Lawrence left me home alone today. I spent the afternoon in the backyard tied to the porch. Boy was it a long lonely day !! He went to the National Gallery of Art in Washington and had lunch with his friend Ross Merrill and saw the art exhibition In The Forest At Fontainbleau. He was really excited to see the above painting ,On The Road To Chailly ,which is one of Monet's most famous early paintings. The forest of Fontainbleau is south of Paris and is where the French artists began to do a lot of outdoor painting on site in the mid nineteenth century. Lawrence's favorite painting in the exhibit was a small painting by Monet titled Haystacks At Chailly At Sunrise which is pictured below.
It really captures the color of the early morning sky. I love it too. Now I'd like to go sniff out some trails in the forest at Fontainbleau.
Lawrence just finished a painting of the Schoonover Studio in Wilmington, Delaware. It is owned and managed by John Schoonover who is one of Lawrence's fraternity brothers and he is the grandson of Frank Schoonover. Frank Schoonover (pictured below) was a student of Howard Pyle along with N.C.Wyeth, and he was one of the most renowned American illustrators in the twentieth century. He was also a very good landscape artist although he is not as well known for his landscapes. If you are not familiar with Frank Schoonover you can see several of his paintings on Google images.
