Local Park

                                                                                 (C) 2025 Dale DiMauro

If I have learned anything about spring it is that greens and browns are the colors of the season. The green is the re-emergence of all the growth around us and above our heads while brown is the earth and river bottoms all churned up.

Getting outside is a wonderful thing. This was painted not long ago - as in the early evening - tonight. After dinner I walked to a local park and painted this watercolor, taking advantage of the longest days of the year. There is an old concrete wall and staircase which faces the woods where I set-up my studio for the moment.

It's funny how lively the paper is when it is wet with pigment and water and then as it dries it becomes much flatter in appearance. I painted this picture with just two brushes thus, it made for a quick clean-up.

I feel like the colors are pretty true to what I was seeing - even though the light is always changing all around me. However, the mosquitos gathered around me the whole time I was painting.

Shelter from the Sun

                                                                                    (C) 2025 Dale DiMauro
 

It will be great once this heat wave passes. I can not recall a time in Brattleboro, VT where we had three straight days of one hundred degree days or close to it. Yesterday, the exterior temperature at my house reached 101 degrees. And that sensor is in the back of the house where it is in the shade!

This watercolor conveys the importance of trees in our lives. They provide shade, dappled light and habitat for birds, to name a few. However, in my neighborhood they always seem to be cutting down trees. Ironically, they don't seem to replace the trees or if they do it is with a weak replacement or something that is not allowed to grow to it's full height. This all seems silly and irresponsible to me.

As far as painting trees I find them fun and rewarding. They don't have to be the perfectly symmetrical trees either. Misshapen trees have a lot of character and add much value to your painting. For summer foliage I keep experimenting with the pigment combination of winsor green and burnt sienna.

Madame Sherri Forest

                                                                                               (C) 2025 Dale DiMauro
 

The Madame Sherri Forest in West Chesterfield, NH is a lovely 513 acres of undeveloped land to submerge you into the sights and sounds of one of our great local ecosystems. I prefer the wetland and pond in the lowland, yet at a higher elevation is the lovely Indian Pond.

It seemed like I had a great start in painting this watercolor, on site, until I started to run out of time. By the time I began to paint the water in the foreground, I knew I had to head out to my scheduled medical appointment in the late afternoon, putting a stop to my painting practice.

I was particularly excited about painting the beaver lodge in the foreground with it's distinctive architecture. In addition, I like the blending of pigments for the base of the tall reeds towards the back.

This landscape scene always has dramatic light, which seems to magnify the features of the landscape. In particular, the shadows of the tree masses and the ripples across the water capture my imagination every time I am at the water's edge.

Pond adjacent to Chestnut Reservoir

                                                                                      (C) 2025 Dale DiMauro
 

The Green Mountain State has been very green this spring. I mean deep greens as well as many shades of green. Someone told me today Vermont has had only two weekends with no rain since the first of January. That statement is hard to accept but it might well be the case. I have observed a lot of gray days.

Regardless, of rain or not I have been painting outside a lot. I have been been painting outside what is before me in a fast and direct way. Plus, I have been painting on different surfaces and at different sizes.  This watercolor is an unusual size: a square format(12" x 12"), not the usual horizontal(landscape) format. With this size you have to think twice about how you want to develop your composition. In this case, I simply started painting on this sheet with no hesitation as I had time constrains.

This watercolor was painted walking distance from my house. There is a small pond next to the Chestnut Reservoir which often hosts a great heron amongst the wetland growth. The perspective is unique as I was looking down towards the center of the pond which has a bowl-like quality to it. Yes-it has deep, still, dark reflections which makes the experience have a meditative-like quality to it.

Regardless, of the quality of this watercolor I am excited about some new techniques I have been experimenting with. One is lifting out pigment with both a brush and paper towel. Other techniques included dry brush work and negative painting along the shore where the grasses overlap the water. I have even been blending pigments at the base of the grasses to suggest a more rooted plant then a simple wash can convey.

Ft. Dummer State Park(Brattleboro, VT)

 

                                                                                    (C) 2025 Dale DiMauro

This weekend the state of Vermont offered free access to their state parks. So I took advantage of this offer with a trip to the closest state park to me - in Brattleboro, Ft. Dummer. 

