Santa Claus Continues to Smile on me HO HO HO!

Indian River Rapids

Raquette Lake at Browns Tract Inlet

 On out first plein air paint out of the regular season, May 1 2013, five of us painted at the Indian River Rapids, Philadelphia NY. I had called the Mayor and got permission to paint there because it was posted POLICE PATROLLED. They just did not want kids going in and hurting themselves. I did two paintings that day, a close up of the rapids from beyond the tree on the right and one halfway down the cliff next to the 60 foot waterfalls just down from these  rapids. Some of us painted in the area again this fall and I took some photos from the bridge. I did this 18 x 24 oil in the studio from the photos and after looking at it for two months I painted over the top of every thing, added some  aerial perspective, and increased the color of the foliage, put a duller version of the foliage color on the previously grey/black rocks and tree trunk, and in the water.. Some one from Springville NY (25 miles south of Buffalo) purchased a large size print from my website on Fine Art America yesterday, as well as a large size print of Raquette Lake at Browns Tract Inlet. So, HO HO HO!

 I did the Raquette Lake  painting (11 x 14 oil) en plein air, standing on the sidewalk of the bridge crossing the inlet in September, when painting with a group of NY Plein Air Painters at Great Camp Sagamore in the Adirondacks.. A local resident stopped his car on the bridge and got out to chat. Seems his late wife was  an artist and he got to doing some painting himself. He invited me to stop by his house-maybe next year. While we were talking these deer appeared and  wanted to cross the bridge. Mommy was very nervous with us standing there but  shortly charged across at full speed, fawns following.. A car had stopped on the other side of  the bridge  upon seeing the deer. This caused mommy to leap over the guard rail too soon as there was about 10 foot of drop to the ground on the other side of the bridge. Anyway they made it safely as I  saw them 15 minutes later crossing the road about 100 yards away.

Mommy  wants to cross the bridge