Vermont Farms, Snow and Mountains

 It was a fine December day when we drove from the seacoast up into the hills of Vermont to deliver paintings to Galleria Fine Arte in Stowe.

An early morning storm was clearing out. 

Fresh snow covered the landscape...

...the higher the altitude, the deeper the snow.

We arrived at the gallery shortly before sunset.

Giancarlo and Maria helped Marcus and I bring the paintings into the gallery. They hung the paintings so fast that by the time I came in from sorting out my car they were already on the walls! 

We reviewed my videos and set up the laptop for easy viewing by the collectors.

The gallery is a cluster of intimate rooms. It has a wonderful feeling to it. 

Giancarlo and Maria are gracious, warm and friendly.  Did I mention they are Italian?  

You might enjoy espresso and biscotti as part of the viewing experience...

...from cozy chairs with great art all around you. 

The a gallery is on one of the most scenic thoroughfares in Vermont.

Stowe is in a picturesque valley in between the Green Mountains and the Worcester Range.  It is close to Mount Mansfield, the highest mountain in Vermont.

All across the valley you can find many old farms with great barns.

This area is in the snow belt.  It snows here even when the sun is out 30 miles away.

The mountain ranges hold the clouds on their peaks. When a snow squall moves in you can no longer see the peaks beyond the nearby trees.

The light and color on the fields reminds me of paintings by Russian painters. They would be quite at home in northern Vermont!

Johnson is a neighboring town to the north of Stowe in the Lamoille River Valley.

I love this place !  The old farms are my favorite.  I used to live nearby in Burlington and visited often. 

The Bryan Memorial Gallery in the town of Jeffersonville is a special place. On exhibit were a great collection of Vermont paintings.

Jeffersonville is on the west side of Mount Mansfield.  Smugglers Notch is a gap on route 108 through the Green Mountain range. 

The road is closed from November to May because snow and ice make it too dangerous to drive across.

There are a thousand paintings waiting to be painted near Jeffersonville.  The landscape is dramatic and it has a distinctive character.

It is crisscrossed with narrow dirt roads.  It was on these roads that I got my expert driving experience to navigate single lanes in rural Scotland when I visited there. 

It was almost time for the opening !

Lights twinkled at the gallery. 

The Stowe Community Church tower was lit up as well. 

Giancarlo arrived to light tall candles in glass boxes along the walk way.

The guests started arriving and the party began !

We were a happy trio after long weeks of preparation.

The show stays up until January 22nd. Please stop by  Galleria Fine Arte if you are in Stowe, Vermont.

"The Moods of Nature" in Stowe, Vermont

This weekend I have a show opening at Galleria Fine Arte' in Stowe, Vermont.



I've been working for weeks selecting and finishing paintings for this show. 
Dusk 11x14 oil

I looked through my plein air work and chose ones that fit the theme of the show.
Afterglow 11x14 oil

I added finishing touches to some of them, while others were ready to varnish.

Moonrise 16x8 oil

I wanted to show a variety of seasons and landscapes.

After the Snow 12x16 oil

 I noticed a lot of water images in this group of paintings .

Red Sky 8x16 oil

I painted some of them along the Maine seacoast and others in the mountains of New Hampshire.
Reflection 24x24 oil

One was painted in a meadow very close to where I live.
Winter Walk 12x16 oil

Another on a deep ocean bay just a few towns away.
Safe Haven 28x38 oil 

I also noticed that I really like capturing reflections...and moods. Twilight is becoming a favorite time for me to paint.  
Twilight 11x14 oil

I've never been a big fan of painting buildings. I noticed at night they change into something else. Their boxy shapes merge into the landscape and their lit windows are beacons. Their reflections transport them into another world.

Cabin Glow 8x10 oil

It is this other world that I am interested in.   

Reflection Study 11x14 oil

This desire to paint nocturnes arises from a childhood memory.  I was six years old the first summer I went cat fishing at night.  It was magical being out in a row boat on a pond in the dark. The stars twinkled on the surface of the water.  Farm lights glowed in the distance. It was only when you hooked a fish and hauled it up in the beam of the flashlight did you remember that you were floating on deep water. 

Quiet Cove 8x10 oil

“Day and Night: The Moods of Nature,” a collection of new paintings of peaceful, luminous New England landscapes, by Mary Byrom , opens on Friday, Dec. 9, with a reception from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Galleria Fine Arte, 6 Sunset St., Stowe. 

The Point of Graves

Sometimes when you go out to paint there is so much subject matter to choose from...

....that you can't decide where to start.
2 Boats Sketch 8x12 ink, watercolor

This was one of those days.

My friend Barbara and I met in Portsmouth, NH to paint. After looking around in a couple of different locations ...
2 Sketches, ink, watercolor

 ...we finally decided to stop at the corner of Peirce Island Road and Mechanic Street across from an 1600's burial ground named The Point of Graves.

From this spot we could paint boats, houses, streets, the skyline or the park !  You could just turn your head and the view was completely different. 

Clock Chimneys Sketch, 6x8 ink, watercolor 

Portsmouth has so much to offer... 

 ...a working harbor with large and small boats... 

...great architecture, a variety of old houses, large and small ... 

Old Neighborhood Sketch, 6x8 ink watercolor

...and fine vistas of rooftops in the Strawberry Banke neighborhood. 

It's a busy port with the hustle and bustle of oil tankers coming and going.

While we were painting the largest amount of joggers we'd ever seen in a 3 hour period scampered by. 

Barbara and I sketched a variety of subjects before we set up to paint. 

We were lucky.  It was a warm day with no wind blowing off on the ocean. 

As it is no longer peak tourist season, we could park and paint where ever we wanted. 

Small furry friends watched the activity from above.

 The muted colors on this overcast November day were typical for New England. 

Everything along the water had a silvery blue-violet tint to it.

Every now and then cloud holes would appear out over the ocean and sunshine would break through. 

At high tide the tugs were busy fetching and guiding huge oil tankers into berths up the river. 

I looked toward the river, painting the park and the drawbridge beyond it.  Barbara painted an old interesting house on the other side of the street.

In this neighborhood the streets are small and narrow with uneven brick sidewalks.

One of the docks is slowly disintegrating into the channel. 

 Small lobster boats travel under the Peirce Island bridge to the docks on the Island.

It is almost the winter solstice. The sun sets early, shortly after 4 pm.

The old dock buildings looked mysterious in the soft light.

The moon rose above the roof tops.

Lights started to glow in the windows of houses all over the neighborhood.

There are so many lights in a large town. When they come on at dusk the landscape is all lit up.

The "Puddledock" neighborhood has all kinds of little gleaming lights.  Christmas trees twinkled in some of the house windows. I'm coming back to paint nocturnes in this neighborhood!

PAINT EAT SLEEP