Girl In the Sun

"Girl in the Sun", 8" x 6", Oil on Museum Board
This is the second painting in the small portrait series.  When I'm in between things in my studio, I tend to thrash around with great indecision about what to do--there are too many choices.  So I have to narrow the choices and in this case narrow the time for each study to 30 minutes.  At Peggi Kroll Roberts' workshop, she had boxes of small studies from 4"x6" to 6"x8".  When I went to Ovanes' workshop, he said go out and do twenty paintings in a day.

Girl with Scarf

"Girl with Scarf", 8" x 6", Oil on Museum Board
Since I'm getting ready to go to the UK with a group of painters in mid-September, I needed a project for the next 10 days that I could get really organized around.  I decided last night to do a series of small portrait paintings.  Maybe I'll even be able to do a few extra because I don't think I will have a computer in Cornwall or easy access to the internet and I'm probably not going to be able to post while I'm gone.  This is the first of the series.

Zangle Cove #27

"Zangle Cove #27", 10" x 12", Oil on Museum Board
When I am out in the field, painting often follows the dictum: don't think, just paint.  When I am back in the studio, a different but equally important process comes into play--experimentation.  This painting, like the last one, is experimental.  I always remember that when I first studied 20th century art at the University of Washington, it was the Fauves and the German Expressionists who really got me exited about painting.

Field near Winthrop

"Field near Winthrop", 16" x 20", Oil on Panel
This painting was done as a result of a challenge on the Artistes de Studio network.  You can see I was experimenting with abstraction after my experience with David Mollet in Alaska.  Interestingly, when I work in the studio, I sometimes want to just go really abstract, but sometimes feel like I have no idea what I'm doing. So you may be seeing more of these in between my plein air adventures and more traditional paintings.

Purchase this painting unframed for $425
If you would like the painting framed, please contact me.

Point at Salt Creek

10/1/10 "Point at Salt Creek", 8" x 12", Oil
When we first started painting here, the tide was way out past the point, there were a lot of people hanging out on the rocks and I was facing the other direction.  This was the 2nd painting and by the time we finished the waves were crashing on the shore, but not quite to where we were standing--a beautiful day on the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

The Olympics

8/31/10 "The Olympics", 10" x 10", Oil
This was a sketch I did on Hurricane Ridge, looking out on the interior of the Olympic National Park. I did a second one back in the studio today because I wanted to experiment with color and making it a little more abstract.

Hurricane Ridge

8/30/10 "Hurricane Ridge", 9" x 9", Oil
When you get up to Hurricane Ridge, you can look out into the heart of the Olympic Mountains.  I got frustrated with this painting as it went along, so I decided to try to paint it more in the style of David Mollet--more expressionistic than impressionistic.  I don't pretend to understand how David constructs his paintings, but it was fun just thinking about it differently.

Beach at Salt Creek

8/29/10 "Beach at Salt Creek", 8" x 10", Oil
This beach is up on the Olympic Peninsula west of Port Angeles--not on the ocean, but on the Strait of Juan de Fuca, where the water first enters Puget Sound.  It is a much more rugged area than the quiet waters where I live at the very bottom of Puget Sound, which is like a baby's blanket compared to this.  I like this painting because it doesn't mean to be anything other than it is--my experience of the colors that the salt air produced on this day, which was on Friday, when I went there to paint with my friend Jeanne Edwards.

Purchase this painting for $115

Self Portrait #2

8/27/10 "Self Portrait #2", 11" x 14", Oil
Another self-portrait.  With this one I utilized a technique that Peggi Kroll Roberts said she did for a year:  draw a line down the middle of the palette with darks on one side and lights on the other.  Take everything for lights from one side of the palette and everything for the darks from the dark side of the palette.

Self Portrait #1

8/26/10 "Self Portrait", 14" x 11", Oil
Sometimes I just feel like doing something really different and a self-portrait is always a challenge.  I didn't try to make it pretty because this was the day this week I got the root canal. 

Fisherman Bay -- NFS

8/25/10 "Fisherman Bay", 8" x 10", Oil -- NFS
This is another painting done on Lopez Island that is currently in a show on Orcas Island.  This was actually the first painting I did on Lopez, and it was a hot, hot morning with a lot of mosquitos on this preserve. This entire series of paintings was done for a competition that benefited the San Juan Preservation Trust -- an organization dedicated to preserving the natural and historic areas of the San Juan Islands.

Spencer Spit

8/23/10 "Spencer Spit", 8" x 10", Oil
This is another fast painting on Lopez Island, but fast because the sun was setting behind the hill.  There are so many beautiful painting spots on Lopez Island, but the really enchanting thing about Lopez is that the residents on this small island wave to everybody as they pass in their cars--without fail--a one finger, two finger or full hand wave. And I started waving to everybody. It kept me on my toes--I couldn't get lost in day dreams.  It made me so aware of the island and who was there.

