Landscape Painting: Waterfalls #2

I painted this 12" x 12" plein air oil on two successive days because rain forced me to stop after the first 90 minute effort. I like the square format because it sets up a completely different compositional challenge than the standard rectangle. You'll note that I used a dry brush to blur the edges of the cascading water and to create mist in certain sections.

Landscape Painting: Waterfalls

I recently made a road trip to Maryland, Virginia, and Georgia to photograph plein air events and was able to paint some of the waterfalls in the hills of Georgia north of Atlanta and in Virginia just south of Charlottesville. I put together a short audio slide show about the paintings.

Immortalized in Times Square

 Persephone being banished to Haites (the New York Transit subway system) in Jack Beal's glass tile mosaic near the 1,2,3 subway platforms in Times Square

Steve Doherty standing next to his image in the Times Square mural

My friend, Jack Beal (www.jackbeal.net), included images of me, my wife, Sara, and our children, Clare and Michael, in the second of two mosaic murals he created for the Times Square subway station in New York City. Both murals (unveiled in 2001 and 2005) offer Jack's interpretation of the myth of Persephone being banished to Haites (signaling the start of winter) and then emerging from the underworld (or the subway system, in this case) to initiate Spring. The Doherty family is part of the banishment scene, and I'm filming the event from a camera crane.

I revisited the murals recently and took a photograph of me standing next to my image. No one took notice of me or my camera tripod because lots of subway riders stop to have their picture taken next to murals, and performance groups often use the sparking glass tile images as backdrops to their joyous music and break dancing.