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I find it interesting to analyze what makes an area so alluring to paint that I keep coming back many times a year. In some cases, it's one specific scene. In the case of Iona Island, it's many areas of the sanctuary. What especially intrigues me are the variety of textures, the varied yet subtle colors and the many watery paths throughout the area with mountainous hills bringing up the rear. Lots for the eye to enjoy.

Wild reeds and grasses, bushes, trees and wild flowers line the banks of the marsh. Sometimes the watery paths are wide and sometimes narrow as the tide from the nearby Hudson influences the water level. The atmosphere is often highly saturated with moisture which causes foggy, moody conditions and because the Island is in the Hudson Highlands and right along the river, one can count on lots of dramatic skies.

The scene I've chosen here is right at the entrance road to the Island. If I turn a little to the North, I'm looking at the Bear Mountain Bridge. Here, the focus was on the many layers of wild growth in varying shades of green and earth tones that march in angled paths of Nature's own making and the bright blue reflection of the sky in the water.

There are many beautiful views that can be seen from this harbor on Cape Cod. On this particular day, the sun was setting low on the horizon and as it did, it lit up the hillside with a warm orange glow. The coolness of the surrounding colors with that brightly lit fiery hill really captured my attention.

I enjoyed painting this subject so much that I'm now working on another version with more of the sky showing as it too started to warm up as the sunset occurred. What I love so much about painting landscapes and getting out on location is that I'm kept very alert to what's taking place around me on a moment by moment basis. Sometimes the colors and effects are so unreal, that unless you see them with your own eyes, you would be sure they were made up. In this case, it was as if a cameraman in the far corner had suddenly turned a spotlight on the subject. Until then, that same scene had looked rather dull as the sun was going down and I wouldn't have considered painting it.

I keep revisiting the view of the Hudson River from the shore at Garrison's Landing in the Hudson Highland region of New York, and I can see that I'm not through painting it yet. Sometimes what triggers a new painting is another beautiful sunset or cloud formation I'm lucky enough to catch. Sometimes it's an earlier view that I've painted in a small size and now feel would look wonderful in another, usually larger, size. Sometimes it comes from cropping a section of an earlier painting and finding a whole new composition that intrigues me.

I've come to understand why some artists paint in series. This series is one that continues to develop over time rather than being painted one after the other to the exclusion of anything else. For me it's like having a wonderful visit with a beloved friend who I don't get to see every day.

I'm back from a trip to Cuttyhunk Island in the Atlantic off the coast of New Bedford, Mass. It's near Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket and is the first of the three that I've visited.

Until this trip, I've always chosen to visit Cape Cod or Shelter Island for an immersion into beach landscapes and to be able to find wonderful scenes of the shore and surroundings to paint.

This year, my son and his family invited me to join them on Cuttyhunk, where they would be visiting with my daughter-in-law's extended family and friends who have been summering there for several generations.

This isn't an island designed to encourage hoards of visitors. Each day there is one ferry which leaves early in the morning to take you over to the island and another in the early evening which returns to the main land. Any other time for arriving or leaving requires hiring a water taxi or having a boat.

In order to make the 9 AM departure time, I drove up to New Bedford the night before and stayed in a motel. The ferry pier was right alongside a number of good sized fishing vessels that were setting out for the day's catch. I found the port and the activity fascinating and thoroughly enjoyed the  hour-long ferry ride to the island.

The island is usually cool and breezy, so islanders were unprepared for the heat wave that was baking the entire Northeast. Very luckily, I had specified that I must have a fan or would bring one with me. It turned out to be one of the few fans I saw during the week I was there. Walking everywhere on a very hilly island and having no respite from the heat, made the trip more challenging than it might have been otherwise. It was simply too hot to paint en plein air and often too hot to walk to some of the scenic spots along the coast to take photos and carry my backpack and heavy camera. I did manage to get some good shots in spite of that and this painting of beach roses along the path is based on a couple of photos I took of the scene--one for the scene itself, the other of clouds which I added to the scene.