Happy 4th

     

     I am so grateful to have been born, and continue to spend my life in this beautiful country.....

                                                 "Old Glory"  9"x12"  Acrylic on Panel

        

 

Family Jewel

I've wanted to do a good water view of our family place in Maine for ages.  It was built by my Grandfather in the early 1920's and is a treasure, and a perfect place for inspiring an artist who loves to paint reflections;  It's all about balance really.  

I started this piece in August of last summer when everything was green, green, green;  Beautiful, but when the foliage started to change in the early fall, it was just a much better setting....

                              "A Litlle Peace of Heaven"   24"x30" acrylic on canvas

        

  

Palette of St. Croix

I recently had the great pleasure of visiting a friend on the US Virgin Island of St. Croix;  A little slice of paradise....

Our Girlsjustwannapaint challenge this month was "palette", and so I painted the beautiful tropical colors of the view from where I was staying, on an actual wooden palette.  I distilled my favorite aspects of the scene as it changed frequently during the day;  The strong patterns of light and shade as the clouds passed, the brilliant turquoise where the water meets the sand, houses nestled into the landscape, and shapes of the tropical foliage and flowers....

                   

         

Cinderella

      

            Events of late have called up fond  revisitations of my early experiences, and of my art reflecting the same....  My Dad, John O. Chesley Jr., had a love of boats and sea, and of steam,  here are a couple of my way back paintings of an old rescue surf boat that my Dad converted into a steam launch like the "African Queen";   Her name was "Cinderella",  first running on hard coal and then adapted with sail and a Diesel engine.  

       

         

 

         

           

            

              

          

      

 

     

 

Bucket List

I am always delighted when the theme of our monthly Girlsjustwannapaint challenge fits my personal painter's bucket list.  I really love the frozen dramatic power of the rock formations of coastal Maine, particularly those of the island of Monhegan.  They are the visual embodiment of the extraordinary primal forces that created this planet.  And so, when presented with the theme of "chair", I thought of the perch of this young man, that I saw at "Swim Beach" on Monhegan.  Also ever the fan of the
"Road less traveled"' (and a clever title),  this is my 8"x10" acrylic, "High Chair".  Bucket List, part B, 

 is to paint those suckers really, really, BIG...

                     

                                  

Mural Finish

It was virtually impossible to get a photo of the whole 9'x17" mural, done on three 9"x5" canvases, topped by a small wedge, as the wall comes to a triangular peak under the roofline....  But here are some detail shots, and what we could get of it laid out on the floor.  It is awaiting installation by skilled paper hangers, at which point I will be able to photo graph it from the various landings opposite the site wall.

    

                                    

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Beauty and the Beasts

   

It's been an odd summer, too short, after our last aggressive Winter.  Thankfully full of good work, a strange mixture of a continuing body of land/water scapes of my favorite places, and equally absorbing mural work of an entirely different nature...  

Beauty:

                         

The start of a painting of our family place in Maine

                                 

                                              

A favorite birch off the dock

And the Beasts.....

                 

          

                

          

                                  

           

 

         A progressive look at the first two 5x9 foot canvasses of a 9x17 foot mural of an epic battle 

         scene, incorporating characters from years of Lord of the Rings series, Sci-fi, and comic books.

         The basic art direction on this was "The scarier, the better",  and so it goes.....

         A work in progress with Kate Gennelly,  mine generally on the left, and Kate's on the right.