This series is about the skies above the Chesapeake Bay; the light, the freezing cold, the steamy heat & humidity, the drama of an impending storm, the utter stillness of a 100 degree day, the tranquility of dusk, the fireworks of a sunset. The paintings are also about the unusual proportioned horizontal compositions, how colors unify around the season and the time of day, how light can transform a simple setting into an artistic expression.
Each miniature oil painting is a portrait of the sky on a specific day. Each was painted while on a sailboat at anchor in one of the beautiful coves of the Bay. Executed in water miscible oils, both the painting's small size and water-miscible medium were circumscribed by the nautical setting.
These works aren't painted from photographs, which can only capture a second in time, but instead are painted en plein air, capturing the movement of the sky, the clouds and the changes of light that occur throughout the time that it takes to create a painting.
It is a rare occasion that all of the elements needed for making a painting of this kind come together; being on a boat on the Bay with decent weather, stopped at anchor, not swinging too much on the chain, and of course time for artistic inspiration and execution. Because of the special circumstances necessary for making these paintings it has taken some 4 years to complete the 27 works in this series.
I hope that through these paintings the viewer will be able to share with me the wonders of the Chesapeake Bay.