New Painting: Docks of Northwest Cove - Nova Scotia

This is the third painting I've done using a photo from Catherine Rose Photography . She photographs around Nova Scotia. I love  Nova Scotia, which is full of little fishing villages. I do need to travel there again. This one is called Docks of Northwest Cove - Nova Scotia. 11 x 14 oil on canvas board
As usual you can purchase items based on this image from Fine Art America
or Mugs or mugs  or other products from Zazzle 

New Painting: Inkwell Beach Sunrise.

I  love painting pictures posted on the Vineyard Colors FB page. I've done 6 already and they came out rather well. This is from a photo of a sunrise at Inkwell Beach on Martha's Vineyard. This one got away from me and  I can't seem to bring it in line. I'm calling it done and may go back for another try somtime

Artist Spotlight: Patrick Commecy Tromp-L'oeil street artist

I love art like this - brightening up every day life by taking blank building surfaces and transforming it in to a thing of beauty. Banksy does this on a small scale, but this it a village wide thing by French artist Patrick Commecy 
Here are a few. Click the link for more

New painting: Edgartown Lighthouse - Outbound

I was in Martha's Vineyard this past June for my annual bike trip around the island and staying at the hostel with friends. As usual, I took a lot of pictures looking for painting subjects and the Edgartown Lighthouse is always a good bet. It I want any sunrise pics, I depend on the Vineyard Colors FB page for that.
This scene is from the second story of the public fishing dock in Edgatown. Its a great location to get a different  perspective of that lighthouse. This scene is of a catamaran heading out to sea with the lighthouse in the foreground. 11 x 14 oil on canvas board

New painting: Old Man and Duck

One of my sources for pictures to paint is the Vinyard Colors FB page.  Yann has a commercial paper route. He picks up various newspapers from a boat at 3:30 am and delivers them to various retail establishments across Martha's Vineyard. Along the way he takes beautiful pictures of Martha's Vineyard and posts them. He encourages artists to paint them and email them to him and he posts them on the site. I've done 5 of them.
The 1st weekend in June, my friends and I went on our annual trip to bike the island , staying at the hostel. I wanted to meet Yann. First invitd he and his wife to Saturday dinner (I do the cooking on the trip) and he could not. I suggested riding with him and he passes by the hostel at 6 AM on his way to Edgartown. So we rode and got along well and I got to see a lot of back areas. It was foggy and misty so and got a few shots. He doesn't post people pictures, so he gave this shot of an old man feeding a duck. I took it as a challenge piece, since I've never done people up this close or ducks. It turned out pretty good.

Painting sold: Rose Christmas Cove House

The Rich and Dale Rose are a couple from my church. I grew up with Dale and her sister Denise. Rich's family hs this house in Christmas Cove and they posted a picture of a set table in front of the house and I ended up painting it for them, kind of a back door commission. They came by today on their way up from Virginia to that house to pick up the painting. The painting over his right shoulder is one I did from  picture his daughter took of a fishing dock in Christmas Cove

What is art trickery

It happens in many fields - food, art, politics when the experts and regular folk get bamboozled by pranksters or just plain mistaken identity.In 2014 food critics at a the annual food convention in Houten in The Netherlands where served MacDonald food, being told is was “new, organic alternative to fast food”. The critics loved it.

In the art realm, there can be a lot of confusion as to what is intentional or accidental art. If it's in a gallery setting, then what's sitting around unattended must be art. The casual museum goer be as well as seasoned professionals can be fooled. The story comes of a museum where a prankster left a pair of glasses on the floor of a gallery and everyone got all excited about it. It was a prank but soon took a life of its own to be considered a sort of performance piece. Check out the article here.
Also check out this article 9 signs youre an art snob