Seems like almost every exhibit venue has jumped on the Small Works Show theme for end of year events. And it's a great idea, since small works of art are great for the gift-giving season - littles are typically affordable, space-saving, and thoughtful gifts for loved ones or as a treat to yourself to brighten up your space through the darkness.

Many of my small paintings will be available in the following Small Works Shows:

October 29-December 21
GEMS at Bryan Gallery, 180 Main Street, Jeffersonville VT and through their online gallery HERE. The gallery will also ship artwork, shipping at cost, no upcharge.

November 3-November 29
Plein Air Adirondack Member Show, Friends Gallery at Crandall Public Library, Glens Falls NY

November 8, 2025-early January 2026
Small Works at Eden Compton Studio & Gallery, 79 Beekman Street, Saratoga Springs NY. Opening Reception on Saturday, Nov 8, 4-8pm.

November 14-December 24
LARAC Holiday Shop, LARAC Lapham Gallery, 7 Lapham Place, Glens Falls NY. Opening Reception on Nov 14, 5-7pm.

November 20, 2025-January 3, 2026
Small Works at Ti Arts Downtown Gallery, 119 Montcalm St., Ticonderoga NY. Opening Reception on Friday, November 21, 5-7pm

Honorable Mention for "Sentinel Osprey" in Ticonderoga Arts' 12th Adirondack Harvest Plein Air Festival, September 2025. This was the second plein air festival I've ever participated in, so was surprised and very pleased to get the recognition from awards juror Ann Larsen.

Honorable Mention for "Moments Like These" in Ticonderoga Arts' 2025 Annual Juried Exhibition, September 2025. It was busy up at Ti Arts with their plein air festival followed by the opening of their annual juried show a week later. And to receive an Honorable Mention from contemporary artist John Hampshire, along with his thoughtful and complimentary observations about my watercolor technique and how it worked on the painting, was very gratifying.

I'm happy to announce that Meander is heading up to the Bryan Gallery in Jeffersonville VT, selected for Land & Light & Water & Air, August 27 to October 26. Opening Reception takes place Thursday, September 12, 4-7pm. Land & Light & Water & Air is Bryan Gallery's annual signature exhibition featuring traditional and contemporary landscapes of Vermont, New England and the Northeast by artists from all over the country.

Meander, a watercolor measuring 11"x15" and framed to 16"x20 behind HD plexi, will be available in the show for $730. The gallery makes online purchasing easy by putting up a slideshow of all the works in their exhibits on their website. Art collectors can visit ​https://www.bryangallery.org/ to view all the works in the show and arrange purchase details.

Last summer, I painted "Moonrise", an 8"x10" watercolor that subsequently sold out of a juried exhibit I had entered it into. I'm glad that it sold but would have been equally happy to have kept that one around for awhile. It was one of those rare paintings where I felt everything clicked - the composition, colors, values, shapes and overall impact. It's a good one.

For the second process painting to be included in "The Process is the Practice" show at Ti Arts Downtown Gallery, I decided to recreate the smaller, successful work into a much larger piece, to take what I'd learned with the smaller one and try to transfer those pivotal points of painting epiphany into a 20"x28" scaled up version.

I painted three studies on watercolor board to prep for the larger piece: one small 5"x7" composition and color study and two 8"x10" studies of different elements in the painting, also on watercolor board. I added line work in fine line pen to one of the 8"x10", trying out the technique I occasionally use in my paintings.

Then I moved on to the 20"x28" large painting. The results were not what I expected.  I ended up making several adjustments along the way.

The two big things I changed in the large painting:

I felt the color shapes were too blocky and uniform, the fun watercolor marks I usually get were indistinct, so I decided to add line work in concentrated transparent watercolor applied with quill pens to add texture and some definition.

As a large painting, the original composition just didn't work and I didn't love how the tree on the far left side weighed down the piece, so I cropped it (gasp!). That's right, I chopped off 4 inches from the left side and 2" inches from the bottom, turning it into an 18"x24" painting.

Things I learned:

Substrate really matters. It's impossible to achieve the same effects in watercolor if you're painting on two different surfaces. Even if both are hot press surfaces, if they're two different brands and one is a large watercolor board and the first work was painted on what I usually paint on (140lb hotpress Fabriano watercolor paper in traditional white), results vary greatly.

Changing the size can change the impact of the composition. A larger space to look at changes the way your eyes move around the painting, as opposed to a small compact piece that reduces the energy required to take in the whole scene.

Mark making or brush strokes vary greatly between small and large paintings. The smaller painting had an immediacy to its brush strokes, more quickly done and blended on the paper. And I painted it without overthinking or overworking; it was completed within 4-5 hours. Even though I used large brushes, attempting to recreate the impressionistic style and sublime quality of the small painting with the larger work did not translate into the same spontaneous mark making. 

The large work, although reminiscent of the smaller one, is an entirely different painting in terms of mood, energy and texture, Working through the process of getting it to completion was a journey that took me way out of my comfort zone; end results were not what I expected or initially aimed for. I need to look at it as an entirely separate painting and not compare it with the first one.