Just Before Sunset

"Sometimes the gods have no taste at all. They allow sunrises and sunsets in ridiculous pink and blue hues that any professional artist would dismiss as the work of some enthusiastic amateur who'd never looked at a real sunset." -Terry Pratchett, The Thief of Time, 2001

This painting is 8 x 6 oil on canvas panel. Please call me, email me, or click here if you'd like to buy this painting.

Red Truck

"When snow falls, nature listens."  - Antoinette van Kleeff

 This painting is 6" X 8" oil on canvas panel.

Corner

“None of us knows what the next change is going to be, what unexpected opportunity is just around the corner, waiting a few months or a few years to change all the tenor of our lives.” - Kathleen Norris

This painting is 7 x 5 oil on canvas panel. Please call me, email me, or click here if you'd like to buy this painting.

Orange Chimneys

 "Simplicity is the ultimate form of sophistication" - Leonardo da Vinci

This painting is 7 x 5 oil on canvas panel. 

Silver & Gold Kisses

“The wife yearns for gold and silver, and her friends, the senses, yearn for good food.” 

- Sri Guru Granth Sahib

This painting is 7 x 5 oil on canvas panel. This painting has sold but you can see the print if you click here.
This painting was a little experimental, I used a black ground instead of orange and I really like the effect it had on the highlights in the foil. Happy Valentine's Day everybody!

Light Through a Tree

 “Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.” - Abraham Lincoln

This painting is 8 x 6 oil on canvas panel. Please call me, email me, or click here if you'd like to buy this painting.

Biggs Picture Exhibit Info

I wanted to remind everybody about the Biggs Picture Exhibit on March 4 with the info below. For directions click here. I hope to see you there, after all we're a HOOT!

Suburban Sparkle

 “Houses are built to live in and not to look on.” - Sir Francis Bacon

I respectfully disagree Mr. Bacon. You would think that with a cool name like Bacon the guy would know something. This painting is 8 x 6 oil on canvas panel Please call me, email me, or click here if you'd like to buy this painting.

Sunny Patch

 "Buy land. They've stopped making it." - Mark Twain

This painting is 6 x 6 oil on hardboard. Please call me, email me, or click here if you'd like to buy this painting.

Reception

Number of minutes that Mir's Russian cosmonauts spent advertising a "space pen" live on QVC while orbiting the earth in 1998: 15 (Harper's Index Book Volume 3. 105)

This painting is 7 x 5 oil on hardboard. Please call me, email me, or click here if you'd like to buy this painting.

First Kiss

Ratio of husbands who say they fell in love with their spouse at first sight to wives who say this : 2 :1 (Harper's Index Book Volume 3. 146)

This painting is 8 x 6 oil on canvas panel. This painting is still wet and should be dry in a couple of weeks. Please call me, email me, or click here if you'd like to buy this painting.

Orange Cabin Door

 “A cabin with plenty of food is better than a hungry castle” - Irish Saying

This painting has already sold. Please click here if you'd like to see other paintings or prints for sale.

I received my acceptance into the Biggs Picture: Landscapes by Regional Artists exhibition on Friday. The exhibit, at the Biggs Museum of American Art, features landscapes in three different categories; Landscapes of the Mind, Constructed Landscapes & Perceived Landscapes. You probably guessed but my entry was in the perceived category. The painting that was accepted, Up, will go on display March 4 and will be on exhibit until June 21.

Up, 12 x 9 oil on hardboard. Part of the Biggs Picture exhibition starting in March.

Parking Lot Paradise

 "It is better to have your head in the clouds, and know where you are... than to breathe the clearer atmosphere below them, and think that you are in paradise." - Henry David Thoreau

This painting is 7 x 5 oil on canvas panel. Please call me, email me, or click here if you'd like to buy this painting.

Floating Colors

 "After an orange cloud — formed as a result of a dust storm over the Sahara and caught up by air currents — reached the Philippines and settled there with rain, I understood that we are all sailing in the same boat." — Vladimir Kovalyonok

This painting is 5 x 7 oil on canvas panel. Please call me, email me, or click here if you'd like to buy this painting.

January is a good month for change. It's good because it signifies the start of a new year and it is named after the Roman god of beginnings and endings.  Also, it is so stupid cold and snowy here. I find myself inside more than outside and this causes me to take my painting techniques in new directions.

