The Landscape of Painting » Current work

So Zoe says to me “What you lookin’ at?”

Stephen Springer Davis — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 19:15:19 +0000

My cat, Zoe, died at age ten a few years ago . She was resolutely inscrutable, happy to spend her days and nights under our bed, with the occasional break to get her hair brushed. She chose the people who’d she would let enter her world very carefully, and very few were lucky enough. It’s not that she’d attack anyone she didn’t like, but rather that she’d ignore everyone she didn’t know. If we had guests over, while our other cats would come right out to say hi, Zoe might wait till just as the guests were leaving to come out and say goodbye.

Zoe | Stephen Springer Davis | 2012

That’s just the way she rolled, and I wanted to memorialize her in a painting.

Back to Acadia National Park

Stephen Springer Davis — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 16:10:51 +0000

For the first time in a of couple years I had the opportunity to do some painting at Acadia National Park in August. Here’s a painting from what were several really beautiful days there. In the past the weather has been cool and foggy, so it was great to visit when the sun was actually blazing.

Nice Day in Acadia | Stephen Springer Davis | 2011

The South of France is as Beautiful as You’ve Been Told (cont.)

Stephen Springer Davis — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 20:08:08 +0000

The dominant colors of summer in the South of France are purple-ish and orange-ish, courtesy of lavender and poppies. I can’t think of fields of plants in America that could compete for powerful color. I feel privileged to have been there.

Added to the extreme color of poppies and lavenders is the fact that everything in France is beautiful. The French seem not to suffer with the American impulse to replace amazing ancient—okay, in America, somewhat old— buildings with some modern crap designed by contractors, not architects. The French are happy to put beautiful modern furniture inside a building which actually is ancient. Or to put a modern, architect-designed structure next to buildings in a medieval town. But there seems no wholesale destruction of the really old in the name of modernity.

And through it all the farmers continue to grow poppies and lavender, for which I am very grateful.

The South of France Is as Beautiful as You’ve Been Told

Stephen Springer Davis — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 21:25:26 +0000

We had the good fortune this summer to go to the south of France. English friends who moved to the small town of Ales seven years ago invited us to stay in their guest house. Not having to pay for hotels for most of our stay in France was a big help, of course, but that fact enabled us to be more than tourists. We got to see how people like us live in a foreign country. Plus, our friends were very generous with their time, and were happy to be our tour guides.

Where they live is on the edge of Provence, which makes their lives much less hassled. Ever since the publication of A Year in Provence, Provence has been over-run with visitors. Although our trips took us through Provence, enjoying the incomparable beauty of the landscape, for the most part we were only occasionally in the swell of tourists. I’m happy to say that because we speak French pretty well, we were never taken for Americans. One time we were asked if we were Polish or Swedish.

To the Beach

Stephen Springer Davis — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 12:44:01 +0000

In July we went to the beach in Seaside Park, New Jersey. This town, which is ironically a dry town, is right next door to Seaside Heights, which is the home to the notorious TV show Jersey Shore. We have liked Seaside Park for years, because although it’s pretty and quiet, the boardwalk in Seaside Heights, with its frozen custard, cheese fries and deep-fried Oreos, is only a five minute walk.

This boardwalk is quite the scene. Teenagers proudly wear “I’m a Guido. Love me.” and “I’m a Guidette” t-shirts. There’s an arcade game where you can shoot paint balls at a heavily padded guy wearing an over-sized so-called Guido head while he wiggles from side to side. But the weirdest was a “game” where you could shoot BB’s at life-sized manikins, about 8 of them rotating on lazy susans, holding plates. If you break a plate you win a prize. But what was truly scary were who the manikins were: Saddam Hussein, Michael Jackson, Louis Armstrong, and, wait for it…President Obama. Is this legal? Did I mention that Seaside Heights, at least on the boardwalk, is a terrifying place?

To the Beach Stephen Springer Davis 2010

But I digress. Not far south of Seaside Park is Island Beach State Park, which is a whole other world. This park is serenity. Seldom do you see people, because no one owns land in this section of the island. You park, pay a fee and head to a pristine duney beach. It’s lovely. This is a painting of an entrance to the beach through the dunes. It’s the Jersey shore, but not Jersey Shore, for sure.

A Sunny Foggy Day in Maine

Stephen Springer Davis — Mon, 17 May 2010 19:15:13 +0000

Fog Rolling In | Stephen Springer Davis | 2010

It was one of those August days in Maine when it actually was hot, as opposed to Colorado-like. Very refreshing to be overlooking the ocean on such a day, when it was in the upper eighties. I’m guessing that the water was about fifty. The result was that despite the sun fog started to accumulate over the ocean. As I painted, my right arm was warm and the left chilly.

Looking Down on Camden, Maine

Stephen Springer Davis — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 20:39:23 +0000

Looking Down on Camden | Stephen Springer Davis | 2010

Camden has to be one of the prettiest towns in Maine. It’s right on the water and has a beautiful harbor surrounded by lovely, nicely kept homes. Nice parks, an enviable library that probably has multiple copies of The Preppy Handbook. Some might say the town leans to the hoity-toity, and I’d be inclined to agree. Let’s just say that I did this painting of the town from the distance that for me was the most comfortable.

Beachcombers in Belfast, Maine

Stephen Springer Davis — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 20:05:30 +0000

Beachcombers in Belfast, Maine | Stephen Springer Davis | 2010

I like to find a beach scene where there’s a lot of beach and plants in the foreground, and the ocean fairly far away. This spot accommodated me because the tide went way out. When the tide was in here, people who wanted to wander by the ocean had no choice but to wander by the ocean, because there was really no beach, just rocks.

Blog re-design

Stephen Springer Davis — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 16:49:07 +0000

Perhaps you’ve noticed that I’ve redesigned my blog. For my freelance life I’ve had to learn to design for WordPress, so I thought that I should take the opportunity to change the look of this site.

If you have any comments, I’d love to hear them.

Winter Paintings Are Depressing, or So They Tell Me

Stephen Springer Davis — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 20:48:35 +0000

Winter Hillside | Stephen Springer Davis | 2010

I don’t know, of course, what your winter has been like, but where I live we got slammed with something like 80″ of snow starting in December. That’s really weird because we rarely get any snow. But in honor of this precipitation, I’m posting one of my few winter paintings.

In my experience, no one ever buys winter paintings. Galleries hate them consequently, and discourage me from including any in shows. I’ve over-ruled the owners in the past, thinking I must be wrong, but the result is always the same. I’ve talked to visitors at my shows about what they do and don’t like, in a general way. (This might be a good time to read my post about the Perfect Painting) Generally visitors have said they don’t like winter scenes because they’re reminded of, well, winter. That means freezing temperatures, the high cost of heating, scary driving, missed work. For non-skiers, who are probably the majority of us, winter is bad news. But sometimes a scene with snow is pretty anyway and has to be painted.

I’m not so tough as to paint en plein air in the winter. It’s uncomfortable enough to paint under a hot sun. In the winter I will strictly take some pictures and do the painting in the comfort of my studio. Did I mention I hate winter?