Nora's Comments

After a frustrating winter of either being thwarted in our painting/photography attempts by weather or missing sessions all together, we got out in late spring and Peter painted one good painting after another. He is truly modest, but I wanted to share photos of him painting because I believe people are interested in seeing how he works. The paintings will soon be professionally scanned and on the web site.



We influence each other. Peter’s paintings now inform how I look at landscapes and I am startled sometimes when I realize I look at actual landscapes through the eyes of his paintings, such as in a recent photograph (below) of a landscape south of River Falls, Wisconsin. It could easily be one of his paintings.



I enjoy seeing him put down in paint what I have been looking at through a lens and admire his ability to look and see color and form so surely. Please note: my photographs of his paintings rarely capture the correct color as compared to the landscape. The colors on the painting and the colors in the landscape almost always look vastly different in the photo, which is not the case. I suspect it has something to do with how pigment reflects light; the painting of the pine tree was taken with a flash on a very cloudy, dark day. The flash would affect the painting much more than the landscape several yards behind it.



Peter’s ability to handle the medium of oil on board or canvas is especially impressive to me since I have done oil painting in the past, with several years of training at University of Wisconsin - Stout. I know how difficult it is, how easy it is to make mud. I marvel at Peter’s expertise in handling it; to keep the colors true and clear. I know I am not entirely objective, but I also know I am informed.

−Nora

PS I have thought of a solution to his Shoal painting (which I like very much). If he simply paints a crouching puma on the shoal, it would solve everything. . . .