New Year

Well, I'm back from South Africa and hard at work preparing for an exhibition later this year. The time away from the studio was wonderful, the travel fantastic, the people amazing, but yes, it's great to be back in chilly Maine, holed up in my studio making paintings. While in South Africa I did a small portrait study of my cousin (once-removed) Margot Chamberlain and her daughter Anne.

My efforts here in the studio have mostly gone into this painting of my neighbor, L, who has modeled for a number of my recent paintings. I'm very happy with how well (and quickly) it has been going.  The painting is biggish (36 x 52 inches).  For this painting I treated myself to a canvas stretched by Chris Polson of Twin Brooks Stretchers. He and his business partner, Joe, make the most amazing stretcher bars and, yes, they do stretch and prime as well. The quality is excellent, they are a pleasure to work with, and it is, as I said, an absolute treat to go straight from the drawing to the canvas without having to take a few days off in order to prepare the linen.

The nearly finished painting and the drawing: