This weekend's paintings....

Sunset on the Patchogue Bay

Southampton Boat house 

 These are the paintings I worked on this weekend.....it was a nice cool morning when I did the boat house and the sunrise....In order to do the little island in the bay, we had to purchase a permit to be able to park to paint!!!

A little island, Shinnecock Bay

Sunrise on Shinnecock Inlet

How sad things are today

Today I found out that the platform where I painted this little study is being dismantled because someone complained about it's existence without first getting all the facts.  This platform was a place of art, meditation and sharing the company of others, all the while enjoying nature.   It was a happy place, a place to enjoy the salt marsh and it's inhabitants.

I remember this day that I painted this very well.   This was a time when I was regaining my freedom and sense of self back from years of a bad and unhappy marriage.  I dedicate this painting to the memory of that platform, the joy, peace and contentment it gave it's builder, and all the friends and family that he shared it with.  

Recent Paintings

During my stay in Cape May, I completed quite a few paintings and I have just one sitting on the easel in my studio that needs some extra tweaking.

Here are two photos that were taken with my IPhone with the paintings on the easel as I was painting on location.  The studio photos are on my website along with the other paintings at

http://web.me.com/gnmelento/Site/Welcome.html

Enjoy!

Productive Summer

Well, so far, summer has been very productive for me.  Trying to get out as much as I can to paint which means not much time spent on the internet...

To the right is a sketch I did this evening down by our waterfront...this one was done in my Art House CoOp sketchbook....in the distance is Fire Island....

It was a very breezy evening....I have been spending so much time painting that I haven't opened my sketchbook in a while....

In a recent workshop I took, we were shown a scaled down version of a travel easel.  I have a 9 x 12 Judson's Guerrilla Box that I use to paint plein air, but I wanted to try a smaller, more portable set up.  I have  6x8 Thumbox that I was using as a portable watercolor set up but I always travel with a palette so I really don't need the box for watercolor, so I converted it to a portable pastel set up.  The little study below was done on a 5x7 Pastelbord.