Who Grows Your Food?

It's easy to forget that up until relatively recently (within the last 60 years) most people still lived a rural existence, and small farms were the norm. Nowadays it seems that we have entered the age of agri-business and corporate farming. So who grows your food? Has it arrived at your dinner table after having traversed the continent in the back of some refrigerator truck, specially-bred to withstand the rigors of shipping? Or did you buy it direct from the grower, handing him or her cash and chatting about the weather? (no swipe your card and wait for the cashier)

Rest at least somewhat assured that there are still small farms to be found in this country. People working very hard to produce food for their families and to earn enough cash to buy the necessities of life. Yes, farming is an honorable profession but it's not one that we honor very often, do we?

This is an actual farm not far from where I grew up. I wish there were more of them like this.

(original 6x8 acrylic on canvas board)

And the cow jumped over the moon...

This is one of my larger pictures (12x24). I had posted this painting in one of its intermediate stages earlier this month, before I had worked on the tree's foliage and added the cow and moon.

Tilghman's Neck

A common early summer scene on the Eastern Shore. I encountered this view along one of my favorite back roads. The time is around 7 or 7:30p in late June, when all the world is draped in a lovely warm gold light.

Tilghman's Gold
(orig. 8x6 acrylic on canvas board)

$110 + S&H

Shoemaker Hill

A portion of the landscape where I grew up in southwestern Pennsylvania. A very quiet area, you can stop your car on this spot and hear nothing but perhaps the miniature mechanical clatter of grasshoppers flying through the weeds along the road.

(original 5x7 acrylic on canvas board)
SOLD

Saint-Pierre Lighthouse

This is the Pointe-aux-Canons Light at the Saint-Pierre harbor. Saint-Pierre is an island off the southern coast of Newfoundland which is a French possession. And you thought that France is all on the other side of the Atlantic didn't you?

(original is approx. 7.5" x 7.5" watercolor on 140lb watercolor paper)

A Foretaste of landscapes to come...

These are a foretaste of the style of landscape paintings I will be posting in the coming weeks. They are slightly larger in format but nonetheless give the viewer a sense of what to expect. While these paintings are not for sale, future paintings will have a 'bid' link to Ebay.

The first is what I have entitled 'Forest Boulder'. This boulder actually exists in Swallow Falls State Park in western Maryland. (original approx. 9x12 acrylic on canva-paper)

I took some artistic license and added the white tail deer -- not out of character for this location.

The second painting is one that is "in progress" and is tentatively entitled 'Broken Tree'. This is a scene from western Pennsylvania, between Meyersdale and Garrett, in southern Somerset county. I wanted to evoke the feeling of a late summer dusk, the air humid and heavy but with a whiff of the autumn that will follow. And I also wanted to evoke a sense of quiet with nothing to distract the viewer except the sound of katydids and crickets and the odd bird singing goodnight.

(original 12x24 acrylic on stretched canvas)

As one can see, I still have significant work to do on the foliage and the grasses of the field. However, I am happy with my progress so far.