Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary

A series of paintings of the Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary

near Naples, Florida.

I've spent many hours working plein air in this magical place- looking to capture the essence of the pristine Florida wilderness- perhaps somehow witnessing through proximity to these massively giant trees that are a living link to secrets thousands of years old.

Corkscrew Sentinels

16" x 24"

Corkscrew Giants

19" x 28"

Grove of the Ancients
24" x 36"

Corkscrew Sunrise
22" x 36"

Ancient Witness
18" 26"

Home of the Heron

Here's a plein air scene I painted from a canal winding itself through east Naples

Home of the Heron
16" x 20"
oil on linen

Sunset in the Everglades

Here's a painting I did from a plein air sketch I painted along alligator alley between Miami and Everglades City. Painted on gold leaf on linen using gold mica flake oil paints with a palette of traditional oil paints.

Sunset in the Everglades

16" x 20"

Oil on linen / gold leaf

Here is a sketch for a larger 30" x 30" painting.

Florida Palms

Florida Palms 14" x 16"

Tamiami Trail

Here's a painting I painted from the side of the road east of everglades city beyond the Big Cypress Park.

Tamiami Trail 24" x 36"

High and Dry

Painted from the same spot - another view of the abandoned boat.

High and Dry 12" x 16"

Sunset Palms

Here"s a little plein air sketch I made at the Conservancy of South Florida in Naples.

This one is entitled

 Sunset Palms 9" x 12"

Cayo Costa

A bit of the beach with some Sabal Palms in sunset light.

Plein Air from Cayo Costa beach across from Boca Grande.
Cayo Costa Sunset 12" x 12"

Florida Palms

Here's another painting 24" x 30" Florida Palms

that I'm putting some last touches on.
The Cuban Palm in the center of the composition needs work, as well as the sky and the foreground.
Some harmonizing sky motif seems to be called for here.

Florida Sunset

Here's a painting that I'm just finishing up.
Really an experiment in close value modeling, I'm finding that I am using the red-green simultaneous contrast as my color mixing harmonic,as the vortex of orange light diminishes , the local color and shadow creep back into the mass tone.I remember years ago there was a George Inness exhibition at the Metropolitan museum,  and there was a dusk-afterglow landscape that I was totally captivated by. I was blown away by the extreme close value modeling in dark silhouettes in back light, and how chroma was squashed down so that it was irrelevant... all that mattered were extremely small variations in color temperature which made forms recede into the mist.Making these forms recede while in front of a vortex of warm light , as in a sunset, requires using the tools of contrast as well as color temperature.
Florida Sunset 24" x 48"