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"Dusk at Poole Island Lighthouse"
Oil on Board
Approx 13" x 24"
(photo cannot capture nuances in original)
**  Contact Maryland Realist Ltd for an appointment**

** AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE **

** Contact Maryland Realist Ltd **

** AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE **

** Contact Maryland Realist Ltd **

"The Minnie V"
Skipjack
Oil on Board
Approx 24" x 36"
(photo is darker than original)
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"Floating Over the Cornstalks"
Canada Geese in Snow
Oil on board
Approx 18" x 12"
** SOLD **

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Thanks for dropping by and taking a look at my work. Write to me with any compliments or criticisms.

* - Chesapeake Bay Brushstrokes
by Patricia Rybak, ©Chesapeake Bay Magazine [excerpts]
www.chesapeakeboating.net

There's a secret to David Turnbaugh's hauntingly beautiful paintings - talent and hard work.

Nothing so stirs the imagination as a Chesapeake Bay skipjack under full sail carving its way through the foam-tipped waves of a turbulent Bay. Add the sunlit image of Thomas Point Light, or the distant tree-lined horizon of Howell Point, and you have the stuff of which David Turnbaugh's oil paintings are made.

Turnbaugh's original works are rendered exclusively from photographs he has taken himself. Consequently he spends a lot of time on Maryland's Eastern Shore, especially Tilghman and Deal Islands, photographing his favorite subjects - waterfowl, skipjacks, and workboats. Sometimes he finds his best shots while out for a sail.

Hundreds of artists have tried to capture the romance of Chesapeake Bay skipjacks, but Turnbaugh's finely drawn, moody renditions of these denizens of the Bay are especially riveting because of the artist's compulsive attention to detail. Working on masonite panel that has been primed with up to 10 coats of gesso and then sanded to a fine finish, his painting surface is slick, but his paintings are not without texture. Be it the prickly blades of grass in a landscape, the downy feathers on the wings of a Canada goose, or the taut hard lines of a sail halyard, Turnbaugh applies texture stroke by meticulous stroke with a very fine sable brush. "You can't buy brushes to do the really fine work. They have to be worn down," says the artist, whose favorite brushes have only a few lonely hairs.

A vital component to Turnbaugh's beautiful finished products is the medium he and many area realists use faithfully; the Maroger Medium. This recipe of linseed oil, powdered lead, and mastic that Turnbaugh "cooks up" in his kitchen was developed by Jacques Maroger, Turnbaugh's teacher at the Maryland Institute [College of Art]. It is purported to be the medium of 17th-century old masters such as Rubens and Rembrandt. The medium is mixed in with the paint to make it spread easier and smoother. If applied in layers, the medium can also help a painting appear luminescent. Turnbaugh feels it helps his paintings achieve a clarity of color. "I just don't think my paintings would look like they do without it," he says.

Dave Turnbaugh is a man who is constantly striving for perfection. But his precise drawing, his painstaking adherence to accuracy, and his super-critical eye take their toll in his yearly production. "Most of my larger paintings take about three months. That's working 8, 10 hours a day, seven days a week. There was one painting," the artist recalls with a grimace, "Mallard Pond, that I spent six months on. It took about two and a half months to finish the background landscape; then I added some mallards." He pauses and shakes his head.

Dave is a realist painter, but his easy-going hackles bristle when someone labels his work photorealistic. "I know some people see it that way," he says, "but I don't. My work just looks more real than some realists' work. My painting is the way I am. The way I see things." Shunning labels, he simply refers to his work as "airy." Some of Turnbaugh's "airy" paintings sell for upwards of [$25,000].

Despite his success as an artist, David Turnbaugh's feet remain planted firmly on the ground. "I'm only as good as my last painting. If I flub on a painting, my confidence is rocked. I don't think about it much though; I try to keep my mind on simple things." He laughs. "My wife can tell you I'm rather simple-minded."

Dave is a member of the Grand Central Art Galleries of New York, and the American Society of Marine Artists. In addition to winning the 1985 [1991, 1996, 2000, and 2004] Maryland Duck Stamp contest[s], he is the recipient of the Maryland Institute Silver Medal Award, and numerous awards from exhibits and juried museum shows. His paintings may be seen at the Annapolis Marine Art Gallery, Ltd., and are in a number of collections, including USF&G and the Rodale Collection of Pennsylvania.

Sitting in the living room of the Turnbaugh home surrounded by the works of this extraordinary artist, one can't help being stirred by the strength and clarity of vision that directed each brushstroke. But a sense of wistful solitude also pervades, a solitude that perhaps symbolizes the aloneness and isolation that are every artist's working companions.