel Greene ivory black
Utrecht Naples Yellow Light
Utrecht Yellow Ochre
Daniel Greene cad yellow medium
Shiva manganese blue


This painting has a much simpler composition than the one I just did, so I don't expect that it will take a long time to finish. I'll be working on it for a couple of days and will go back out on location to finish it up.

In the actual scene, the sky was fairly blank with just a couple of puffs of clouds. Since the land was fairly simple and flat, with strip of similar trees, I wanted to bring up the drama a bit by focusing more on the sky and clouds. The palms will have a bit more emphasis, because that particular farm shows off the tall graceful palms indigenous to North Florida so well. They are so much a part of the landscape that they need to have some attention, however, this is not a land/tree portrait so they cannot be too important. I don't want to steal the attention from the puffy clouds in the sky.

To me this is why thoughtful and deliberate planning are so important to a successful painting. That's not to say that this will be successful. I don't know, but at least I have a clear cut plan in my mind. There are many more decisions to make in the process, but making them step by step, thoughtfully, really help me to paint.


It looks like I am going to have quite a nice group for my workshop next week down at Honeymoon Island. I have been told that is is a lovely painting location so I'm looking forward to it. I'll be sure to take photos of the place and my students to share here on the blog. we are going to be studying values and composition, my two favorite areas of study, so I will really enjoy studying with my students in those two themes.

I can't believe this next week is almost here. Soon the garden party will be here, the workshop and then right around the corner comes the two paint outs. This year has just barreled along. It is always shocking to me to see events actually happen. I book all of these events 8 to 14 months ahead of time and so it seems like they will never actually happen. Suddenly, they are here and gone. I often wonder how time goes by so fast? It always has for me. Perhaps it's the ADD. Other people often say that time drags for them, but it never does for me.



Today's Recipe:

Crunchy Bread

I love bread. (CAN"T YOU TELL?)

I especially love the breads with herbs and olive oil. When I toured Italy, one of my favorite foods was the hunks of breads on the table with olive oil infused with oregano, garlic, terragon and other herbs. We would sit and have coffee or wine with bread and dipping sauce at cafe's, enjoying people watching in the neighborhood near our hotel.

This recipe is really easy.

One can of refrigerated biscuits. The Grands are good. Split them in half and use a rolling pin to flatten them out long on one side, like an oval. Drizzle olive oil on a pan and spread it out evenly. Place the flattened biscuit halves on the pan. Sprinkle garlic powder, dried oregano, dried onion flakes, basil or any other herbs you like. Drizzle olive oil over the bread. Sprinkle with Parmesan cheese grated. Bake at 400 degrees until golden brown.
Remove to cutting board and cut the breads into sticks. Yummy.