Below is a picture of the underpainting for the finished painting above. To everyone that has asked how I start my paintings, I use a wash of dull orange and use a burnt umber/prussian blue mix to rough in the painting.  I thin both  with turpentine to a watercolor-like consistency and I let it all dry before finishing. This helps me keep some of my tones in check and adds an additional layer of interest when it peeks through.

Underpainting

I added the orange color and the drying step last January after some experimentation and I've been really happy with the results so far. Hear that? That's the meditative power of painting reminding you to step just a bit to the left (or right) of your comfort zone. 

Winter Lace

"I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure of the landscape - the loneliness of it, the dead feeling of winter.  Something waits beneath it, the whole story doesn't show."  -Andrew Wyeth

This painting is 7" X 5" oil on canvas panel. Please call me, email me, or click here if you'd like to buy this painting.

Charm City Warehouse

"Trade isn't about goods. Trade is about information. Goods sit in the warehouse until information moves them."  - C. J. Cherryh 

This painting is 6 x 8 oil on canvas panel. Please call me, email me, or click here if you'd like to buy this painting.

I'm not sure what it is but I still get excited when my car's odometer clicks over every 100,000 miles. My 2005 Toyota Prius has now allowed me to enjoy that excitement twice. My Cadillac didn't quite make it and my Sebring was close at 197,000. Here's to you, Prius! Onward & upward to 300,000 miles.

January 2011

August 2008

I received my jurors' comments from my 2011 Delaware Arts Council grant decision today. Sadly, no grant, but I did get great comments and valuable feedback. I always love to know how people are responding to my work. Below are the comments...

- You are beginning to achieve the "poetic" quality you wrote about in your artist statement - especially in "House By The Road"


- Consider making some sustained, ambitions and larger paintings from observation, or in the studio from studies done on site.

Bldg. 16

"When it snows, you have two choices:  shovel or make snow angels."  

- Author Unknown

This painting is 7 x 5 oil on canvas panel Please call me, email me, or click here if you'd like to buy this painting.

Pablo, our newest dog, is adapting to his surroundings. He's got a bit of separation anxiety so when we're out of sight he starts chewing and barking. We had to drive down to Rehoboth Beach on Saturday so when we came home, DISASTER! Cardboard & newspaper were all over. I also suspect he didn't have toys as a puppy so his bone just sits there untouched. He's learning. Yesterday was his 1st birthday so Pedro and Pablo celebrated, and by celebrated I mean they didn't try to attack each other.

Pedro & Pablo

Toys in the living room.

Birthday Boy

Snowy Sidewalk

 "A lot of people like snow. I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water." -Carl Reiner

This painting is 5" x 7" oil on canvas panel. Please call me, email me, or click here if you'd like to buy this painting.

Driving, Planning, Playing

This weekend is turning into a busy one. I'm driving to Lancaster, PA to pick up my painting The Neighbors' Boat from the LCAA and I'm considering dropping off another. Next week I have to pick up a painting from Rehoboth Beach, DE. My wife and I have been trying to nail down the 2011 show schedule. The current schedule is here but it will probably change during the course of the next two months. I've been so busy lately I haven't actually had much time to paint. I did, however, have time to play with this word cloud generation site. I analyzed the blog and came up with this...

Direct Mail

“If a fellow wants to be a nobody in the business world, let him neglect sending the mail man to somebody on his behalf.” - Charles F. Kettering

This painting is 7 x 5 oil on canvas panel. Please call me, email me, or click here if you'd like to buy this painting.

When I woke up this morning I heard them, a yawn-like howl and a series of sneezes. Illness? No. The Ranney studio now has two long-haired Chihuahuas clamoring for attention and running us around like we're the pets. It was Daralynn's birthday on the 1st so I helped her bring her dream of having a Chihuahua gang to reality.

Pedro, our oldest dog, has been taught to sneeze on command. He's so good at it that if you're ignoring him (or painting) he'll sneeze until you give him attention. I know, it's adorable. Pablo, our newest dog, opens wide and yawns for attention. They don't play yet but today they sniffed at each other without showing their teeth. Progress and success with dogs, like with art, comes with patience and hard work.

Pedro

Pablo

Say cheese!