Watmouth Beach -- NFS

8/22/10 "Watmouth Beach", 9" x 9", Oil  -- NFS
This is another 30 minute painting from Watmouth Bay on Lopez Island and is one of my favorite paintings from the trip.  It is also currently at the Crow Valley Potter show on Orcas Island.

Watmouth Bay -- NFS

8/21/10 "Watmouth Bay", 8" x 10", Oil  NFS
Watmouth Bay is the most idyllic painting spot on Lopez Island--a swath of sandy beach in a beautiful sparkling cove.  One of my friends was in the painting doldrums, so I suggested we do 30 minute paintings--a very good way to break through that barrier.  This was the first of my 30 minute paintings.  It is currently at a show at the Crow Valley Pottery on Orcas Island.

Green -- NFS

8/20/10 "Green", 8" x 10", Oil  NFS
This was the third painting at the Fisherman Bay Preserve on Lopez Island during one morning, and by this time I was in a more experimental frame of mind.  A friend now has this painting.  She said it reminded her of the work of Emily Carr, which in retrospect connected me to the yet to be experienced workshop with David Molett in Alaska the following week.  Strange how those things sometimes happen.

Fog at Fisherman Bay

8/19/10 "Fog at Fisherman Bay", 8" x 10", Oil
Since I didn't have access to a computer while I was on Lopez and in Alaska, I'm showing you many of the Lopez paintings now.  There were several days where we painted maybe 3 or 4 paintings a day.  They are not all worth posting and they are not all equally "good" whatever that criteria is--sometimes just the feeling I have about them.  But they are kind of like a day in the life of an outdoor painter--different weather conditions, different moods, different energy levels.  This was a painting in a cold fog.

Richardson Bay

8/18/10 "Richardson Bay", 9" x 9", Oil
This is a painting of a bay on the southern shore of Lopez Island just as the fog had lifted, so everything was bathed in a misty light.

Fisherman Bay Preserve

8/17/10 "Fisherman Bay Preserve", 10" x 12", Oil

This is one of the paintings from the week on Lopez Island in the San Juan's at the San Juan Preservation Trust paint out. 

View from Colorado Lake

8/16/10 "View from Colorado Lake", 9" x 9", Oil
This is a small painting done from my friends' property on Colorado Lake, near Cantwell, Alaska.  It was misty and rainy but still beautiful as ever.  I came home with a copy of the Kaufman's book, Untamed Alaska, and I am envious that this week Steve and Marybee are in Denali Park with photographer's permit!

I mentioned that the last day we hiked down the Savage River in the Park and hung out with a couple of Dall Sheep rams. This is a photo of the bigger ram eyeballing me--about 6-8 feet from me. I had been busy doing some drawing and suddenly he was right there in front of me! I threw down my sketch book and grabbed my camera. Marybee took this photo.

Davis Bay -- SOLD

8/16/10 "David Bay", 9" x 9", Oil   SOLD
This is a not very good photo (taken from the back of my car) of  my second "quick draw" painting done during the San Juan Preservation Trust paint out on Lopez Island a couple of weeks ago.  The bay was socked in all morning, cleared for a couple of hours during the quick draw, and then the fog rolled in again just as I was packing up out on the point by Davis Bay. 

Teklanika River - NFS

8/14/10 "Teklanika River", 16" x 20", Oil  NFS
This was painted the last morning of the workshop on a sand bar of the Teklankika River where the Murie Science Center Field Camp was.  We stayed in tent cabins.  This was the only clear sky day during my time in Alaska and the wind was fierce!  You can see the white spots where I used a bungy cord to keep my panel on the easel.  One thing I loved about the workshop was that David, in a completely laid back manner, defied conventional outdoor painting wisdom.  Here are two of what we called the Molleticisms:  Just put the paint on, leave it there, and don't step back to look at what you've done--don't look at your painting when doing it.  Chase the light--you can't remember what it was like before.

Sable Pass -- NFS

8/13/10 "Sable Pass", 16 x 20, Oil  NFS
This is the second painting I did on the second day of the workshop about 40 miles into Denali Park on Sable Pass--the same area that from the safety of the bus the previous day we'd seen a mama grizzly and her two cubs browsing the berries!  For this painting, I had the opportunity of watching David start a painting--with simple flat shapes that defined the overall design, color and value.  As the plein air tradition in the lower 48 comes more out of the California Impressionists (it seems to me), the images of David's paintings are only now sinking into my brain with the possibility for more abstract design--the type of painting that I have long admired in artists such as the Group of Seven.

