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6×12″, oil on linen panel
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This is another of this week’s paintings of the Sleepy Hollow lighthouse on the Hudson River. I don’t know if I’ll ever get enough of this subject; these have been so much fun to paint!
Below is an image you can click for a larger, clearer view of the painting:
6×8″, oil on Ampersand Museum Gessoboard
SOLD! Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com to inquire about a similar painting.
I’ve been wanting to do more paintings of the Sleepy Hollow Lighthouse (aka Tarrytown Lighthouse) for years, and finally got around to doing some this week. I spent two days exploring six or seven of the parks along the Hudson River around Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow to find some new vantage points and check out old ones. Now I have so many ideas for paintings that my head is spinning! This 6×8″ painting features the lighthouse, and also shows the Tappan Zee Bridge in the background, as well as the little bridge over to the lighthouse from the shore.
One thing I found out in this week’s research is that the lighthouse was originally about a half mile off shore. The shoreline was filled in for various developments, and now it’s just a footbridge away! There’s a ton of construction going on in the area now, as those old commercial developments have mostly been torn down to make way for new luxury high rise condominiums. The good news is that in the process, several gorgeous waterfront “Riverwalks” have sprung up, thanks in no small part to Scenic Hudson. Although the population density is increasing dramatically, so are the accessible views.
Below is an image you can click for a slightly larger, clearer view of the painting:
5×7″, Oils on sealed primed hardboard
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I was painting at Rockwood again, this time from up high on the hillside, looking southward downriver. You can see the Tarrytown Lighthouse from there and the Tappan Zee Bridge, with the New York City skyline in the distance. It’s a spectacular vantage point on the river. Unfortunately, a huge development has been built along the left shoreline. I took it out of the painting so I could view the scene the way it used to be!
1.5×2″, Golden Acrylics on 4-ply Rag Bristol, framed
SOLD! Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com to inquire about a similar painting.
These miniature gems are too much fun to be legal! This is a miniature version of an 8×10″ painting that I did en plein air in the spring. You can see that painting by clicking here. I enjoy doing different size versions of the same scene. It gives me a chance to play with the composition and colors and try to turn out something even better each time. In this case, I shortened the peninsula so that the eye has a path around it to travel to the lighthouse.
My miniature paintings come with a gift box and buyer’s choice of either a little table easel, or a golden thread affixed to the back and a tack for hanging salon style.
Here’s a slightly larger, cropped photo so that you can see the painting better. I wish this camera had a better lens so you could really see all the teeny tiny brushstrokes in there!
So much goes into doing one of these miniatures. They take me longer than paintings many times the size. The first step in the process is to cut the support for the painting. In this case, I used four-ply Strathmore rag bristol. It’s a very expensive support, but at this size I could probably get 100 paintings from a sheet! I size that with Golden Matte Medium, because I love the way acrylic paint takes to that sized surface.
Using a template previously cut to size for that frame, I place it on the new support and draw the rectangle around it. When I finish the painting, I’ll cut to the lines and will have a painting that will fit perfectly into the tiny frame.
I put a tiny dot of blue-tack on the back of each corner, and affix my support to a piece of black foamcore that has also been sized with matte medium. The black helps reduce glare as I work, and makes it easier to support the tiny painting.
I set up my painting reference next to my easel, and put a photo reference of the scene up on the computer. I can zoom in and out of the photo reference to help me with the details, while using the color from my plein air piece.
I sketched in my composition with just a few pencil lines, the coated the whole surface with Transparent Yellow Iron Oxide. That served the dual purpose of sealing the drawing and killing the white of the support.
This is as far as I was able to get without magnification! I have a goose neck lamp with a flourescent bulb and a built-in magnifying glass. I brought that over and worked a couple more hours to finish off the painting. The painting was then cut with an Xacto knife to fit in the frame.
For the sake of the photo of the finished painting, I put it into the frame temporarily. It will actually have to come out to be sealed and then varnished in a week or so. Once that is dry, it will be glued into the frame, and a backing put on that will cover the painting and frame from behind, so it will look like it came straight out of a high end frame shop!
