Checking Out a Little Art History

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Philip Koch, Ocean: Morning, oil on  panel
7 1/2 x 10", 2009

This is an oil done in response to this plein air vine charcoal drawing done on Mt. Desert Island in Maine. 



In the studio now I'm working up a larger version of it, hopefully ready for unveiling this fall.
I like to work on many "in-progress" pieces at once. Somehow they seem to start up a conversation among themselves that helps me move them all along towards completion. I pretend to have the requisite patience to let them all ripen on the vine, but secretly I'm drumming my fingers.

My wife an I are off for an overnight trip to PA. We're headed to the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art (which shares the distinction along with my art school, the Maryland Institute College of Art of being the oldest continuously operating art schools in the country. They however have a great museum attached to the school. We had a great collection but never had a place to display it and finally sold it to the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Walters Art Museum).

Then on to the Philadelphia Museum of Art for more punishment (I love going to museums). Then finally tomorrow on to  Chadds Ford, PA to the Brandywine Museum and a tour of the studio and home of N.C. Wyeth, the great painter and illustrator. How I suffer for my art!

Unlike my painting trip two weeks ago, I don't anticipate being attacked by tiny flying crocodiles while working plein air. Although who am I kidding? I know I'm taking my supplies and will be in a beautiful and art historic part of the country. So I may just have to answer the Muse's call.



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