Philip Koch Paintings

"What a nice place to work" ran through my mind as I came into the studio this morning. The standing mirror catches a reflection of the canvas I'm working on right now. Some collectors have told me they'd love to see the space in Baltimore where I create most of my paintings. Here's a mini-tour. This is just some of the brushes that are stationed at the ready. Last night's color mixtures of blue pigments grace my palette. In the distance is one of the three easels I have in the painting room- it's usually holding  a painting I want to study. At the right is the standing mirror that's always aimed so I can see a reversed image of the painting I'm working on on my main easel. Loaded paintbrushes love to roll into their neighbor and get their wet colors all over each other. I made a simple grooved brush holder to keep each color of the brush clear of collisions with other unwanted hues. The main working easel at the right. It's super heavy which i...

Viewers often ask me about where a particular painting was done or what I was thinking about when I made it. A new show of my work and that of an abstract landscapist, Emily Demsky, opened in Baltimore yesterday at the JLP Gallery at Green Spring Station in Lutherville. It runs through Jan. 7, 2011. This Thursday night, November 11, there's an opening reception from 6-8 p.m. If you're in the area please come by and say hello. I thought it would be fun to give a quick tour of my oils in the show. This is Late Winter Sun, Roland Park . It's of a lovely older neighborhood at the north end of Baltimore. I painted this from life on a series of frigid January days. I'm standing in a shadow that runs across the whole foreground. While it was colder standing there, I liked that shadowed spot as it placed some cooler blues and violets in the front of the painting to contrast the warm colors in the distance. While I was working on this painting the front door of the house opened...

Edward Hopper, Gas, oil on canvas This is another iconic Edward Hopper painting. It evokes the end of day like no other painting. For good reason it's known worldwide. It's based on two gas stations that stood until recently on Route 6, the main road that runs up the spine of Cape Cod. Hopper used to fill up his old Buick sedan at both of them. Tellingly, the building in painting was based as much on Hopper's invention as on the actual architecture of the old gas stations. The darkening dense woods on either side of the road captures the feeling of Cape Cod's forest perfectly. What's so interesting is how Hopper created such a universal image of the passage of time using the details of a very real piece of landscape, Cape Cod. Below is the Truro, Massachusetts studio where Hopper painted so many of his most famous paintings. It is remarkable for its simple understated qualities- so much like Hopper's paintings themselves. Below are the steps leading up to the k...

Philip Koch, Mount Washington, oil on panel, 18 x 24" 1995 "Would Monet Paint Mount Washington?" A motorist stuck in traffic actually rolled his window down and yelled this out to me as I painted this oil in the Mount Washington section of Baltimore. Now any artist who sets up a portable easel in a public place places them self in the front line for odd responses from passers by. I was set up just feet from traffic on a bridge over the river in the painting. The traffic was stuck in a terrible jam caused by the grand opening of a new Whole Foods grocery. It was drawing record crowds. Baltimore is a small enough town that this was a big deal. Leaving the Whole Foods parking lot meant spending time in a traffic jam. Nothing is all bad, and my glacial progress driving in my car one afternoon allowed me time to discover the potential of the view when one was half way over the river. So I came back and set up my easel on the sidewalk, just a few feet from the inching along t...