Desert Plein Air
Plein air painting is being fully in the moment. A cloud can cover a mountain and shadow a cactus. The sun may set a hillside on fire with color or bake the paint directly on the canvas.
Outdoors, nothing remains fixed. Light shifts, shadows move, and each painting becomes a record of a specific encounter with place and time. The intensity of being "out there" is both a loss of self and a deeper awareness of the present.
These works reflect a direct engagement with the Sonoran landscape—its light, atmosphere, and constant transformation.
Memory is never so vivid as what is held in paint.
Size: 11" w. by 14" h.
When I turn off the main road to my house, it is a cluster of neighborhood barrel cacti, their red thorns glowing "paint us" that marks the Sonoran desert as home.
Oil on canvas (framed)
Size: 22” w. by 28” h
oil on canvas
While outdoors doing a mundane chore, sorting garbage into bins, I glanced over at my facing neighbor’s driveway to be visually stunned: a Tucson sunset illuminated swirling dust clouds creating a local miracle of "Big Pink."
Size: 16 " w. by 12" h.
Nothing is so familiar as painting one's own backyard.
With the recent move to Tucson, Arizona and the extreme summer heat there, I’ve taken photographs so as to paint in my studio. Whether painting outdoors (plein air) or in my studio, I never know what will emerge. Often when I look at the results a day later, I wonder if it was possible: did the sky really do that? Was the cactus truly chartreuse? Shocked as I may be by the final image, I am always glad I took the risk.
Size: 36" w. by 48" h.
To escape the New England winter, A friend loaned me her Tucson Arizona house. Nestled up against the Catalina mountains, I couldn't keep my camera away and I shot the view at every light. To capture the color drama of sunset, I painted this more realistic rendition. .
Size: 36" w. by 48" h.
To escape the New England winter, A friend loaned me her Tucson, Arizona house. Nestled up against the Catalina mountains, I couldn't keep my camera away, and I shot the view at every light. Here is an abstract of that visit.
Size: 24" w. by 48" h.
(Oil on canvas)
Saguaros tell the tallest tales.
A favorite is dying, its harp-like spines vibrating against sky.
Its fading lower body pale until a gasp of verdant limb salutes:
A crown of coronation flowers