This small watercolor painting is the first study for Crossnore Weaver. Its the initial appearance of an idea I've been processing ever since I learned of the Crossnore weavers a few years ago. Yeah. . . I'm slow. Housed in the Crossnore Art Gallery is the weaving...
My Painting Process Articles
Reflections on Plein Air Seascape Painting
Suntan oil and salt spray drift beneath the falsetto pleas of gulls as I finish a small plein air seascape painting of the morning. An exercise that began with a sense of vagueness, and ended with a feeling of accomplishment. I have not wasted the morning, nor let the...
Can You Paint Egg Tempera Plein Air?
Two questions I am often asked about painting in egg tempera are: 1. Can you paint egg tempera plein air? 2. How long does it take me to make a painting? The painting on the french easel in the photo is an egg tempera I began about sixteen years ago. Its still in...
New Egg Tempera Painting: Rum Tum Tugger
"He’s always on the wrong side of every door" Ideas for paintings come from many sources. This is one of my new egg tempera paintings currently available at Hughes Gallery in Boca Grande. To see a larger image click here. Initially , I was attracted to the shadow...
My Whereabouts
So much for keeping to a regular posting schedule. I'm lashed to the easel painting for another show at Hughes Gallery next month. They asked me not to post the paintings here on my site until then. So instead, here is a sweet little plein air painting from the beach...
New Painting: Sittin’ in the Sun
Thirty years ago I wouldn’t have considered painting this subject. A bird yes, certainly not a bronze bird surrounded by bougainvillea. Back then I was interested in real birds, fascinated by how they moved, how their wings unfolded during that precise instant when...
How To Make Egg Tempera Paint
Daniel Ambrose egg tempera paint making process. Start with an egg. I use Country Hen organic eggs, all natural, the hens live in the sunshine -- we love sunshine -- plus they're delicious. Crack the egg. Separate the yolk from the white, puncture the yolk sac and...
Oil Painting Studies of Wave Forms
Or particular mornings and people. While I was in Maine hanging round the harbors and coves painting stuff, I was thinking about the beach in Florida. For a few years during the Great Upheaval in my life when I lived in the woods, each morning, I dashed to the beach...
Experiment with Color in Small Studies
Preliminary color study, oil on canvas, 4 in. x 4 in. Full size. Renaissance painters often divided their work in three stages; drawing, values and color. Complex compositions, contemporary knowledge and limited color palettes necessitated some type of a plan before...