Valley Near Toklat -- NFS

8/12/10 "Valley Near Toklat", 16 x 20, Oil,  NFS
The only time that worked for my visit with a painting friend in Alaska was during the time she was taking a workshop from David Mollet, Chair of the Art Department at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, at a field camp in Denali National Park.  Luckily I got in from the waiting list.  David's work derives more from his study in New York than the plein air movement in the lower 48 and in fact he was not familiar with Edgar Payne and John Carlson, the current gods of outdoor painting.  There is an amazing abstract quality to David's on location paintings that I rarely see in contemporary outdoor painting.  We were working big (small to David) with 16 x 20 panels, four times bigger than my average outdoor painting size, out in Denali Park in mostly overcast, rainy and sometimes exceedingly windy conditions. I do not consider any of the paintings I did  "finished"--they are at the most 2 to 2.5 hour worth of painting time, but I do consider them experiments in painting differently.  This was the first one.

Kathryn in Denali

8/07/10 Kathryn in Denali, Photo
I'm still in Alaska and don't have my camera to take photos of paintings, so I'm posting
this photo taken by my friend Mary Bee Kaufman where we painted at Sable Pass in Denali National Park.  On this day we saw (from the bus) two mama grizzlies each with two cubs, one set sauntering down the road and voraciously eating red berries by the stream.  We also saw several Dall Sheep crossing the road, a wolf crossing the road, a fox and several caribou.  There is almost no private vehicle traffic in the park--everybody rides on buses--and animals have the right of way, so sometimes there are bus back-ups.  The weather cleared yesterday and Mt. McKinley was in full view from spots on the road.  We painted on a sand bar of the Teklanika River in the full blast of the wind near where the field camp was located.  More later!

Lopez Cliffs - SOLD

8/2/10 "Lopez Cliffs", 9" x 9", Oil -- SOLD
I'm off to Alaska tomorrow, so I have time to post one painting from the Plein Air Washington/San Juan Preservation Trust Paint-Out on Lopez Island this last week.  This painting won 2nd place in the competition.  It was painted on the wind-swept grassy cliffs of the southern end of the Island near Iceberg Point--a magical, other worldly place with slate blue water and black rock.  I took this photo of the painting from the back of my van, but I think the color is pretty accurate.

In the Sun

7/25/10 "In the Sun", 12" x 10", Oil
This is a limited stroke/limited time exercise.  I love doing exercises like this--the abstraction and the lack of finish.  Maybe it is because when doing exercises like this I feel most like I am in the unfettered state of my childhood mind--without preconceptions or second thoughts and there is freedom in that.  However, I didn't do this entirely without a plan. I took Peggi's advice and made a line down the middle of my palette with darks on one side and lights on the other--I painted everything in sunlight from the light side of the palette and everything in shadow from the dark side of the palette.  More than one artist has said that everything in the painting is a reflection of what is on the palette.  If you are wondering about the shoes, they do look a bit like flippers, but actually they are my oversize green crocs. 

During the next week I will be on Lopez Island for the Plein Air Washington paintout, and then the following week off to Alaska to paint in Denali.  I've heard there is bad cell coverage on Lopez and last time I went to Alaska there was no cell coverage at all outside of Anchorage.  If there is not an in-house network, my broadband computer connection will be kapput, so I may not be posting much for the next two weeks--yikes--a posting vacation!  Maybe on the weekend when I will be home for a couple of days.

Blue Dress

7/24/10 "Blue Dress", 12" x 8", Oil
My daughter was willing to pose for me so I took the opportunity to again try the PKR exercises.  Since my daughter is a violinist, we have many conversations about the parallels between music and painting and one of them is the need for structured practice related to specific skills.

Mt. Stewart

7/23/10 "Mt. Stewart", 6" x 8", Oil
Today was spent entirely in a process of experimentation--of trying to figure out how to re-do a painting and actually make it different. Several tries were scraped off. Above is one of the results.

Mt. Stewart

7/22/10 "Mt. Stewart", 8" x 10", Oil
This was the first painting I did last week up in Cle Elum.  There was wind gusting to maybe 30-40 mph, it was cold and I had some phthalo's on my palette.  I tried re-doing this painting today with a different palette and different size, but after that effort, I decided that there was some energy in this painting that was hard to duplicate.  This is the spot where the West Fork of the Teanaway meets the North Fork--some ways behind where I was painting.

Peoh Point

7/21/10 "Peoh Point", 8" x 10", Oil
This little painting won first place at the High County Artists Fresh Air Painting Competition last week.  My friend, Pat Clayton, won Best of Show with a wonderful horse painting.  The group of artists who put on this show are so generous and welcoming and the area is one of the finest places to paint I know of--because it is beautiful, it is the gateway to the Alpine Lakes Wilderness Area and it is sunny most of the time!  Peoh Point is an icon of the town of Cle Elum and so it is always a "must paint challenge."