It is a bit of a sleepy park but nevertheless a lovely one. Ft. Dummer doesn't offer any jaw dropping views or attractive beaches but it has some nice jogging or hiking trails in addition to it's camping options. It has a still pond in a stone quarry and a lovely field as it's assets.

This watercolor was painted in the late afternoon in the field from a picnic table. Other than the mosquitoes it was a lovely situation to be operating from.

As my mother has commented I have been painting a lot of greens lately. Tis the season as everything seems to be lush green - which beats the parched yellows and browns of a drought.

I have been experimenting with this Kilimanjaro watercolor block I have been painting on lately. This paper is bright white and good for lifting pigment especially when the paper is still wet. In fact, you can notice some lifting of pigment on the right side where the green foliage is with a palette knife. 

Whenever I lift paint I think of John Singer Sargent and Winslow Homer who were prolific at this technique. My understanding is that they lifted significant amount of paint when necessary in some of their watercolors. They scraped away paint when depicting tree trunks, white caps on the water or to suggest a stucco wall, etc.

Goose Pond

                                                                                           (C) 2025 Dale DiMauro
 

Goose Pond in Keene, NH is a lovely place to take a hike and a dip at the same location. The trail around the pond has countless vistas of beautiful natural scenes and wildlife if your timing is right.

This watercolor is of a view from near the spillway where the transparency of the water is best, highlighting the stony underwater. The cool deep shade of the shoreline is evident with the uninterrupted foliage and strong shadows on the water.

This was painted fast in under an hour with a limited palette and a lot of distractions. For some reason it reminds me of some of John Singer Sargent's watercolors he painted out in the field. He was so direct with his approach to watercolors that I still find it mind-boggling.

Landscape Painting

                                                                                                 (C) 2025 Dale DiMauro
 

Often when time is limited I simply start painting on any single sheet of watercolor paper or scrap I can find. At times this may be on a rough, cold press, hot press or soft press surface. Sometimes I even paint on illustration board.

This landscape was painted on an Arches cold press sheet of 140 lb watercolor paper. It has some texture to it but it is not particularly rough if you draw your hand across it. Recently, I have embraced rougher surfaces as I seem to be able to express a more drybrush affect with the brush and appreciate the advantage of leaving the white of the paper when I can.

The last month or so I have been observing, recording and experiencing as many in our area, here in southern Vermont, much rain and the mist and moisture in the air. I ran out and into the heaviest precipitation with my camera in and amongst the lush green growth and wetland environment.

This landscape painting is derived from memory as rain occupied the West River Valley last weekend with it's all encompassing mist dominating the valley at the foot of the Mt. Wantasiquet basin in the distance.

I wanted to match the dark-grays of the evergreens I saw outside. I was reasonably satisfied with the combination of phthalocyaine blue and burnt umber. In some areas of the dense foliage I even flicked paint with my fingernails.

Cloud Study

                                                                                      (C) 2025 Dale DiMauro
 

Observing the sky is an endless fascination for me as I go on walks. The sky we live under is always in a state of transformation. Sometimes there are no clouds in the sky while at other times they race across the sky.

This watercolor started as a landscape painting along the West River Trail in Brattleboro, VT. However, I keep experimenting by painting clouds in different formations and with new techniques. 

This cloud study depicts high drama in the sky yet makes the landscape rather boring in contrast.The landscape was painted after the sky to tether the ground to some source of reality. At this point the landscape is imaginary.

Memorial Day Plein Air

                                                                                  (C) 2025 Dale DiMauro

Painting outside after painting inside for most of the winter is a challenge. It is not so much the change in scale but the quick decisions one has to begin to master.

This watercolor was painted last week, on the edge of a cornfield in Northfield, MA. It was a wild and turbulent painting session as flocks of birds flew towards and over me. Also, large swarms of mosquitoes hovered around me as I put down washes of pigment.

However, I do see some progress in this painting. My 'cloud' painting is improving but the values of the pinks are still a bit weak which makes it hard to read aspects of the sky. I like the energy and color in the landscape depicted here. Also, I like that I did not get bogged down in details.

The other area I have improved upon is matching the color mixes to the colors I see in nature which is not easy as the light is always changing. Also, I have become much more adaptive with the specific palette I am using on a given day. Some of my palettes are quite small as compared to my indoor one which is much larger.

With spring definitely here, much promise and hope reveal themselves regardless of the political climate.