The Steeple

A good post for Memorial Day. This is part of a three-small-paintings commission I'm working on. It's the chapel steeple of Portage Lake Covenant Bible Camp where I, and many friends, have been going every summer since we were kids.
Oil, 5.5" x 5"

Morning view

Here is another one I did last weekend in Michigan. Got an early start and set up in the shade on a dune in Elberta overlooking Lake Michigan. I did one from a nearby spot last year in the afternoon. This time I wanted to work quickly to capture the morning light and the dynamic of having the foreground in shadow and the beach and distant hills in sunlight.
Cedars on the dune, oil, 12" x 10"

Little Sable Point

I spent this last weekend in N.W. Michigan, delivering paintings to my gallery, visiting friends, and of course a little plein air painting. This lighthouse is at Little Sable Point in the Silver Lake State Park.
Oil, 9" x 12"

North

I just finished this painting I have been meaning to do for years. M22 is a highway in northwest Michigan synonymous with summer vacation for many of us. It winds along the shore of Lake Michigan from Onekama, north through Frankfort and the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, then up the Leelanau Peninsula and along Traverse Bay to Traverse City. With historic, quaint, summer resort towns all along the way, it is designated a Michigan Heritage Route. To me, since childhood, it has meant going to Camp on Portage Lake.

North M22, oil, 16" x 20"
Available as a giclee print, $95, email me.

Platte Bay

Another view of South Manitou Island from across Platte Bay in the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. Summer up north.
Oil, 9" x 12"

Point Betsie

I painted here at Point Betsie, just North of Frankfort, MI, last summer. Recently finished this one in the studio. It's a hard spot to find a perfect vantage point. The lighthouse is raised up and from the beach, mostly obscured by trees and shrubbery. I stood out on a thin seawall to take photos to get this angle. Then I made some adjustments to the tree locations for a better composition.
Gray day at Point Betsie, oil, 12" x 16"