Hopefully you now have an idea of what goes into turning out one of these little gems. They make great gift items.
12×16″, Golden OPEN Acrylics on canvas covered hardboard
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This week I’ve been working on touching up paintings done previously. Often I am not 100% happy with a completed painting. I hold off on varnishing those for as long as possible, so that I can make changes to them when I get a chance.
There are things I loved about this lighthouse painting, but when I initially painted it on location, it was early April. The leaves were not yet out on the trees, and the grass had that dull, late winter color. The painting looked way too stark to me, although it was a pretty accurate representation of the scene at the time. I decided to push the season along in my reworking.
I’ve left the original below, because I thought it would be interesting to my viewers to see it and compare them. I’m interested in hearing your comments about the changes. I’ll be posting more of these altered paintings this week, along with their original versions. I hope you find it interesting!
If you’ve ever driven over the Tappan Zee Bridge, across the Hudson River, you’ve likely noticed this sparkling lighthouse near the eastern shoreline. This was painted en plein air on a very cold and windy morning, but I was inspired enough by the view to stick it out and paint. With the New York City skyline in the distance, the Palisades jutting out into the river, and the bridge behind the lighthouse, there was a lot to put into one painting. I liked including the foreground tree too, to give yet another dimensional plane to the work. I’m hoping to return many more times as the foliage emerges. Gotta love that red!
11×14″, Oils on canvas covered hardboard
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This painting was a composite of two photos. Often when I work from photos, I need to find several in order to satisfy what I feel is necessary to make a good painting. When I’m out on location, painting en plein air, I can always move trees, mountains, clouds, or other elements that lie outside of the “picture frame”. Even nature needs to be moved around a bit from time to time!
8×10″, Oils on canvas covered hardboard panel
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This charming lighthouse sits on a cement platform in the middle of the Hudson River between the towns of Athens and Hudson. I had the pleasure of viewing it from both sides recently. On this occasion, I chose to paint it from the Hudson side, but I’d like to go back and paint it from the Athens side soon too.
In case any of you think you saw this a few days ago, it’s not your mind playing tricks on you! I saw a bunch of things I decided to change. I added more darks into the foreground water, glazed the rocks there with some cooler color, popped in some extra darks in the tree, added greens and blues into the background, and popped the lighthouse a bit more. It was only about 20 minutes of touch-ups, but I feel it made a significant enough difference in the image to repost, and delete the old image.
12×16″, Oils
$525.00 plus $30 shipping and insurance within the Continental United States. For local sales, shipping charge will be allocated to NYS Sales Tax. Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com for International purchases or with any questions.
8×10, oils on canvas
$250.00 plus $15 shipping and insurance within the Continental United States. For local sales, shipping charge will be allocated to NYS Sales Tax. Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com for International purchases or with any questions.
Painted en plein air on Mt. Desert Island, Maine.
Click to see full size image:
5.5×11″, framed (6.5×12″ framed size), Golden OPEN Acrylics on Saunders Waterford 300 lb CP watercolor paper
$185.00 plus $20 shipping and insurance within the Continental United States. For local sales, shipping charge will be allocated to NYS Sales Tax. Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com for International purchases or with any questions.
I don’t often offer framed art on my website, but I found these long format frames and thought they’d be great for smaller landscapes horizontally, and floral still lifes vertically! This painting was done from a photo I took on my way to Monhegan Island by boat. Ram Island Light is close to Boothbay Harbor in Maine. Both the keeper’s house and the lighthouse were built in 1883. I’ve been wanting to paint them for ages!
My palette for this painting was:
Cadmium Yellow Medium
Alizarin Crimson hue
Cadmium Orange
Cobalt Blue
Phthalo Blue GS
Titanium White
Click to enlarge:
8×16″, oils, unframed
SOLD! Please email me at JamieWG@aol.com to inquire about a similar painting.
Painted this evening at Rockefeller State Park Preserve in Sleepy Hollow, New York, looking out through the trees to Tarrytown Lighthouse on the Hudson River.