11x14”. Oil on Canvas. 2020.

I call pictures done in a single session One Shots. Some people, such as Marc D’Alessio, specialize in them. The great English landscape painter John Constable painted stacks of one shots, usually on paper. While he had his share of financial problems, Constable refused to sell these oil sketches; he said it would be like a farmer selling his seed. I can see his point; not only did these function as reference material, but his fully realized pictures never had the charm, or verve, or truth found in his one shots. Certainly the skies which hung over his large landscape pictures could never compete with those in his small color sketches.

My batting average isn’t as high as I’d like it to be with single-session pictures, but when they work, they’ve got an immediacy of which I am quite proud. Oil paint doesn’t like to be noodled around with too much. Observe well, mix the note well, lay it on, and leave it alone.

I wish I were at a point in my career when I could ask, and get, several thousand dollars for a picture like this. In my humble opinion, if you buy it, you’re getting a bargain.

By the way, in his maturity, Constable produced monumental landscapes that were indeed as interesting as his one-shots. In his 1821 canvas Hay Wain, Constable pretty much invented broken color, using it to evoke the sparkle of outdoor sunshine. Delacroix saw the picture, recognized the possibilities in the method, and repainted much of his Massacre at Scios using the technique. If the Barbizon painters were the technical fathers of the French Impressionists, then Delacroix was their grandfather, and Constable their great grandfather.