Painting Sunflowers & Dave's Boat on Lake Keuka

Teresa has a friend who has a cottage from the 1800s on Lake Keuka, which is one of the finger lakes.
It's about an hour and a half south of Rochester, in Amish country.

On the way down we stopped at a local general store, where I found an amazing present for Daya- more on that in another post.

Teresa's friend Carol has land and a stunning garden.

She's a landscape architect and knows everything about plants, it's amazing!

Well except stapeliads, so I told her all about them and showed her pictures!

I painted the sunflowers in her garden.

Here's a fun thing: a couple of days ago I saw a plein air p[ainting of sunflowers that I really liked and I thought to myself, I'd like to paint sunflowers en plein air... and here they were!

I have not painted sunflowers on-location before and mostly I didn't know what I was doing but it came out pretty ok, I think.

I definitely need more practice!

8x10 oil

Some pictures from Carol's garden:

Then we went on Dave's motorboat for a ride on the lake.

The water was turquoise, it really was!!!

I could paint up here every day for a year and still not paint everything I see that should be painted!

Lake Ontario Plein Air

Teresa dropped me off for a bit at Hamlin State Park and I painted Lake Ontario from a cliff.
The colors in the water were really pretty.... it was a nice view to paint and I didn't get attacked by bugs, which was nice.

8x10 oil

Jimmy & Jackson & Upstate

My friend Teresa, who I have been friends with for almost 25 years, lost 2 very special cats.

It's the kind of situation that needed a gift painting.

Of course I left it to the last minute...and last-minute for oil painters means factoring in lots of drying time.

This is about a 10-hour painting, and I had to do it all at once over about 48 hours because it's a wet-in-wet painting, no dry layers. I needed to do it while the paint was still open.
Both cats showed up very strongly at the beginning of the painting, they were very happy about it, then about halfway through they disappeared.

Even though this is a rainbow bridge painting, the cats and Dru (thanks Dru!) felt no rainbow things were needed.

9x12 oil

Pebbles wanted to pose with the painting:

*******

Today I took Amtrak up to Rochester to see Teresa for the weekend.

It's a long train ride- about 7 hours- but since I brought oil paint, I didn't want to deal with the hassle of airline security.

The train trip is a lot longer but was cheaper than flying and is generally no-stress.

Teresa loved the painting.

She lives in a gorgeous area, right on Lake Ontario, and she isn't too far from the finger lakes region.

In the evening we took a short walk around one of the parks, I forgot which one it was but it's nice wetlands.  I do get into nature a lot but what I almost never get is large open space-- which I miss sometimes and I really enjoyed upstate.

Minnie

******

I stayed in Teresa's basement.

I LOVE Teresa's basement!

It's my kind of space- a little weird and very comfortable.

It has 4 main large rooms plus I'm not sure how many secret rooms!

The secret rooms are awesome!

Also there is a disused claw foot bathtub with cellos in it, a pencil sharpener in the bathroom, a whole entire extra kitchen, a piano, and a very old computer that Teresa holds on to because it has a large collection of Steely Dan on it.

It is good to see my friend and have a bit of an environment change.

Panel Pile

It's September...already!

Wow!

Even August went by fairly quickly...

It doesn't feel like September, and in general time has felt... strange, different.

Accelerated in a strange way.

And if you want to hear something really odd--- I have only told this to Palma--- the way I make boiled eggs changed.  I like medium-boiled eggs, where the yolk is just set.

For MANY YEARS-like since pre-covid- same pot, same water, same type/size of eggs, same burner on the stove- everything- exactly the same only now it takes 10 minutes instead of 8, and that was an odd discovery.

It's possible that I'm crazy but I don't think I am.

In fact, I bet lots of other people have noticed little stuff like this and never mention it to anyone, unless they are fortunate enough to have weird friends who get it.

Anyhow.

It's September and the summer was good but strange at the same time.

Not everything happened that I was hoping for, and I didn't get everything done that I wanted to, but it's not worth stressing over.

2026 has been exponentially better than 2025 was, it's rumbling along on daily routines and I'm ok with that. I have had a lot of internal growth, personal stuff, shifting, and I know that never ends, but it has been intense lately.

It also appears I have painted through most of my panels...again.

Next week I'll have to do a Jerry's order... I'll be travelling (and painting) again this weekend.

Ambitious Little Island Composition & MTA Fail

My awesome painter-friend Francis hosted a plein air event at Pier 57 today, free and open to the public.

he did this a few years back and I joined then, too... I think I have improved considerably since the last time I painted on the roof at pier 57! Three years ago, wow...

Anyhow, I was originally aiming to be there at 9, but I was slow this morning so 9 changed to 10 which was fine. 

The closest train for me is the E to 14th street.

When I went to transfer, I saw there was a 10 minute wait for the E...  I know if I stay on the R I would be at Union Square in a half hour. Then I could just transfer to the L.

Time-wise it would come out to the same thing probably, but I didn't feel like waiting.

So I stayed on the R and all was fine until 49th st.

Then we pulled partially into the station and sat.

We sat for a long time.

I should mention at this point that I finished Tea Part 2 right before I left, and figured I had just enough travel time budgeted to not need the restroom until I got to Pier 57.

So, we sat halfway in the station.

I was getting nervous.... the tea was starting to hit....

After more waiting, we finally pulled into the station! Phew!

And then the train went out of service.

There was a Q train in 12 minutes with delays.

With a platform FULL of evicted-train people.

I definitely wasn't going to make it.

The best plan I could think of was get out of the train, walk east to Rockefeller Center, use the restroom, and get on the train downtown from there.

Maybe the F was working, we can hope.....

FWIW the E train also started reporting significant delays.

So, I had no regrets. Whichever way, I would be messed up.

And that's what I did, and this is why I wasn't painting until 11:30 with a stop time between 2:30 and 3.

*******

I liked the pilings in the water under Little Island.

The first time I did the initial layout, it was a bust.

I had to wipe it and start over, and that was the best decision of the entire painting.

Get it right from the start- otherwise there's no fixing it.

So- this is a very ambitious and complex composition.

It really is. 

On an 8x10 panel, which is actually more difficult than if it was larger.

And I didn't want to do a drawing.

Well, not a line drawing layout.

Lately I'm working a lot with large masses and midtones, holding those tight value ranges before getting too light or too dark. At-tube consistency paint, lots of hog bristle brushes. (Rosemary Ultimates)

It's a mind-shift, a gradual one, and it's a good one but it takes a lot of practice. 

I'm evolving and improving, I really can feel it, I can feel the ways in which I think through the painting are changing.

And after all, a painting is made up of thoughts.

I don't want to make a fiddly drawing and fill in lines, that's not how I paint and it's not fun.

So I massed in the large shapes- which is easy to do in pure landscape and distant skylines but applying it to this painting was somehow different.

Also, I always lay in the sky first and today I did not.

(It was only slightly problematic)

This is a three hour painting, and for about 2 1/2 of those hours I was wondering what the hell I got myself into, I'm in trouble, how do I keep this from disaster?

It finally came together and I learned a lot doing it.

8x10 oil

Another Jamaica Bay Painting

I'm still enjoying having summer Fridays off- so today I painted.

This evening we are having a sound bath at the boathouse, which should be a good way to end the day.

8x10 oil

A door & a long line & sunset

I wasn't allowed to take a picture of Daya's room, understandable since nothing was put together yet, and I hope she sends more pictures.

In the meantime, she did send a picture of her door.

It is a well-decorated door, except that it is missing Bob.

I let Daya know about this oversight.

After all, Bob basically got Daya into Juilliard.

(At the interview she was asked about an inspiring movie and hers was... What About Bob..)

*******

This week is the last weekday shifts of the public program.

Not many volunteers signed up, so I figured I'd go down and help out.

I spent the whole shift on patrol, and it was a good thing because otherwise everyone would have gotten stuck out of bounds against the wall. It was a harder patrol job than I thought it would be, but I got a lot of good exercise!

We had good clouds.

LOOK AT THIS LINE omg...

This photo was taken at 6:15pm, last boats should go out at 7, sunset was 7:38.

With the help we had for the shift plus the length of this line, this is about an hour and a half line.

I was SO GLAD I was not Keyholder responsible for making the decisions...

But if I was, I would have wrist-banded the whole line right at the start and avoided this altogether.

S didn't want to do that though, and since he was keyholder I said ok, I'm going on patrol.

At 7:18 there was still a LONG line with 20 minutes until sunset, and we tell people to stay out for 20 minutes.

I paddled to the dock and told S... hey, sunset is in 20 mins, we can't put all these people in line on the water.

I said I'm not going to be on the water with the public after sunset, it's not safe.

And I'm glad I wasn't the one who had to tell the many people who had been waiting that they couldn't go on the water.

I did, however, clear out the embayment nicely because I'm good at that.

Back to Juilliard

Daya was in Vancouver for three weeks dancing, and she landed yesterday after a very long voyage.
We went to Target to get stuff for her dorm room- she has a single this year. It's nice, and I hope she is happy and comfortable there. It's her senior year already!

She got me a present in Vancouver.

Wow!

She: I have to declare it at customs.
Me: is it... CHEESE???
She: No! I'm not carrying around stinky cheese for 24 hours!

Me: Not all cheeses are stinky....

She got me a wonderful handmade soap and honeys specifically made to pair with different teas!

How perfect is that!

I said to Daya... the jars can also be used for egg tempera pigments...

She said yeah, I thought of that too!

!!!!!

I'm surprised she thought of it to be honest... I'll have to tell Doug!

Here are some Juilliard dorm pics... I was not allowed to take a pic of her room.

The dorms are very nice. There is a double room in her suite that is REALLY nice- way nicer than the other doubles she has been in. Her single room is small but nice, it's laid out in a good way.

1.50 to wash! WOW!

I have these same washers in my building but it costs 2.90 to wash and 2.90 to dry.
This is the ONLY thing at Juilliard that is less expensive.

Nice common area: