Paintoutings With Karen E. Lewis

Beauty and Bounty Exhibit

2011-08-21T17:48:00.000-07:00

Just got back from a visit to Seattle to see "Beauty and Bounty" an exhibit of 19th and early 20th century landscape paintings at the Seattle Art Museum. I LOVED it. A good-sized sampling of Thomas Moran, Albert Bierstadt, and their contemporaries. Some of the paintings are from private collections, and some are lesser-known works , and some are just amazing. And of course, they're best in person.

It was interesting to go through the exhibit several times. First, I just appreciated the paintings, enjoying their beauty and expression. Next, I went through, looking at technique and compositional choices. Last, I went through more quickly, noticing which paintings grabbed my attention and held it, trying to figure out why.

The exhibit is there through Sept 11. Highly recommended for landscape painters.

Color Vision Test

2011-07-01T07:11:00.000-07:00

This is one of those tests that's really fun for an artist. Give it a try:

http://www.xrite.com/custom_page.aspx?PageID=77&Lang=en

Plein Air Workshops

2011-05-16T12:09:00.000-07:00

This summer I've set aside five dates for half-day plein-air painting workshops. Anyone is welcome, including acrylic and watercolor painters, as well as beginning painters. If you'd like to join me, check out my flier at:
http://karen_e_lewis.fineartstudioonline.com/workshops

PACKING FOR AIR TRAVEL WITH OIL PAINTS, Part 5, Putting it All Together

2011-01-25T16:47:00.000-08:00

Time to actually PACK the stuff.

From Right to left: A plastic tube for a brush holder (packaging from some product or other), Pencil, pen, hook for the brush holder, palette knife, Brushes: bristle flats # 8, 6, 6, 4, white nylon flat #2, synthetic sable round, brush bag, and underneath the sketch book. 1 lb.

An Open Box M pochade, and a light tripod. This is a really light-weight kit that won't stand up to any wind. It's mostly useful just for holding stuff still and keeping my painting out of the sand. 5.8 lbs.

Oil colors, detailed here. Packed in a plastic pencil box. MSDS attached with flash point highlighted. Sheet attached which says: The enclosed materials are artist’s colors made from vegetable oil. They have a flash point above 550 degrees and are not flammable. (I write the same thing in the language of any foreign country I travel to.) 2.5 lbs.

A couple of mediums, detailed here. A small jar of baby oil for brush cleaning. More can be purchased at my destination. Instructions for BRUSH CLEANING WITHOUT SOLVENT. This is packed with the MSDS, with flash points highlighted. .8 lbs.

Miscellaneous stuff. A couple of bungee cords. A car sunshade, which might clip to the easel and add some shade for the canvas. A small roll of paper towels or TP for brush cleaning, and a grocery bag for garbage... just enough for my first day. Thumb tacks for attaching canvas to stretchers, A couple of pencils and a tiny sketch book. A value scale. A roll of narrow painter's tape for marking off paintings, Command adhesive for hanging paintings to dry, ATG tape for temporarily sticking canvas to cardboard. All of this in a stuff sack. 1.1 lbs.

Canvas, as detailed here. For three weeks I am packing what you see above. If I need more, I'll get it there and paint on acrylic ground. Some of this will go in my carry-on to spread the weight around a bit. If there's too much weight in my bags, I'll leave behind the largest canvas (and miss it when I'm there.) 10.3 lbs of painting supports.

When I get to my destination, this stuff will pack into my carry-on backpack to take wherever I want to paint.

Things I will buy or acquire at my destination: Grass mats for laying painting supplies on the sand. Plastic grocery sacks for garbage. Paper towels or tp to clean brushes with. Mineral oil for brush cleaning. Jar lids for putting medium in. If I run out of paint or other supplies, I can buy something there.

Enough packing. Time to paint!

MY TROPICAL PALETTE

2011-01-24T17:37:00.000-08:00

These are the oil colors I take to the tropics:

Titanium White: A large tube
Cadmium Yellow Medium (Sometimes I carry Cadmium Yellow Light instead.)
Cadmium Red Light (A small tube of this is enough.)
Quinacridone Red (A moderately small tube is enough.)
Anthraquinone Red (I could travel without this. It is a darker version of Quinacridone Red, and a shortcut.)
Ultramarine Blue
Pthalo Blue (Essential for tropical water)
Pthalo Emerald (Also essential for tropical water, and useful in skies)

And if I feel like it and I have room:
Transparent Red Iron Oxide (A shortcut for creating warm darks)
Cadmium Green (Useful in skies.)

PACKING FOR AIR TRAVEL WITH OIL PAINTS, Part 4, Making a Lap Box

2011-01-22T17:16:00.000-08:00

If you have limited room in your luggage and you're on a budget, you might want to make a lap box to use in place of an easel. Here's how:

1. Purchase a plastic project case. They cost a few bucks at an office supply store. The case should be large enough to hold your canvas attached to cardboard or your canvas panel, plus your plastic or paper palette, flat on the inside. My box is large enough for 9 x 12.

2. Spray paint the entire inside of the box black. This will shade your painting and palette from direct sunlight if you sit with the box facing toward the sun.

3. With a small drill or a nail, make holes 3 or 4 inches from the hinge, on both sides of the top and the bottom of the box. Feed a string through the holes, and tie it so that the string holds the lid of the box up, at just a little more than 90 degrees. (If it is less, the box will close on you when you don't want it to.)

4. Get a piece of plexiglass that fits in the bottom of the box. Spray paint the back side of it gray.

5. Cover the back with duct tape so that the gray paint won't scratch off.

6. Place your palette in the bottom of the box. Clip the canvas on cardboard or the panel to the top with clips that you can get at a hardware store. You can also carry a bungee cord, which is useful for fastening the lap box to picnic benches, etc. This box weighs 1.6 lbs with a single canvas and cardboard.

7. You can close the lap box with paint in it, and store it in the freezer in between paintings.

8. The watercolor version can be made without the string hinge, so your paper can lie flat. If you wish, you can hot-glue your watercolor palette into the bottom of the box. This box weighs 1.3 lbs.

HAPPY PAINTING!

PACKING FOR AIR TRAVEL WITH OIL PAINTS, Part 3, Medium

2010-12-31T11:58:00.000-08:00

It’s probably not a great idea to change oil painting medium for a trip. Having said that, some oil painting mediums just won’t fly. Here’s what I mean: Flammable liquids (defined for airline purposes as any liquid with a flash point below 141 degrees) are prohibited in your carry-on and checked luggage.

It’s perfectly possible to paint with just the oil paint and no medium at all. But if you’re accustomed to painting with medium, you might want to match, as closely as possible, the working properties of the medium you are accustomed to using. You might want to bring medium to alter working properties, speed or slow drying time, or affect the final look of the paint after it is dry. There are many mediums on the market, all with their special properties. Some of them will be possible to bring in your luggage on an airplane. Others you might be able to purchase at your destination.

Generally for air travel it is nice to have your paintings as dry as possible before you transport them home, so it’s best to choose a medium with as short a drying time as possible, but still slow enough for you to complete your work on location. If you’re travelling to a cool climate, the only mediums that might be too quick would be something like Galkyd, which gets tacky pretty soon after leaving the bottle. If you are travelling to a hot desert, your paintings will dry pretty quickly, and you may not need any medium at all to speed the drying. For those of you joining me in MAUI, unless you will be in a damp area or you will be unable to leave your paintings in your car for drying, a moderately speedy medium is plenty quick. Unfortunately, in general the faster drying a medium is, the lower the flash point. That means that you cannot transport them on a plane. If you wish to work with a really fast-drying medium, you will probably have to purchase it at your destination.

SOLVENTS. If you are accustomed to starting your painting with paint thinned with solvent, you will need to either paint differently when you travel by air, or buy solvent when you reach your location, as nearly all solvents are not allowed in your luggage.

ALKYDS AND GELS. Alkyd Gels impart a particular working property to your paint that is very pleasant to work with outdoors. Most gels shorten drying time considerably. Liquin, with a flash point of 70 degrees is not flyable. Gamblin’s Neo Megilp, at 137 degrees, is barely not flyable. Seems like they should oughta fix that. Galkyd Gel (147 degrees) can fly. Liquid alkyds shorten drying time, increase the fluidity of your paint, and shorten drying time. Those with the shortest drying times are not flyable. Galkyd Slow Dry (147 degrees) is flyable, as is M. Graham’s Walnut/alkyd medium (215 degrees.)

DAMAR. Damar, and other varnish-type mediums are made with solvent, and are generally not flyable. You might be able to bring some of the components and purchase the solvent at your destination.

DRYING OILS. It is also possible to thin your paints with a drying oil (an oil that will oxidize into an oil paint film). This generally adds fluidity to your paint, and gloss to the final paint film. Generally, drying oils are flyable. For tropical locations, such as MAUI, the oil in your paint will be very fluid in the heat, and unless you are using the drier end of a tube of cadmium, for example, you probably don’t need to add oil to your paint to make it more fluid.

PACKING YOUR MEDIUM. Medium should travel in your checked luggage. It’s best to pack it in the manufacturer’s packaging. Whenever possible I pack unopened bottles, to prevent odors from escaping into the luggage. As with all liquids, surround it with tissue and pack in a ziplock bag in case pressure changes affect the package. Around this, I wrap the printed MSDS with the flash point highlighted.

TO FIND OUT IF YOUR MEDIUM IS FLYABLE:
Go to the manufacture’s web page.
Look for the Materials Safety Data Sheet. (And print it out for packing.)
Look on the sheet for the FLASH POINT.
If it is above 141 degrees, the medium is flyable.

SOME FLYABLE MEDIUMS AND OILS, from fastest drying to slowest drying:
Gamblin Galkyd Gel (147 degrees) (This medium becomes tacky pretty quickly in hot weather.)
Gamblin Galkyd Slow Dry (142 degrees)
M. Graham’s Walnut/Alkyd Medium (215 degrees)
Linseed oil
Safflower oil
Poppyseed oil
Walnut Oil

For those traveling with me to MAUI, the nearest art supply store to our workshop locations is inside the Ace Hardware Store in Lahaina. If you want to check whether they carry your favorite medium or other supplies, their phone number is: (808) 662-7051

Bon Voyage!

PACKING FOR AIR TRAVEL WITH WATERCOLORS, part 1, PAINT

2010-12-28T16:27:00.000-08:00

Choosing a travel kit that gets BRILLIANT COLORS.

There are a hundred little watercolor kits on the market that are easy to pack, convenient, and simple to use for painting small paintings. Some include virtually everything you need except the papers. At first glance, perfect for air travel.

These kits have a few problems, though, the biggest being the difficulty of getting rich color from the paints provided in the pans. You’ve probably experienced this: scrubbing your paintbrush over a dry cake, trying to get the color on your brush, only to produce a thin, anemic wash. Higher quality pan paints are better, but still not as rich as the tubes. Here are some things you can do to get richer color.

PACK YOUR OWN KIT, WITH PAINT TUBES. You can build your own kit with a few tubes of paint that will give you a versatile range of color. The above is a minimal kit, with paint tubes, a palette with a thumb hole, a water spritzer, and a paint brush. There are several advantages to packing tubes. Even with small paint tubes, you will end up with a lot more paint, a definite plus if you paint a lot. The paint will be easier to manipulate, and more like the paint you use in your studio. The paint on your palette will always be fresh. And the color will be the richest possible, giving you the most control over your paint.

CREATE YOUR OWN PANS. In the above picture, you see blue and yellow commercial pans, and red and green hand-filled pans. If you already have a kit with dry pans, take the dry caked paint out of some. You can remove some of the used-up colors, or remove colors that you don’t like to use. Fill each pan with a different color of tube paint. Let the paint dry for a few days, until it shrinks down into the pan. Add another layer of paint on top. Repeat, until the pan stays pretty full. You want to do this a week or two before your trip, but not months before, so that the paint doesn’t dry out completely, because tube paints are not make to rewet very easily. Even though this paint is dry-ish, you will still get richer color from these semi-dry pans than from the totally dry cakes. The pans below are a little too dry.

PREWET YOUR PAINT ON LOCATION. Whatever type of pans you are using you can get more color from them if the paint is softened before you begin to paint from the dry cake. Before you begin painting, spritz your pans with some water, so that the paint can begin to absorb water. Keep spritzing periodically, as you use up the softened paint on the top of the pan.

USE A BIGGER BRUSH. Most of these kits come with a brush about size one. Pack a nice round, # 10 or so, with a nice point (like the brush in the top photo.) This will enable you to transfer more water into your kit, pick up a good load of paint, and still allow you to paint delicate and precise marks.

ANOTHER NOTE ON COLOR: Unless you purchase a high-quality kit, some of the pan colors may not be permanent. If you're just painting postcards and sketches, that might not matter to you. If you plan to create lasting paintings that won't fade, you'd best look carefully at the pigment list, or replace the colors with more permanent tube colors.

Now go forth, and have fun with COLOR!

PACKING FOR AIR TRAVEL WITH OIL PAINTS, Part 2, Toning Canvas

2010-12-18T13:48:00.000-08:00

Many plein air painters like to paint on toned canvas or panels. This has the effect of removing the glaring white from the canvas, and giving a light-valued ground against which all the painting’s values can be compared. Some toned grounds are allowed to show through in the final painting, giving it an overall unity of color.

Some artists prefer to tone the canvas on location. A common method is to take a color or mixture of colors, often burnt sienna or some other warm semi-neutral, and thin it with solvent, then wipe the mixture over the canvas. The result is a thin wash-like layer of color that dries quickly in most outdoor conditions. It is even possible to rub out light areas of the painting, resulting in a toned value plan on which to build the painting. In order to use this method, it is necessary to either travel with solvent, or purchase solvent on location.

Aside from all other considerations about solvents, flying with solvent is problematic. Airline regulations prohibit flying with any flammable liquid, which is defined for airline purposes as anything with a flash point of 141 degrees or lower. Gamblin’s Gamsol, variously listed at 145 and 147 degrees, barely makes the grade as a flyable solvent. No other paint manufacturer’s product that I know of does.

Rumors abound about artists having their paints confiscated by the airline security. Maybe these artists didn’t pack their paints with the proper information. Whatever the reason, I know that most artist supply warehouses ship their Gamsol ground transport, and just avoid the issue, so I do too. I don’t pack solvent.

My preferred method is to prepare a gray-toned canvas ahead of time. This way, I can use the slower-drying oil painting ground, which according to some experts creates a stronger bond with the layers of paint above it, and which also keeps the oil from the paint from drying in, leaving the paint layer matte in texture and dulled in color.

To prepare your canvas or panel with oil painting ground, mount the canvas on boards or stretchers so that you have a stiff surface to work with. First seal the surface with a coat of PVA size. This is a thin glue-like substance that seals the canvas, keeping the oils of the ground or paint from reaching the fibers and causing their early demise from rotting. Let this dry overnight. Then, take your oil painting ground and mix in some gray or black oil paint to darken the ground to the exact value you want for your painting. Sometimes I use a black pigment, like ivory black. Sometimes I add a little quinacridone majenta to warm up the gray tone. Often I have a gray mixture of leftover paint from paintings that I can put into the mix. What you see is what you get, so balance the value carefully. Then scrape the oil painting ground over the canvas with a palette knife, and smooth the whole thing with a stiff brush, using random directions. If the canvas was previously sprayed commercially with gesso, usually one coat is enough. If it is raw canvas, two coats might be necessary. Depending on conditions, this might take up to a week to dry. The illustration above is my canvas drying in 90 degree summer heat. The canvas was dry the next day.

Video demonstration from Gamblin

You might prefer the simplicity and quickness of acrylic gesso. Skip the PVA step. Mix gray acrylic paint into the gesso, to reach a value at least one step lighter than the final value you would like. Acrylic paint mixed into gesso dries considerably darker than it appears when wet. Coat the canvas at least once if it is pre-primed, and at least three times if it is not. Some people recommend sanding between coats. For landscape painting, I don’t bother. Let the gesso dry overnight between coats.

If you’re joining me for the Maui Painting Retreat, pack about 4 practice pages or panels per day. Practice panels can be prepared with the quicker acrylic gesson method. For panels or canvas you might use for paintings, consider trying the oil painting ground.

Now, your canvas is ready. Let’s pack and go!

PACKING FOR AIR TRAVEL WITH OIL PAINTS, Part 1, Painting Supports

2010-12-10T09:11:00.000-08:00

Or: What should I paint on, and how on earth am I going to get it there?

After much experimentation, here’s the system I’ve settled on:

Illustration items, clockwise, starting with Canvas Carrier
Wet Panel Carrier by Raymar
Stack of prepared canvas clipped to cardboard with binder's clips
Set of 18 x 24 Stretchers
Canvas Tube
Thumb Tacks
Painter's tape for marking off panel
cardboard template for 6 x 8 size
Prepared canvas with 6 x 8 picture size taped

Frederix canvas pad... a quick way to get standard sized canvases for travel
And in the center, a canvas from a roll, prepared for 18 x 24 painting

I take stacks of canvas sheets in a variety of sizes. I prepare my canvas sheets ahead of time with a coating of Gamblin Oil Painting Ground, in a tone of medium-valued gray. (Complete directions for this in part 2.) Each piece of canvas is big enough for margins all around in case I like the painting enough to stretch it later. Occasionally, I will paint to the edges of the canvas, and later mount it on a panel.
Typically, I pack canvases in 9 x 12 (for 6 x 8 paintings) , 12 x 16 (for 9 x 12 paintings) 16 x 20 ( for 12 x 16 paintings), and 22 x 28 (for 18 x 24 paintings). I pack at least one 9 x 12 per day, and one per day of some other size. If I'm going to be painting a lot, I pack more.

The smaller sizes, I pack in stacks clipped to cardboard. I will carry two cardboard pieces for each size. The larger canvases I roll up and pack in a tube. I carry one set of stretcher bars for each size of these, plus thumbtacks for temporary stretching. This setup allows me a variety of sizes of paintings, with minimum packing space and weight. I will bring along a small wet panel carrier for my last two days’ paintings (generally small paintings) , which may not be dry when I pack them to come home.

Many painters prefer to travel with prepared panels. These may be wood panels, or canvas glued to a wood panel. Another option is to carry stretched canvas. Another option is to buy painting surfaces at your destination.

If you’re joining me for the Maui Painting Retreat, pack about 4 practice pages or panels per day.

Summary of support considerations:
Expense: The least expensive are canvas sheets, then stretched canvas, then panels. If you prepare your own panels, you can cut the expense considerably.
Bulk: The least bulky to pack are canvas sheets, then panels, then stretched canvas.
Weight: Lightest are canvas sheets. Panels and stretched canvas are about even.
Drying speed: Paintings on panels will dry slightly more slowly than canvas sheets or stretched canvas.
Convenience for hanging to dry: Canvas sheets can be easily hung in a hotel room from glass surfaces using Command Adhesive, particularly if you leave margins for later stretching. Panels can be hung this way, but with less confidence because the wet surface stretches all the way to the edge. Stretched canvases are best hung from a pin or nail, or from a hook placed on Command Adhesive.
Transporting home when dry: Paintings on canvas sheets can be packed flat, stacked with waxed paper between them, or rolled up. Larger size stretched canvases or panels would require an extra-large suitcase. Panels are easy to transport in a wet panel carrier, and canvas sheets attached to cardboard are equally convenient to transport this way.

MAUI PAINTING RETREAT 2011

2010-11-05T09:05:00.000-07:00

Leave winter behind and paint the beautiful beaches of Maui!

This trip is designed to include painting instruction and some optional activities, allowing you to choose your own lodging and transportation at your preferred level of luxury. Sign up early for some bonus options.

$375.00

Workshop Dates: 2/21/2011 - 2/25/2011

Location: Maui (Wailea and Kaanapali areas)

See FLIER for more details

SPRING TREES, FALL GROUND

2010-03-30T08:49:00.000-07:00

Trees are budding out, but the ground is still full of dried grasses, bushes full of seeds saved over from last fall for the birds. Spring is just a hint of green, more red than green. And yet, the sun-warmed pond is alive with ducks, geese, (snakes), and tadpoles.

GREENWAY PARK WETLANDS

2010-03-29T08:49:00.000-07:00

March 27, 2010
Greenway Park Wetlands

I join the paint-out group (had to wrestle car from husband to get there) at the wetland area parking lot. There we all find spots to paint the budding trees across the pond. It is a beautiful day with sunshine and colorful atmosphere, and a welcome break from spring rains. This is my first outing of the year en plein air (as opposed to en plein car and en plein window.) Lots of people show up, including a bunch of pastel artists I haven’t seen in a while. I spend about two hours painting and four hours visiting. We talk equipment (obligatory), painting grounds, drying aids, and travel tips.

I also visit the other side of the lake, via a swampy path, feeling thankful for my boots. I also feel thankful for my boots as I encounter several snakes. One, a nondescript black rope, hurdles fallen logs at a breakneck slither. Another, with beautiful orange diamonds on its side, heads straight for the water, hanging out there with its nose on the surface and tail submerged. I think it is probably California Redsided Garter snake, the first link, but it could be many of these:

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.californiaherps.com/snakes/images/tsinfernalisma604.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.californiaherps.com/snakes/pages/t.s.infernalis.html&h=650&w=912&sz=295&tbnid=6b4zaF3UogkkCM:&tbnh=105&tbnw=147&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dthamnophis%2Bsirtalis%2Binfernalis&hl=en&usg=__qLJcoSCYoCJ4dv4w7EWs_WVUyvA=&ei=uaquS8r_JKW4tgOxw-Qw&sa=X&oi=image_result&resnum=3&ct=image&ved=0CA8Q9QEwAg

http://www.uoregon.edu/~titus/herp/sirtalis.html

http://www.wildherps.com/species/T.sirtalis.html

SUNRISE SWIRLS

2010-03-28T16:41:00.000-07:00

Daylight Savings Time! The time when naturally late risers get one more chance to fit in a few more sunrise paintings. The sky looks very clear as I approach the boat ramp where I like to paint. But the lighter the sky gets, the more I can see a delicate, curled cloud that seems to hang over the river. A golden glow rises over the trees.

The boat ramp is busy today. It must be the start of some Salmon run. Boat trailers fill half the parking lot, and it is only 6:30. The fishermen passing by probably wonder what I’m doing, with my van door open and my easel just outside. I wish the van had an awning. But then it would almost be a camper–yech.

SUNRISE THROUGH TREES

2010-03-27T14:33:00.000-07:00

I drag myself out of bed for a spring sunrise that keeps getting earlier. Soon it will be daylight savings time, but for now, I have to get up earlier than I would like. The sky is already getting light through the trees. Instead of driving to the river, I set up in my bedroom looking out through the trees in our back yard. Once the leaves are on the trees, I won’t be able to do this, so I might as well take advantage of the view today.

Paints and palette sit on the bookshelf. I am standing on bedroom carpet. This is just wrong. I am filled with worry that I’ll drop a paintbrush. Trees painted over the sky colors seem wobbly. I feel awkward and out of place. It really doesn’t take very long to get to the river. Might be worth it next time.

But after I finish the painting, I slip back into bed.

MAGNOLIA

2010-03-26T07:18:00.000-07:00

A rare, warm day, over 60 degrees, surrounded by days of rain. And fortunately, it’s a day I set aside for painting.

The backyard is a busy, elaborate place, full of trees and flowers and changing shadows. It’s always a challenge to predict where the sun will swing and how it will affect the view. I choose the star magnolia as my focus, knowing that it will be in full sun within an hour.

The grass is a vivid spring green. Everything is intensely green. This is going to be a really green painting. Maybe that’s okay. It’s refreshing after the browns of winter.

LAWNS

2010-03-25T15:34:00.000-07:00

My childhood recollections of Pennsylvania winters are of perpetual gray skies and brown lawns. I have come to visit my mother in Pittsburgh. It is March, but still winter. Patches of gravel-dirty snow dot the ground and heap the parking lots. It’s above freezing, but after the late balmy weather in Portland I am COLD. After several days of gray, the sky finally clears. I find a window with a glimpse of greenery, and paint the hope of spring.

VALLEY SPRING

2010-03-25T14:34:00.000-07:00

I am delivering a painting to Eugene for THE LIVING RIVER, a juried show to benefit the McKenzie River Trust. Different rivers down here, and I ought to be able to find a spot along the McKenzie River to paint. The threatened rain clouds are breaking up, presenting me with lovely, varied clouds to paint. I deliver my painting, then miss the riverside exit somehow. So I stop in the lower Willamette valley. The clouds are warm, billowy, ever-changing. I would be content painting just the clouds. Almost reluctantly, I balance the sky masses with a group of trees, and add some of the spring almost-greenery. A nice change of scene from my usual haunts, and a nice way to break up the drive.

HAYSTACK ROCK

2010-02-26T07:45:00.001-08:00

Looking left up the beach, I see a series of shadowed capes, with mist rising between them, a value painting. Looking right, I see rock in full sun, a color painting. I opt for the color.

Wind is strong and gusty, too strong for an umbrella. I point my easel into the sun and hope for the best, taking great care to read my values on the palette. My canvas box blows away and I chase it down. Brush cleaning paper unrolls from its tube. But the sky is clear and intense, and I am in joy to be here.

SUNSET RHYTHMS

2010-02-26T07:44:00.002-08:00

This is nearly the most difficult painting conditions I have ever tried. I am looking out of a hotel room at the sunset. The room is quite dark, and there are no lights I can bring to shine on my canvas. I am staring straight into the sun. So while I can see lots of color out in the landscape, My canvas is nearly black to me. I am painting almost by feel. That it looks anything like the sunset is some kind of miracle.

MARINE LAYER

2010-02-26T07:44:00.001-08:00

Today I paint a gray morning sky. Values are close. Excitement in this painting depends on subtle variations of color. I decide to approach it with a different process than usual. Usually I choose the predominant color of a shape, lay that in, then make alterations according to variations that I see. This time I work backwards. The sky is predominantly blue-violet. Because it is very neutral, there is yellow in there. I find the most yellow part of it, identify it as an orange -yellow, mix it to the proper value, and grade that in from most to least. I continue in this manner with blue-violet, red-violet, and several other colors, grading each from its stronghold into the mix. I end up with a sky of proper value, with varied gradations of gray, ready to receive details.

The effect is almost magical, and much more vibrant than the effect I get by starting with gray and mixing color notes to reflect the variations.

What I think is going on here: This result is a recognition that the gray is never really gray at all. The reading of neutral colors is always problematic, particularly with very light and very dark neutrals. By starting with the less neutral qualities in the color, we invite the eye-brain to compare from the outset. Then the painting is variations that, when the eye-brain moves over the color field, allow it to form its own conclusions about the neutrality of the color.

SOFT SUNRISE

2010-01-13T21:14:00.001-08:00

Winter is the perfect time for a slugabed to paint the sunrise. Here above the 45th parallel, December sunrise is after 7:30, and anyone can manage to get up by 7 to go paint on a midwinter day... even me. Which makes it truly pathetic that I haven’t managed to get up even once this winter until this morning. So it would have been nice to have a spectacular show to reward me for my superhuman efforts. But no.
Still, it was a pleasant morning, a paintbrush in my hand, gradually lightening sky, peaceful calm on the river. Exaggerating the color a little, I managed to put some expression into the sky.
Now if you want me to get up other mornings this winter, let’s have some dramatic skies!

OPEN STUDIO INVITATION

2009-11-30T13:40:00.001-08:00

OPEN STUDIO INVITATION

You are invited to tour my studio
December 5, 10–5
December 6, 10-3

Karen E. Lewis
4155 Calaroga Dr.
West Linn, OR 97068
(503) 699-0817

Including
TUNNEL OF ART 09
(80+ plein-air paintings from Fall 08 to Fall 09)

Brand new works in Oil on Canvas
PLUS many other paintings, cards, prints, and demos throughout the day
(I'll probably be working on a large canvas throughout the day.)

Hope to see you there!
Karen

GOLD AGAINST BLACK

2009-11-06T15:57:00.001-08:00

Oh, my. It's been a long time since I painted this, and I got it uploaded, but not posted.

A fall painting, done from my living room window.

CLACKAMETTE FALL SHADOWS

2009-10-11T07:37:00.000-07:00

Carol and I meet at the park in late afternoon. It is a clear fall day, tempting me to just sit in the sun and read. But I’m here to paint, and that must be done in the shade or I won’t like the painting I take home.

We are both enchanted with the light and shadow patterns on the trees across the river. Carol zooms in on the scene; I include more river, and we paint away companionably.

The light is changing fast. These fall days are times of multiple, accelerating change. Every day the leaves are more colorful. Every day the sun sets more quickly. Every week has more and more rainy days. Time for outdoor painting is running out.

Light skims the tops of the trees, slanting down through the leaves. It makes visible streaks in the atmosphere, as if air were a semi-solid thing. Something hidden, revealed by a quirk of light.

CEDAROAK PAINTOUT AND LOCAL COLOR VIEWING

2009-10-03T08:59:00.000-07:00

CEDAROAK PAINTOUT AND LOCAL COLOR VIEWING
I drive over to Cedaroak Boat Ramp for a (small) group paintout, and find the ramp quiet. Two boat trailers stand in the lot. I set up my paints at the end of the floating dock for a view of the river and parting clouds. I’m just beginning to wish I’d sent Mark a map when he shows up.
We are surrounded by exquisite changing scenes as the light comes and goes on the lagoon and cloud formations work their way up river. The clear spots of sky are turquoise and glowing. The clouds have that warm golden cast they get in late afternoon. One behemoth drops a few raindrops on us, then passes on. We are undisturbed.
After a lovely paintout in which Mark produces two little gems and I paint this:
we adjourn to my house to watch the movie LOCAL COLOR. Maria joins us, and my husband, Rick. The non-painter’s review of the movie is “enh”. I myself am thoroughly entertained by the painterly elements. The scenery is exquisite, and beautifully filmed. In the houses are tantalizing glimpses of paintings, at which I go... wait! Zoom in there, I want to have a look at that. I want to look up Nicoli Seroff and see his paintings. And I am extremely curious about the parade of bad and less bad paintings the young painter trots out for critique.
It’s fun to watch the painters. The young man looks really awkward with a brush in his hand, and dabs at the canvas as if he were told: for this scene, dab a bit on the canvas here. I can just imagine some artist directing him how to stand, how to hold the brush, how to look at the landscape. But he just isn’t convincing. The old man, he looks like he’s painted before. I don’t know, they usually do a pretty good job with piano players in movies, but then you can always photograph a pianist’s hands. (I hear Hugh Laurie is a pretty good pianist.) Sitting down with my computer and Wikipedia, I find that this is a semi-autobiographical story about George Gallo, and that he pulled out actual paintings that he showed to his actual mentor artist to make the film. You can see his real work at: www.ggallo.com. I still want to see the paintings by “Seroff.” They didn’t quite look like the gallos I saw on the web site. Who painted those?
There are a couple of really fun scenes in the film. When I saw the master artist behaving badly at the local art show in the trailer, my thought was, “what a jerk.” Interestingly, in the movie I was with him as he had to listen to pretentious art talk to validate art that involved no skill. And I loved the scene with the “abstract” oil paintings being praised by his art critic friend.
There’s a little too much pontificating in the film for me, but hey, there were some tidbits in there too. Anyway, a fun show for an artist, and for a non-artist, probably not so much.

WILLAMETTE FALL AT FIVE

2009-10-01T03:42:00.001-07:00

Last summer, we spent most Friday evenings down at the river with a picnic, watching the boats go by, and the sun go down. This summer we didn’t get down a single time. Our spare hours were occupied with preparations for our trip to Peru, and when we got back, to recovering from Peru. So it is nice for a change to be sitting by the river once again, painting to the music of jet skis.

CEDAROAK SUNRISE

2009-10-01T03:33:00.001-07:00

The sun doesn’t rise until seven! This, of course, is an invitation to me to paint sunrises, my favorite time of day. At the boat ramp in my neighborhood, the mornings are quiet, it not being salmon season, and the only creatures out here at six are the ducks and geese. As I set up my paints, I can hear them but not see them, squawking occasionally at one another. I see glints of sky reflections from their wake ripples as they swim around the island.

I am still learning how to manage the light at sunrise. One morning I produce a painting with fairly garish color. This is mostly the result of not being able to see my paint until it is too late. This morning I have brought with me a headlamp. It is not my favorite headlamp, being un-aimable, but it works okay. I can see my colors, and when I look up at the landscape, the beam strays off into nothingness. When I bring my painting home, I find that the colors work much better.

COLUMBIA ISLANDS

2009-10-01T03:21:00.000-07:00

ROWENA PLATEAU HIKE AND PAINTING AT MAYER STATE PARK
It’s a beautiful early fall day, and Rick and I decide to take in the plein air art show in Hood River, and go for a hike at Rowena Plateau. And maybe hang out somewhere where I can paint and he can read in the sun.

The art show is fascinating. Many of my favorite artists have produced wonderful paintings, some of interesting places I haven’t been, some of undefinable and universal spots.

At Rowena Plateau, Rick and I step out of the van and are blasted by the wind. Then I remembered how windy it was there when I painted the meadow in the spring. It was too windy to paint outside, even too windy to paint with the van door open. (I guess that was a whole year ago.) Anyway, there is no question of painting on the plateau. We decide to hike up the hill a ways, until it gets steep, then turn around and hike down, keeping our hike to the flattish areas. Of course, this plan doesn’t work. The farther up we go, the more we can see into interesting canyons. Mt. Adams peeks above the gorge rim, and we can see new bits of the river. The trail winds through meadows, through patches of scrubby oak and poison oak, back and forth across the inclined escarpment.

A pair of birds circle overhead. (We had a discussion about them at the car. I thought they were swallows, and Rick held out for turkey vultures. Now I can see that they are very small raptors, light underside, and much too small for turkey vultures....also too large for swallows.)

Up and up we go. I send Rick out ahead of me, preferring to poke along, and let him catch me on the way down. I turn a corner, see the summit still a ways off, and turn around, hoping to get back to the car with my knees intact. Rick catches me just as I am reaching the car. Perfect timing.

We drive down the hill out of the worst of the wind, and settle in a park along the Columbia. Here I paint the colors of grass and cliff, a hint of the sky and water, and some islands in the river. A large group of ducks are sheltering in the lea of an island. They take off suddenly, beating their wings against the water.

As I paint, I have spectators: two children who ask many questions. They profess to love the painting, even before I have put the first colors on canvas. This hopeful admiration is a bit puzzling. After the painting begins to emerge, the little girl says, “That’s what I want to do, Mommy.” I tell her she should start right away.

HOME FROM PERU

2009-10-01T03:20:00.000-07:00

SUNRISE OVER PUCALLPA

This trip to Peru was life-changing. I deeply appreciate little things: toilet paper in public rest rooms, hot running water, clean drinking water, mattresses, chairs, and having more than two outfits. We in the United States are extremely rich in stuff. We are impoverished in time. My days have been filled with things that need doing. I vow to spend some time every day, just being, enjoying the trees in the back yard, watching the sun rise or set, visiting with my family and friends.The trick with vacation revelations is to bring them home, and integrate them into your life. A month after my trip, I look back and find that some of these resolutions are hard. I try to take them in little steps. Tomorrow, I will start reading my E-mail only once a day.

CUZCO

2009-10-01T02:57:00.000-07:00

We decide to give up on the boat trip that never happened (did I mention we were supposed to be going on a boat trip through the jungle?) and see some other part of Peru. Figuring in all the travel, we don’t have enough time for Machu Picchu, but we can visit Cuzco.

In Cuzco, we stay in a hostel where we enjoy many luxuries. Like hot and cold running water. A mattress. Laundry service. Bottled purified drinking water (sin gas). It is eleven thousand feet here, so one of the luxuries we are not enjoying is oxygen. It is clear what to do about this. Chew coca leaves, drink coca mate, and walk slowly.
Our Spanish works a lot better here because everyone speaks a little English, so we can compromise...a few words of Spanish here, a few words of English there. Our favorite waitress coaches us when we say silly things.
We eat lots of salty food. Guinea Pig. Alpaca. An exquisite fish soup. Chile Rellenos made with small hot peppers and salty, salty cheese. We eat salads and vegetables. And about this time, I get travellers digestive problems for the first time.
We visit ruins. Cuzco is the city of the Incas, and Inca stonework abounds. Not far from the city is Saqsaywoman (spelled various ways), where we see classic Inca stonework. (Husband in picture for scale.)

VAMOS COMPRAR UNA MANTA

2009-10-01T02:56:00.000-07:00

Friday 8/28
The markets here are full of cheap souvenirs. Many of the venders have the same stuff, machine-woven cloth, neon-bright patterns and made into stuff like bags and purses. To buy una manta mas fina y grande is very difficult. We go up and down the stalls looking for the hand-woven designs like the ones Maggie brought home. No one has anything that nice or that big. We tried the market in Pisaq and found nothing. Went to the artisans’ market and found some fine but not large, large but not fine. Bought a machine-made manta pretty and cheap, and a table runner, small and fine. Finally in a store, we find a blanket that is a joy to look at.--

JUNGLE TOWN

2009-10-01T02:53:00.001-07:00

We head back down river to Pucallpa, which is a city of some 200 thousand, sprawled across the cleared banks of the Ucayali river. In the dry season, it is dirty and dusty. Very few people have cars, so the roads, both paved and dirt, are filled with motocabs. I’m not sure that is what the locals call them, but they are like a motorcycle attached to a rickshaw.
It is a wild ride, I’m guessing 30 plus miles per hour with the wind blowing dust in our faces. Many of the roads are about two lanes wide, but these drivers don’t know about lanes. They drive three across, weave in and out, make left turns from the right side of the road, honk and toot and flick their hands in half-hearted signals. They cut the corners so close that I am certain they will clip the curbs. On the rutted dirt roads, the ride is nightmarish, jostling and bumping, and jarring my spine. Please, stay on the paved roads!
It’s easy to find a motocab. The roads are full of them. Step to the curb, and 3 motos will compete for your business. The ride is pretty cheap, as long as you negotiate the fare up front and have some idea of where you’re going and how much it should cost. And have the right change!
There is so much to see. Streets are lined with houses, with yards boarded up with miscellaneous lumber. Stores have flat fronts, with garish printed signs in their doorways. The downtown area looks much like any small town, except that the storefronts are narrow with minimal signage. My favorite area is the market. Produce is displayed in huge arrays, right along the street. Melons. Plantain. Many, many fruits and vegetables and goods of all kinds. I want to jump out and wander through the stores. But we are whipped around the corner and down another street.

LIANA

2009-10-01T02:48:00.001-07:00

INSECT STORIES

Every other day or so, our Shipibo friends rake the clearing and burn all the dried leaves. This is a curious tidiness to me. Aren’t the leaves beneficial to the soil? Maybe they’re protecting us from lurking jaguars... snakes... well, probably insects.

In the city we see signs of this same tidiness. Yard care is a matter of heading out with your machete and hacking down everything that grows. One can only imagine what happens to this bare dirt in the rainy season. Not speaking Spanish well enough, I cannot ask the reason for this curious yard care, but can only speculate. Maybe a lush green lawn means something different here. I can’t help remembering the morning I sat in the grass by the river bank washing laundry in a bucket, and returned to camp with my legs covered in chigger-like bites.

Signs of insect life abound in our jungle clearing. Here is an ant tunnel, plastered over by the ants for use when the jungle is several feet deep in water so they can go back and forth between the ground and their tree.

Decomposition happens fast in the jungle. Ever curious to know what dung beetles do? (Excrement 5 minutes old.)

A spider has been hiding in my stuff. Somehow he got inside my mosquito netting and here he is, facing me down, three inches from my pillow. I am frozen in indecision. In my growing reverence for all life, I don’t want to kill him. But every spider I’ve pointed out to our Shipibo friends has been pronounced “venomoso”. Is this one poisonous too? There is no one around to ask. And I can read his mind. He is about to make a break for cover and hide in my stuff again. He’s too quick, and I won’t be able to catch him. And I can’t read his mind and find out if he would bite me. He had all night and didn’t bite me, but would he bite me later out of fear? I act out of fear, and swat him down, feeling sad and guilty for a couple of hours.

Rick takes me for a short walk along a path where he has found a surprise. “Watch out for snakes,” he says, so I keep my eyes glued on the path. So of course, I miss the surprise, which is a tree covered in butterflies. I have scared them away, so we wait until they come back. There must be something special in the sap of this tree. There is a butterfly every few inches. The lovely aquamarine butterflies are here, along with some zebra-striped ones. I took photos, but they aren’t much good.

SPEAKING SPANISH

2009-09-15T17:17:00.002-07:00

We decide to go to Peru, but neither Rick nor I can speak Spanish. We have two months. Because this is a budget trip to Peru, I check out every Spanish program I can find at the library. We listen every free moment. At first I try to understand everything on the tape. It is futile. After “Hola!” and the ABC’s, I am lost. I thought Spanish was supposed to be an easy language. As soon as I hit the verbs, I know this is not true. Then I relax and let my brain work on it as it wishes. Still, as I leave for Peru two days ahead of Rick, I am not particularly well equipped.
For the first two days in Pucallpa, I have no daughter to help translate for me. I am SO GLAD that I studied Spanish. I can at least make some basic needs known. For a long time, I can understand nothing that anyone is saying. Then they slow down and talk baby talk to me. Present tense only, clear enunciation. V-E-R-Y S-L-O-W-L-Y.
The brain is miraculous. After nonsense sentences for hours and hours, it somehow kicks into gear. First a few words start to make sense. Then, here and there, whole sentences.
I plunge into speaking Spanish. I use every bit of vocabulary I have learned. I stumble through verb forms, self-correcting when I see glazed looks. When my vocabulary fails, I make up words out of English with vaguely Spanish endings. Sometimes they work, sometimes not. From somewhere in my foreign language storage cabinet, come bits of foreign language. Ooops. Some of them are French.
I say totally ridiculous things. Sometimes I don’t know what I’ve said until days later. Instead of refreshing, I think I called the shower a soft drink. And I meant to tell someone that she should talk to me like a child, but I’m told that what I really said, was, “talk to me like a guy.”
Now that we are back in a land where everyone speaks English, my Spanish ability is fading. But we go to a café for an open mic and, hey, the people are from Peru! I pull out the Spanish (It’s just as wobbly as before) and have fun trying to decipher the sounds flying by. I can see that I need to keep studying this very important language.

UCAYALI SKIES

2009-09-15T17:17:00.001-07:00

FISH
Every day we swim in the river. To get in, you slap the water a lot, then once in, keep swimming vigorously. This is to discourage the little fish that bite. (They say they aren’t piranhas, but we can’t see them in the muddy water.) I’m not talking about the lippy nibbles that our local fish sometimes give. These are toothy bites, quite sharp and startling. You don’t dare stay still (and it’s not a bad idea to swim in your shirt.)

I wonder what all the teeth are to do with. Probably they’re about eating other fish with bones. The fish here are the boniest ever. You lift a fillet off the rib cage, and it still has three layers of branched bones in it, as if to say “you may bite me, but it won’t do you any good.”

We are served a fish with lots of bones, somehow getting most of them out. There are pockets of boneless muscle in the cheek near the head. Rick points out the fish’s teeth... large, with two fangs almost 3/8 inch long, and sharper than sharks’ teeth. I pull my fish’s jaw open to see if it has the same teeth. It does. The jaw springs shut and it bites me.

Nature, red in tooth and claw. The jungle is far from benign.

JUNGLE FLOOR

2009-09-10T10:41:00.001-07:00

MOSQUITOS AND BATS Thurs 8/20/09

Mosquitos are here all the time. Despite this being the dry season, I have bite marks all over my legs from mosquitos, bites on my thighs from little hard things something like fleas, and big welts from biting flies. I sat down in the grass to do some laundry, and now I have bites at my ankles like chiggers. And more mosquitos.

There are many kinds of mosquitos, some that you hear as a whine in the back of your head, some stealth fliers. There is even a large one with wide black stabilizers like x-wing fighters, decorated with white tips, which makes it especially easy to spot. What’s up with that adaptation?

The occasional mosquito in the day is tolerable, but at dusk they become a horde. At around 5 when the sun is low in the sky and about to set, we construct our nests and climb into our mosquito nets where we read or rest or journal, for at least two hours.

In our huts, bats live, hanging from the palm fronds during the day. At night, they fly around the room after mosquitos, fanning us with their wings. I feel safe inside my net, and enjoy knowing that they are out on patrol.

PROP ROOTS

2009-09-10T10:40:00.000-07:00

FOOD IN THE JUNGLE Weds 8/19/09

Our Shipibo folks come by boat every day bringing us food. We have one big meal a day which they cook over the fire. Then they leave us with a few things to eat later, so it’s like a two-meal day.

Fish, fish and more fish. And plantain. Here are ways we have eaten plantain, times two depending on whether it is young plaintain (platano) or ripe (maduro). Grilled on the fire in its peel, grilled on the fire without peel, boiled in peel, boiled out of peel, sliced and fried, whole and fried, boiled and mashed, boiled in much water and mashed into a sort of juice with sediment (chappo).

Fish is of many types, mostly small. On my first day, they cut the head off for me and told Maggie to show me how to eat it. They no longer bother cutting off the heads. Much of the time, the fish is grilled whole over the fire. One day they made a great fish meal of fillets, stuffed with tomato, peppers, and onions and cilantro, wrapped in a banana leaf and tied with palm-like strips. The result was exquisite.

Rice comes with most meals. Sometimes beans. It hasn’t been too much of a problem, but occasionally they feed me fish fried in flour. (I'm allergic to wheat.)

Fruits have been really varied. I’ve had at least 5 fruits that I’ve never seen before. My favorite looks superficially like a fig, but it has more sour notes, chambers inside, and large black seeds. There are tiny red apples that come from a desert area of Peru. And bananas of many colors. Another day they show up with oranges. How boring!

CANOPY

2009-09-10T10:39:00.001-07:00

JUNGLE SOUNDS Tues 8/18/09

The rainforest at night is alive with sound. We are close enough to people that we hear people-related sounds, motorboats on the river, music blaring insistent rhythms, dogs barking, and the ever-vigilant roosters. But those sounds are distant and minor. All around our jungle clearing, the animals of the jungle call to one another. There’s a constant buzz of cricket-locust-cicada-like sound, with a variety of trills in it. There are songs that I take to be birds, one with a tong-like bell ringing, others that sound more like North-American birds, though none that I recognize. (That makes sense, this being summer in North America and the birds at their summer home.)

The bird calls change through the night, with the bulk of the chorus during mosquito time. Besides the animal sounds, there is constant dripping from the trees of I don’t know what. The big umbrella-like leaves of the tallest trees dry out through the weeks, turn brown, hang down, and eventually fall. They crash against things as they come down during the night, making it sound as if big-foot has taken 3 or 4 steps in our back yard. And something snuffles through camp several times in the night. It might be the local dogs, but if it isn’t, I’d rather not know. About 2 or 3 in the morning, it sprinkles.

JUNGLE PATH

2009-09-10T10:38:00.000-07:00

THE DAY Tues 8/17/09

My husband and I have come to Amazonia to visit with our daughter and some Shipibo people. We are living in leaf-thatched huts on stilts in a small clearing in the jungle, a 10-minute walk from the Ucayali, one of the main tributaries of the Amazon, about an hour by boat from Pucallpa. Our day is very short. It begins at dawn (around 5-6) when we finally decide we’ve had enough rest and crawl out of our hut. We do our things, mostly eating, healing ceremonies, meditation, and sitting around talking. Then as it gets close to sunset, around 5 or 6, we clean up camp, retire into our huts and into our mosquito nets.

You want to be in your net when the mosquitos come. You can hear them come, an insistent whining from the jungle around us, a voracious presence rising from the damp forest floor. During the day there are mosquitos, but at night there are MOSQUITOS. After 2 or 3 hours, the mosquitos settle down a bit and you can climb out of bed if you don’t put on a light to attract them. If not, and you stay in your bed, you have 12 hours to read, sleep, journal, or meditate. It is an enforced retreat, and nothing like it for recovery from busy-ness.

SHADOWS OF OLD TREES

2009-08-10T15:32:00.000-07:00

These old maples are bulging with burls, festooned with leaves up and down their trunks that catch any rays of light filtering through the canopy. Light and shadow change minute by minute. In paint, I try to remember the light.

HIGH BRIDGE

2009-08-08T17:37:00.001-07:00

A cloudy day, and I am tucked in below the largest bridge in the park, with a view of the creek and overhanging trees. The park is bustling. Families, kids, dogs, people on horseback, all clomping across the bridge. The sun peeks out for a few minutes, then disappears.

A pair of women on horseback keep calling to the kids not to run and scare the horses. Apparently one of the horses is young and easily spooked. I am wondering why she chose to bring it to a park full of people and dogs before it is ready.

The water under the bridge has barely a ripple. The woods is a dark place, overhung with trees, the creek set in a hollow. I take advantage of every bit of light, pushing the various shades of brown, adding lighter colors. At home, the painting is far too dark, but will serve as notes for a studio piece.

MT. TABOR SHELTER

2009-08-07T09:41:00.001-07:00

All week I have been watching day camp children gather here for songs and lunch. The shelter seems like the center of the park. While I am painting here, a doggy parade goes by. Dogs of every shape and distinction, with blue bandanas around their necks, prancing up the road. Next comes the marching band. They march across the meadow in front of the shelter, turn, and march back to the arena, playing all the way. What a fun way to celebrate a neighborhood park!

FANCY DRESSER

2009-08-07T09:40:00.001-07:00

I begin my second day of the Mt. Tabor Centennial painting near the art show tents, along with pastel painters. The park is very active today. The first show of the morning is “Men With Sticks.” We have no idea what that is. A man with a stick shows up, and he doesn’t know either, but he is looking for them.The grasses have lovely patterns of light and shade. I paint the patterns, along with a golden tree, glowing with sunlight. Lots of people come and watch. The pastel artists are the official “demonstrators” of the hour, and have their names on the back of their easels. This strikes me as a good idea. People ask about lessons. Everyone in Oregon wants to be an artist.

SIT A SPELL

2009-08-07T09:38:00.000-07:00

I have come to the show late (to find that one of my paintings has sold. Yay!) I chat with artists, visit the ice cream social, and take in the energy of all the people. Since I am really tired from the market, I decide to break my rule and sit to paint. I choose a tree in the low sunlight, and a family on a picnic blanket. Oops. Just when I block in the blanket, they pack it up to leave. I look around and find a gray-haired couple at a picnic table. Except for shadow patterns, they are just right. I reverse the shadows and finish the painting.

MARKET FLOWER STALL

2009-08-07T09:37:00.000-07:00

I love the license a painter has to change reality. I am painting a flower stall with no shelter, but I love the umbrellas elsewhere in the market. VOILA! An umbrella sits over the flowers. Change the color of the man’s shirt? Why not.

MARKET PRODUCE

2009-08-07T09:36:00.000-07:00

Last time I painted at the market, I laid in my background first, but found that there were too many people in the way for me to paint the produce. (And much of it was gone.) This time, I take a tip from my mistake, and paint the produce first. It is not a perfect solution. Because I have all this lovely produce, I am reluctant to put in more people. But the painting is colorful and fun.

HEAT CLOUDS

2009-08-01T20:07:00.001-07:00

I have come to the top of Mt. Tabor to paint the late afternoon light and the sunset. I haul my cart full of paints and easel up the road beyond the blockade. There I find another artist, sculpting a canvas with trees. It is hot, but thankfully not as hot as the previous three days. Looking around me, I see the puffs of clouds built by the
humidity. This is unusual weather for Portland. The thick atmosphere, the torrid air building into cottony clusters. I paint the clouds, the atmosphere, and the hint of distant hills almost
visible through the haze.

As I hold the canvas up to show my companion, my fingers fumble. I
drop the completed canvas against my box. A large stripe scrapes
across the face of the painting. This is easy to fix. But there is
also a small hole, poked through the canvas. This too is fixable, but
not until the painting is completely dry. It will have a delayed
entrance into the show.

FROM MT TABOR, HOOD AT SUNDOWN

2009-07-31T15:55:00.000-07:00

Sunset is coming, but it is still hot. I just can’t face turning into the blaze to prepare the shapes on my canvas. Instead, I paint the effects of the warming light on the distant vista to the East.

Three other painters are here, one oil, one acrylic, one encaustic. I pause in my painting to watch the encaustic process, which involves a camp stove, a skillet, and a torch. Very interesting. Not the medium I would choose to haul around, but then look at me with my huge box of painting supplies.

The sky is turning rose. It suffuses the landscape with an orangish glow. I can’t really see Mt. Hood, only hits of colored shapes that are not quite clouds. The sun goes down behind me, and I scramble to finish before I cannot see my colors. Ah, for the luxury of a sunrise.

PARK PATH

2009-07-28T14:46:00.000-07:00

As I paint through the day, the pattern of sunlight changes its scattered patches across the grass. A group of children at their summer day camp stop in the meadow for lunch. They leave, and the sunlight patterns shift again. The trees stand still and watchful around them.

TREE TOPS

2009-07-28T14:45:00.000-07:00

The trees seem to be part of the sky, reaching upward with growing energy. Here is a meeting of the energy of sunlight, the blue air, and the giant green organism.

LIFE ON A GRAND SCALE

2009-07-27T16:49:00.001-07:00

Sorry about the bad photo. Lots of glare today on my photographing wall.

Today I join the plein air painters who are painting in Mt. Tabor Park. I meet someone who is painting trees, and several people who are headed up to the top of the hill. I walk around, trying to decide what would best represent this large and varied park.

The thing I notice most is the trees: huge old Douglas-fir towering above substantial big-leaf maples. They feel aged, wise, strong, and almost impossible to represent in full. How can you show this giant on a canvas? It seems silly to put a little person in just for scale. I choose a 2 x 1 proportion canvas, and make a stab at the grandeur.

SURF AND ROCK

2009-07-25T19:02:00.000-07:00

This painting is named (partly) for what is NOT in it. Just to the left of my selected view, about twenty wetsuited diehards are out on well-waxed boards, riding the waves. We arrive at Indian Beach at 9 AM, plenty early, I think, to beat the crowds. But already picnickers are setting up barbecues, and surfers are putting on wetsuits. The park is hoppin’.

Mist comes in and out of the hills, creating stepped tree silhouettes like shadow-box cutouts. I would love to paint the wind-sculpted trees, but I know that the mist is far too ephemeral, and the sun will be burning through within an hour. Out on the ocean, the cloud layer pulls back to a violet stratus, lined with dusky gold.

I am always amazed at the variety of color on the same stretch of ocean. Yesterday’s surf was almost khaki. Today it is violet and blue. Something about the quality of light glints orange on the rocks.

I love the energy of this place, and spend a few moments imagining that I am 20 again and getting ready to surf. Okay, maybe 25 was better--less angst. On my way back from the rest room, I pass a guy walking with a backpack and playing his guitar. Families have umbrellas down on the beach, and little kids run in and out of the waves’ edge. When we leave, cars are lined up on the narrow road, waiting to get into the already full park. I guess we had it pretty good.

VIOLET SKIES AND BEACH GRASS

2009-07-24T16:40:00.000-07:00

After visiting galleries in Astoria, I drive to the beach at Seaside. It is carousel time for gulls. They follow the leader in swirls and swoops, following the curves of the clouds. I watch them for some time before getting my paints out of the car and dragging the little wheels of my cart across the sand (which doesn’t work very well.)

I have a new box for my paint tubes, called a Really Useful Box. What makes it so very useful is that it comes in such a variety of shapes and sizes that one of them has got to be right. This one is exactly right for my little bottles of medium and oil to stand upright, which should take care of some of the leaking problem I’ve been having.

My painting today begins with the sky, which has a curious mix of violet clouds and turquoise clearings. The violets go beautifully with the beach grass and shadows, so I plan patches of grass. A bystander asks why I didn’t put the big black tangle of driftwood roots in. I explain a little about certain subjects stealing the show, but he isn’t listening. Maybe a better answer would have been, “Oh, that’s a good idea, why didn’t I think of it?” Everyone has their own idea of essential scenery.

SUNLIGHT THROUGH LEAVES

2009-07-22T18:42:00.001-07:00

A cloudy morning in the park as I walk the upper paths, looking for an ideal painting spot. I reach a deck built out over a hillside with a view out over a clearing. Sunlight through the leaves makes them glow with yellow-green. It’s a quintessential forest view.

While we paint, we have many visitors, people who stop by to look at the paintings, people with children, people with dogs. This trail gets a lot of traffic because it’s one of the easiest trails in the park. There are also art installations along the trail. My favorite is a sculpture like fake shelf fungus, hung on the trees with wires. My first glimpse of this from a distance was, wow! There’s a lot of shelf fungus. Then getting closer, I saw the little houses, and ladders, and buildings for little people to live in. They’re almost like Anasazi ruins. What fun!

Bringing my painting home, I see that I have gone too far with the yellow, and the left-hand tree needs some work. I plan to go back and paint again next week.

MARKET BOOTHS

2009-07-19T14:47:00.001-07:00

It’s a pleasant warm day, not too hot, not too cold, and I’m staying comfortable under my market umbrella while I paint the colorful busy marketplace. I am putting lots of people in this painting. My strategy for painting people is quick looks. A hat from one, a shirt from another, looking at light and dark patterns, I can block them in. It is getting too crowded to see the tomatoes through the people. I wait for a gap and snatch the colors on the fly.

A woman comes by whose daughter is working at doggie day care. She wants a painting as a memento. Her daughter arrives, and I ask her where she’d like to stand in the painting. She points to a spot. I sketch her in, pink shirt, checked pants, blonde flipped hair, and pink shoes. I tone down the guy in the red shirt behind her, and sign the painting. They are delighted. (The painting is gone, no photo.)

I end my lovely day at the market with brightening up a painting I did here last year with some flowers. Here it is.

ARCHES

2009-07-10T17:35:00.001-07:00

Goose day. We paint near the boat ramp, where all the geese hang out. I’d estimate the flock at between 50 and 80 birds... young ones with fuzzy heads, mature ones, and old geezers that hiss whenever we get close. They figure out pretty quickly that painters aren’t going to feed them. But they march by in a crowd, feet clattering like tap shoes on the pavement. They fly over to escape a dog, leaving a flurry of feathers on my palette. And when the geese aren’t dropping feathers, it’s the cottonwood, which besides providing much-appreciated shade, is lending a textured effect to the painting.

I enjoy the challenge of painting the bridge, trying to give it some variety of color, but keep it from taking over the whole painting. Many spectators stop by, some encouraging, some critical. One tells me that I should buy a blending brush and blend all those brush strokes and color changes away. Take care what opinions you take to heart.

CLOUDS AND CURRENT

2009-07-09T16:31:00.000-07:00

A quiet, cloudy morning to start painting, with violet-blue cloud cover and a blush on the water.

A large flock of geese has been grazing on the park lawn, and congregating along the river. They gather by a small car... is someone feeding them? Or are they merely hopeful beggars? Another car comes and they scatter, flying over my painting spot to land in a pattern of v’s on the water.

An ambulance leaves the park, siren running. I hadn’t even noticed its arrival. Funny (and scarey) how much concentration goes into painting.

The clouds burn off just before noon. I have to work from remembered shadow patterns to finish the trees. Fortunately, I was concentrating on noticing pattern and color (rather than ambulances.)

CLOUDS AND CALM WATERS

2009-07-07T15:55:00.000-07:00

The river is still and glassy beneath a quilt of clouds. I stand on the dock where it crosses the water, and paint first the sky, which changes subtlely, then the trees, with their quiet greens on this peaceful morning. A light breeze stirs the water. It is so quiet, I can hear ducks across the river, and the cheers of a crowd at a ball game at least a mile away. A few boaters come and go; otherwise Carol and I are alone with the river and the clouds.

I am running out of painting time. Wishing I could spend more time on the water, I quickly put down some color notes, intending to finish in the afternoon in my studio. But when I look at the painting in the studio, I see that I have been saved from overworking the water. I add a few brush strokes and leave the rest. A peaceful river morning.

HAWK WINDS AROUND HOOD

2009-07-05T18:27:00.000-07:00

Rick and I head up the Columbia Gorge for an art day. We begin with the Hudson River School exhibit at Maryhill Museum of Art. It is a real treat to see these works in person, to see the full rich glow of the oil paints, to get nose up to the painting and see the tiny brushwork. The paintings in this exhibit are all of modest dimensions, and I am primed to seek out more of them at other art museums. Most of all, I would like to know how much these artists worked outdoors. My clear favorites are those with limited light, with warm notes bounced around the landscape.

Our second art treat is Celeste Bergin’s plein air show at The Gorge White House. Her little gems are dotted throughout the living room, to be viewed at leisure with some tastes of wine. Some of these paintings I know from watching their progress. I love going through them one by one, talking over the art with Celeste.

Now I’m inspired to paint. Rick suggests a particular winery, where he thinks the scenery will be fine, but we cannot find it. We head up to Panorama Point. So does the wind. While I am painting a scene of Mt. Hood across the valley’s orchards and vinyards, clouds whip in, stacking against the mountain. Wind whips around the shelter, blowing my hat off. My easel, thankfully, stays stable, but I don’t even think of putting up an umbrella.

A single hawk takes pleasure in the currents, lifted by the heat of the day. There he is in the painting, a small speck compared to the mountain that commands so much landscape.

VINES DOWN THE HILL

2009-07-02T16:13:00.000-07:00

Up a winding gravel road sits a vineyard and winery, in the hills around Dundee. These hills, besides being packed with wineries, have spectacular views of quilted farm country, with distant Cascades foothills.

Today the air is hot, and heavy with atmosphere, hazing the distance into nothingness. Kelly and I choose a view where the wine rows open out in front of us, creating an expanse of space. The light this morning is perfect, shadowed on one side of the vines, and glowing through the grape leaves on the other. We must paint the foreground first, before the light shifts and our shadow patterns disappear.

Hawks soar overhead, scouring the bare earth between the vines. We back up into shade under some pines, with cones crunching under our feet. As the sun swings overhead, I put up my umbrella. The very last things we paint are the dark trunks of the grape vines.

Afterward, we settle on the shaded porch to taste wine and have lunch. I stop for fresh raspberries on the way home. A perfect painting day.

COTTONWOOD ON THE BANK

2009-06-27T15:09:00.000-07:00

Boat traffic is picking up. The shadows on the cottonwood across the cove make interesting patterns, down the tree and across the sand. I flick a brush mark across the end of the island to show the wavelet created by the boat wakes.

BEFORE THE BOATS COME

2009-06-27T15:07:00.000-07:00

An hour before my class I am at the river, looking at the variety of things to paint. It’s the beginning of a sunny day, boat traffic is light, and the rich blue sky is reflecting nicely in the water. I don’t have much time, so I do a quick study of the colors on the water. It’s peaceful this early, even on a Saturday, but I know it won’t last.

WATER COLORS IN THE COVE

2009-06-24T18:14:00.000-07:00

This is a lovely and relaxing spot. The pattern of waves on the water has light dancing all around the cove. It took a lot of energy to leave the house, but now I am happy to be here. Morning painting, my favorite time.

A mother duck is ferrying her brood around the quiet cove. The chicks are about two inches long, and still have yellow topknots. They stay as close to her as it is possible to be, perhaps hoping to look like a bit of her wake. Every time she turns, they shimmy up against her in a reforming wave.

Later in the morning there is other entertainment. A mom in a van drops off two boys around ten or eleven years old, along with a dingy and a cooler. The older one does all the inflating, and the rowing, taking first the cooler, then the younger boy to the beach across the inlet. The mom takes off, leaving them to adventure on their own. I am wondering whether I would have let my boys be unsupervised at the water at that age. About an hour later, two girls show up, giggling and bubbling around. The older boy comes and ferries them over. I wonder if the boys’ mom knows about the girls. I wonder if the girls’ mom(s) know about the boys.

Other boaters arrive, and put their boats in. Their weight rocks the dock where I’m standing. Wind picks up on the river, and I have to take down my umbrella. The wind rocks the pier. For some reason, this makes me happy. (I have spent many happy hours in boats.)

This is a great place to paint. I promise myself to come again. Often. Particularly in the morning.

CLIMBING TOWARD LIGHT

2009-06-20T15:52:00.000-07:00

There are so many roses here, it’s hard to find a focus. I am tempted to paint a single rose. That would be a ridiculous understatement for the experience here. Instead, I find a lamp post with a graceful climbing rose, and a rough rock wall. As I finish, I look again at the sea of roses. If you can’t see the forest for the trees, then you can’t see the roses for the garden.

The scent of roses follows me to my car.

PORTLAND ROSE GARDEN VIEW

2009-06-20T15:50:00.000-07:00

A cloudy, misty day, so we have taken shelter under some large Douglas-fir trees, with a nice cityscape peeking over the rich colors of the roses. It’s easy to be overwhelmed by all the shapes of buildings and the hundreds of roses. Fortunately, the oils are not too sensitive to moisture. As long as we don’t mix water in what the paint on our palettes, the paints will be fine.

The rose garden is full of visitors. Indecipherable foreign languages pass behind me. I talk to people from Mexico, New York City, and Seattle. A bridal party comes to be photographed. With all the tiers of roses, why are they starting in the parking lot?

The clouds keep moving. Distant mist becomes sprinkles in the garden. At one point, the city is obscured in heavy mist. Soon the mist arrives to dampen our paintings. We are almost too busy painting to take much notice.

RAPIDS AT CARTER BRIDGE

2009-06-17T17:21:00.000-07:00

Today I take my class to Carter Bridge Rapids on the Clackamas River. The weatherman promised no rain, so I didn’t bring my tent. There are other challenges, though. Footing under the bridge where we are painting is extremely rocky and rough. Walking up and down the boulders is difficult for all of us, and makes it difficult to teach. I can see that not only do I have to consider weather, teaching topic, driving distance, walking distance, restrooms, and compositional elements, but I must include footing as well. Luckily, everyone is careful walking around and we meet the challenge unscathed.
This rapids is one of my favorite painting subjects. It offers a variety of approaches, zooming in to one of the spills, filling the page with the falls, or even pulling back to show the mountain in the background. I love the basalt cliffs and the hints of warms in the rocks. They work against the green of the water with an energetic palette. Here’s my painting. The foreground rocks need some work. Later. Climbing on these rocks is tiring.
The river valley funnels wind under the bridge. Here it is, a fine June day, and we are all in jackets. Next to my painting spot, a tire swing suggests a swim in the cool green water. Not today, thanks.

GNARLY MAPLE

2009-06-16T16:35:00.000-07:00

Today I paint with my friend, Irene. She has some new acrylics she wants to try out, and suggests my backyard. It is pleasant out on the deck, with scattered gray light and shade in the wooded back.
These old maples are a joy to paint. They have lived full and richly intertwined lives, their old burls harboring mosses, ferns, and insects. I love looking at the varied colors of the mosses. I wish I could say we painted to the sound of birds, but today someone in the neighborhood was running a power saw.
Here is a portrait of one old geezer. When I bring the painting indoors, it is almost black, a testament to the changeability of oil in different lighting. It is going to need a home with a spotlight.

RAIN CLOUDS MOVING EAST

2009-06-10T13:20:00.000-07:00

My class is meeting me at Vista House on Crown Point. The forecast is for a shower, then clearing to just cloudy. As I drive up to the point, it is raining. We decide to paint there anyway. The scene is full of lovely atmosphere, and the clouds are constantly changing. I set up my show tent and we are covered and comfy while we paint in the rain. The only thing that would make this better would be no puddling in the dips of the tent. I push the water out, only to have it pour straight down on my hat.

Clouds drift up the valley, sending tendrils down along the gulleys. Landmarks come and go in the mist. It’s an exercise in freezing shapes on the canvas. Just like “don’t chase the light,” the mantra becomes, “Don’t chase the clouds.”

The tent is a success, and we have a grand time painting the WEATHER. (The curious corrugated effect in the center of this picture is from my panel carrying box. I think I’ll leave it. It kind of looks like rain.)

PRICKLY PEAR

2009-06-05T13:22:00.000-07:00

Looking for a place to paint, I ask in the grocery where the nearest park is. “Park?” Is the response. I guess people don’t spend much time outdoors in the summer, here. I head for the house where we are staying and alter my schedule.
After the strongest heat of the day, I stand just outside the garage in the shade to paint a prickly pear that is just poking up above the wall. Trying to narrow in on one small part, I examine the variety of greens and challenge myself to render the form. It’s as hard to paint a green object as it is to paint white. I paint the cactus against a white wall, with a dark doorway behind it. Rick says that it looks like it is upside-down.

SEDONA ROCK

2009-06-03T20:58:00.000-07:00

We drag out of bed a half hour later than yesterday. I choose a smaller canvas, thinking that it might be a little easier to simplify if I am forced to. And I learn from yesterday’s difficulty and paint the things that will change most first: the rock.
I feel more connected with the rock today. There’s something comforting about painting the exact same subject more than once. I tell my self I should do this more often.
After my painting is as finished as I intend to make it, I put my supplies away and walk up the hill in search of my husband, who is taking in the Sedona energy up top. He sees me and walks down toward me, but I intend to take the summit anyway. On my way down, I meet Carolyn Sommers (Carolynsommers.com) who does energy paintings. She shows me some. They remind me a little of the northwest Native American drawings of salmon and raven, except these are drawings of trees and rocks. She says she is looking for the tree that she drew yesterday. I look at her drawing (energy only, lines, thick parts) and I see her problem. We visit for a while. I take a break and call my husband on my cell phone and tell him I will be late because I am visiting. He understands. He’s travelled with me before.

CURTAIN RISING ON ROCK SHOW

2009-06-02T20:47:00.000-07:00

We get up just after sunrise, with the sky already light. A short drive to the airport mesa, and there I set up to paint a view of Sedona Rock. It is an exercise in chasing the light. I lay in the dark and light patterns, but get distracted by painting the sky. Every once in a while, my watercolor background pulls me away from doing what I know I should–painting the thing that changes the most first. In Oregon, that is often the sky, but not here, not now. By the time I get back to the rocks, the light pattern has completely changed and I am chasing the light. Mistake. Still, these rocks are mysterious, flamboyant, and interesting, despite the rough rendition.

CASA GRANDE SIDESHOW

2009-05-31T13:21:00.000-07:00

We have come to see the ruins of a Hohokam dwelling. Here in the middle of the desert, people once farmed, digging irrigation ditches by hand and planting, of all things, cotton. I had no idea that cotton existed in the New World prior to the Virginia plantations, but here it was in prehistoric Arizona, before even the time of the Pueblo cliff dwellers or the Sinagua. Pima cotton, some of the softest cotton in the world, is reportedly a mix of this native cotton and Egyptian.
The Casa Grande is the largest structure of these ruins, several stories high, built of fragile adobe, sheltered from the weather by a tall, Asian-looking roof. The rest of the village, for it was quite a sizeable village, has been worn down to low walls and entries, impossible to tell how tall they once were. Because the light on the casa grande is all light or all shadow from the remada that is keeping the sun off me, I have chosen to paint some of the side buildings, with their curiously curved, weathered walls. Note the saguaro in the background. This is the first time I've ever seen saguaro.

PATH BY THE RIVER

2009-05-25T07:50:00.000-07:00

Down to warmer climes where the trees are in leaf. I spend a lovely two hours painting by the salmon river. The water is hypnotic and a familiar painting subject, and I have a wonderful time painting it. But all these leaves! I keep remembering what I tell students: simplify the masses. I am having trouble doing just that. Maybe I need to spend more time painting greenery.

Rick drives out from home to join me for a hike in the woods along the river, a perfect cap to the day. Blooms hidden among the greenery, and even at eye level. Yellow violets, spring beauty, oxalis, bleeding hearts, corydalis with spikes in various stages of development.

When I get the painting home, it has changed dramatically. The big trees on the right are needlessly massive and heavy and the greens have all shifted into muck. I think I’ll put this one down to enjoying the painting experience. A friend of mine says put up the bad ones too. I’ll give it a try this once.

SUNRISE MISTS

2009-05-24T09:59:00.000-07:00

4:30 AM. The sky is barely lightening. This is the right time to get up to paint the sunrise. On the mountain, the sky is more light. Already, a glow has lit the haze below me. Most enchanting are the mists in the valleys. It is too dark outside to see my paint. Inside the van, the interior light is just enough. I am ready for summer and warmer weather for painting. But for now, I stay inside.

The light on the horizon makes a straightened rainbow in the haze: red, orange, yellow, green, blue. I wish I had put out cad green light, but mix my green instead. As the sun approaches the horizon, more color dapples the mist. I finish my painting, and continue to watch as colors shift and brighten across the landscape. A faint rosey glow lights the snowfield atop Mt. Hood. Jefferson to the south is as distinctly pink as it was when I painted it at sunset, although in reverse profile. Once again, I am deeply thankful for this pageant.

SUMMIT

2009-05-24T09:54:00.000-07:00

After getting up at 5 AM, and despite a nap, I am tired. I decide to make my sunset painting early, before the actual sunset. It will be interesting to watch the shadow patterns on the mountain change as the light falls. I have two small canvases left. Zooming in on the summit, I look for changes in color in the shadow and light on the snowfields. Fatigue sets in. I find myself painting automatically, unable to think the process through. I paint anyway.

The ski area that was so busy during the day is closing down for the night. My parking area is almost empty. The sunlight on the mountain warms, purples, and narrows to a small slanting shape. I chase the shadows down the mountainside. Mount Hood is going to sleep. Soon, so will I.

LIFE PAST

2009-05-23T16:57:00.000-07:00

I loved the twisted shapes of this old tree. It was easy to get to from my car parked at the “road closed” sign. The whole time we were painting the tree, people kept driving up to the end of the road, and walking out on the snow, as if they couldn’t quite believe that it was closed. I too wished it weren’t closed, and I had more choices of painting spots.

MT HOOD LOOMING

2009-05-23T16:54:00.000-07:00

From the skiers’ parking lot, we hiked up the corn snow to the first bare patch on the mountain. From here, the peak is hunkered down, it shoulders rising around us with blinding snow. Sunglasses, or no sunglasses? Looking at my paints with sunglasses on, I decided that the colors were invisible. A hat is going to have to do. We paint the various colors of snow, finding variety despite the lack of shadows. The trees are a welcome break to all that white. And of course, the cobalt sky, which is gradually dotting with clouds. (I painted it before the clouds came.) Can a mountain loom on a 4 by 6 panel?

SUNRISE IMMINENT

2009-05-23T16:48:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I tried to get up to paint the sunrise. 5:30 I thought would do it, and that is only a half-hour earlier than I’ve been getting up. But at 5:30 I looked out and the sky was already light. I’d planned it too late. It was shamefully easy to talk myself back into bed.

This morning I try 5:00. Again the sky is light, but not so awfully light. As I’m headed for the bathroom, I consider talking myself out of it, but there are my clothes on the counter and somehow I put them on. I am out the door in ten minutes. When I arrive, the show is already going. I am glad that my paint is still out from yesterday. I shove my paint box on to the car seat, put up a small canvas, and begin to paint.

It is quiet, dead quiet here in the parking lot. Up the mountain I can see the lights of the grooming machines at work. There are a lot of cars in the lot for so early a time. Did they all get up at 5? It seems a herculean feat to me.

JEFF DRESSED IN PINK

2009-05-23T16:45:00.000-07:00

Trails on the mountain are stiff and jumbled with snow, so I walk the streets of Government Camp. I head uphill, enjoying the mountain cabins that fill the little village. Snow still blankets the ground, though the streets are bare. Water flows somewhere under the snow, the result of a warm day.

There has been a lot of plowing in this town. Heaps of snow make sedimentary cliffs beside driveways and streets. At the ends of steep roofs, snow has slid into mountainous piles. Three to six feet of dirty pockmarked snow fills most front yards. People here adapt. One house had a clear driveway, six feet of snow in the front yard, and as if worshiping the sun on a raised deck, lawn chairs perched on the top of the snow.

After my walk, I head up the mountain to paint the sunset. Remembering the show at my back last night, I face south toward Mt. Jefferson.

SNOWFIELDS AT NOON

2009-05-22T17:50:00.000-07:00

My class and I meet up at White River. The parking lot is like a heat radiator, warming us from the feet up. We have been studying the multiple colors of white, so we have come here to observe them. Because it’s so near noon, the variations are subtle, and there are no real shadows. Not the best time to paint, but we’re here now, so...

A crow or raven flies over with the same whish whish I heard yesterday. This time I am not expecting a condor. We also hear varied thrush calling. I missed them in West Linn this year.

My whites are nearly done. I look the painting over. I am tempted to lighten them, they seem to have so much color, but I know that when I get the painting indoors the yellow will be less intense. I bring it in, and sure enough, the yellows are just about right. Compensating for color change in different lighting conditions is still difficult.

TWO TREES, LIVING ON THE EDGE

2009-05-21T19:34:00.000-07:00

Conditions are tough, up here at Timberline. It’s the end of May, and it’s still quite snowy, and looks like it plans to be for a good long while yet. Even on this balmy day, a stiff breeze is dropping down the mountain, carrying air chilled by the snowfields. I have set up beside my car, to stay as much out of the wind as possible. It may be ten degrees warmer on this side of the car.There is a lot to paint. Every part of this scene is full of color and shape and complexity. I try to narrow my focus, telling enough, but just enough. Even so, the painting takes longer that my back is happy about.I hear a whish, whish, whish overhead, and look up, expecting to see perhaps some mechanical flying machine, or at the very least, a condor. It is a crow, or a raven. This is puzzling. I’m told that owls have particular feathers at the front of their wings that keep them from making sound in flight. Sound in flight? I have never, sitting on my back deck in the afternoon, heard the sound of a bird’s wings. Even the gang (and I do mean gang) of neighborhood crows seem to limit their noise to a lot of raucous argument. Perhaps the sound of their wings is masked by suburban background noise. Standing here in the parking lot, mountain on one side of me, I am in a sound bowl. I can hear the clink of ski gear up the mountain and out of sight. Now and then a car door slams. I hear a comment, from far across the parking lot, about the lady who is painting under an umbrella. I suppose it’s no wonder that I can hear birds winging by.

MT HOOD SUNSET

2009-05-21T17:48:00.000-07:00

The moisture in the air in the late afternoon promise an interesting sunset, so I drive up to Timberline. The shadows on Mt. Hood, long and complex, lengthen by the minute. Patches of glowing snow darken and turn to purple. Only one long slope and a few glints on the top shine brightly gold, then orange. A few dispersed contrail clouds pick up the last of the sunlight. I finish my painting, then turn around to find a stunning violet sky at my back. Ah, what we miss when we focus too narrowly on one thing!

STORMY SUNSET

2009-05-15T13:23:00.000-07:00

Spring in Pennsylvania. The wildflowers are stunning, carpets of blue phlox and trillium. I want to catch the treetops on the rolling hills. In these older neighborhoods, all you see from afar is the tops of trees, giving the illusion that I am standing in the middle of a woodland, with only the houses in front of me interrupting the green.

But no, as soon as I travel down the drive, I see that there are houses everywhere.

Which is why I am delighted to find that a half-hour drive takes into a creek valley, with a covered bridge and little riffles in the water.
My mother and I have left it until after dinner to escape to the park. As we drive, the golden colors come into the clouds, and afternoon light comes and goes. By the time I set up my paints in the park, the sun is off the ground, restricting its glow to cloud rims. I set up my backpack easel for the first time, struggle with the straps and ties, and begin to paint. Orange and blue. I am thinking it makes warm and cool grays.

Mom drags her walker down to the creek and sits on the fold-down seat to read. By the time I finish painting, I find her by a peeking of wheels under the bottom of the car. She has gotten cold and is sitting out of the wind.

When I get the painting home, it has turned to brown. Then in my own home, the browns have shifted back to warm greens. Ah, how much difference light makes.

CLACKAMETTE PARK, showers

2009-05-02T16:36:00.000-07:00

Despite the showers today, four students join me in Clackamette Park. We are constantly being teased. One minute the sun comes out, and the next it is dark and determinedly raining. Fortunately, we have a shelter, near enough to the river for a good view.

We stop painting several times to watch the sea lions swimming up the river. A large one climbs out on the dock below us, looking from our view like a giant gray slug. Fishermen tell us that they like to take bites out of the salmon that are struggling up the river, sometimes up to forty per day for one sea lion. Why would any creature be so wasteful?
(Asks the HUMAN.)

CATHERINE CREEK, WA

2009-04-30T18:54:00.000-07:00

Catherine Creek, east and uphill from Bingen, is a grassy plateau, dotted with wildflowers and criss-crossed by basalt outcroppings. When I arrive in the morning, the grasses have a green-gold glow, and shadows were strong and shapely. I can’t stand to stay in one place and paint. Slowly making the circuit, I photograph trees, rock, wildflowers, delighting in the variety of color and the light cool breeze.

By the time I am ready to settle down at my easel, the glow has gone off the morning. I choose a scene that includes a glimpse of the
Columbia, with a few of the strongest remaining shadows, and a quirky
pine.

Today is an experiment in eyewear. With my polarized glasses on, the
colors of the grass and flowers are intensified, and I have this idea
that I might look at the landscape through my glasses, and at my
canvas without them, in a sort of reverse reading glass. This totally
doesn’t work. I keep forgetting to sneak my canvas views under the
glass, and my colors end up garish and unnaturally green. Scrape it
off and try again.

The colors underneath strongly influence my later choices. People come by and look at my canvas, then leave, saying nothing. Always a bad sign. I finish the painting anyway,
hoping that a few of the color notes will be useful for a later
painting. And anyway, it has been such a beautiful day, with such good
company, that I am thankful to be thankful to be out and painting.
Without wind or rain!

PORTLAND, OR

2009-04-07T08:41:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I met two other painters, Quin and Andrew, in Willamette Park, in John’s Landing. It’s a very urban park, well-used, with varied views of city, river, bridges, distant mountains, wetland, park benches, playground, and boats of all kinds. While the boats were attractive, and probably the most representative part of the park, they are difficult for me. For one thing, they don’t sit still, so it’s a lot like painting the people at the farm market. When I paint people, they get one person’s shirt, another person’s head, another person’s shopping bag. While I can get away with this with people, it will never do to put sails atop a motor boat, so I am stuck. I take a few photos of boats, then turn my attention to the island across the river.
Here is familiar material. And enchanting. The spring warming has budded out most trees, and they all have hints of color. Across the river I see fresh green, orange, pink and violet tones at the tops of the otherwise bare trees. I paint the sky and water first, since they are changing fast, then start on the trees. They give me some trouble. How much do I want to show branches? The trees look too vague with none at all, but too many trunks and branches make them look spotty, so far away. I fuss around with this for a while.
A goose is stalking me. Perhaps she wants to be fed. I pull out my camera and stalk her back. She skirts me, heading over to the park bench, where the grass is infused with lawn daisies. She attacks the daisies, pulling the heads, and eating them like fruit. Behind her, a path of daisy-less lawn, as if she had been employed to weed.
As I finish my painting, the clouds have moved in and colors flatten. At home, I see that my usual preoccupation with water and clouds has overtaken the subtle colors of the trees. Probably, I should repaint this to capture what I intended. Stay tuned.

DAWSON CREEK PARK

2008-12-11T12:09:00.000-08:00

A typical fall day, starting with heavy fog, promising maybe rain, maybe clearing. Several other painters are here, some working in pastel, oil, acrylic. As usual, I am amazed at the variety of approaches to the subject. Some begin with texture and variety of color. Some focus in on the cattails, or the fall bushes. I quickly block in my main value shapes, then go to work adding in variety of color.

I have set up under a large fir tree. When the promised drizzle comes, I am completely undisturbed, continuing to pick out colors within colors, adding to the sky as the clouds shift.

One by one, my companions grow cold and leave. I am wearing a winter wool hat, thick socks, and my muk-luks. Perhaps warm feet are the secret to staying warm. Or maybe standing, instead of sitting so that I move around a lot. The ducks seem plenty warm. I wonder how they keep their feet from freezing, just skin muscle and bone, hanging out there in the cold water all day. Or maybe they just don’t care, the way I don’t notice aches in my knees until I am almost finished with my painting.

BEND, OR

2008-10-31T16:57:00.000-07:00

Rick and I visit to Bend to hike and chase waterfalls. Today we drive to Tumalo Falls, which we missed on previous trips because of snow. We hike up to middle Tumalo Falls, and take lots of photos. I have discovered that if I give Rick a camera, he will walk slowly enough to allow me to take pictures. Clever, eh?
Now it is late afternoon, and I feel a need to paint. I send Rick to the swimming pool, and find a parking area with a great sky view. I love this time of day. The clouds are almost certain to be warming in color, even if sunset is hours away. There are plenty of shadows and nuances to the light.
Today, the clouds are changing so fast, I can hardly make two brush strokes that still represent the shapes. Again, I must choose and paint without an overall plan. I struggle with the foreground grasses. They are very light, and their color pulls some of the warms of the clouds together, yet I don’t want them to dominate the painting. When I leave, I feel satisfied that I have captured the feel, if not the fact, of the scene.

TRILLIUM LAKE, OR

2008-10-26T08:20:00.000-07:00

It is harder to get up before sunrise this morning. During the night I thought I heard great winds (probably trucks on the highway), and kept listening for sounds of rain, wondering whether there would be good enough weather to paint out at all. So I am delighted to rise to the sound of my cell phone alarm, look out the window, and see Orion shining clear and strong in a black, black sky. I dress in minutes, knock on Irene’s door, and microwave my breakfast and her coffee. Then we head for the lake.

Along the dam levee, there is already someone parked to watch the sunrise. We choose a spot where we have a view of Mt. Hood, plus a bit of lightening sky to the right. There isn’t a whiff of cloud, so I compose my painting around the dark shapes of hill and mountain, and the lozenge of lake.

The show begins. I am amazed that every morning there is a new display. Every morning the footlights are a different color, the sky costumed in different clouds, the dance of the wind taking its skirts this way or that. Colored light bounces on fir trees, rock, snow fields and water with subtlely different intensity.

As the sun comes up, a wind stirs the lake, then builds to a blow, dropping the temperature. But the show is worth braving the weather. Gradually, sun hits the snow fields on Mt. Hood, then the dark green high rolling hills, then the oranges of the lower elevation trees. Lights up on grass and water. The lake is awake now, the day begun.

TIMBERLINE SUNRISE

2008-10-25T08:18:00.000-07:00

Miraculously, I am out of bed in time for another sunrise. Consider going to someplace new, like Trillium Lake, but decide that Timberline is closer, and the sunrise won’t be the same anyway. The van knows the way.

The sunrise is, indeed, quite different from yesterday. It reminds me of my resolve, made while in Hawaii, to walk down to the river every non-rainy day for the sunset. (And have I done that? Noooo.)

This time, I set my colors a bit earlier in the show. I am painting a very small canvas, so I zoom in on the golden glow just above the ridge. Put the colors down with a certain intensity, trying to compensate for the lack of light in the van. The painting comes together quickly.

Once my painting is finished, I pull out the camera for the rest of the show, drive to a few new viewpoints, and capture some variety. Even the side of the sky away from the sun has subtle and exciting color play. I am a confirmed sunrise lover. (As long as they aren’t too early.)

TIMBERLINE SUNRISE

2008-10-24T08:16:00.000-07:00

Now that the days are shorter, sunrise isn’t so ridiculously early. I set the cell phone for 6:15 and go to bed early. I dream that it has snowed three feet and I can’t get out of the driveway. About 5:30 I wake up for good. Snuggle in bed for a little longer, then dress, grab some fruit, and head out the door as the cell phone alarm goes off. It takes only 10 minutes to get to Timberline Lodge.

The air is still and blue. Only a faint light in the east shows where the sun will probably rise. It is in two spots split by clouds, so I go eeney-meeny-miney-moe to pick which part of the sky to compose around. I set up quickly. The nice thing about sunrises (as opposed to sunsets), is that you set up your paints and get everything ready for the show, then the show happens and you paint quickly, then you have lots of light with which to finish up. Today, I begin painting so early that I can hardly see the colors I have mixed. As the sun slips above the horizon, my colors say, surprise!

Bonnie arrives, and I teach her stuff about color mixing. After lunch, we go up to Timberline and set up for a view of Mt. Adams. As we paint, the wind gets stronger and colder. We make a few color notes, then pack up our paints to finish tomorrow in the cabin. (Painting on previous day's post.)

TIMBERLINE AFTERNOON

2008-10-23T08:13:00.000-07:00

(Afternoon painting, done another day)

I drive to the arts cabin and meet Betsy, who helps me settle in. It’s a lovely, homey building, with a collection of old furniture and space for painting in the living room. Artists who come here to teach have gifted the house with paintings; I am surrounded by the work of friends and acquaintances. What a treat to use this cabin as a base for painting and classes.

There is still some daylight, but the clouds have socked in the cabin. I set up an easel to paint a group of trees in the last hour of daylight. Before I begin, a phone call from Rick tells me that he has a clear view of Mt. Hood from Portland. It’s all in the point of view, so I resolve to move mine up in elevation. I drive to Timberline.

I am in a sea of clouds, tops glowing pink with the remaining sunlight. Across the mountain, long, sweeping scarves of shadow undulate across the ridges. I photograph trees that seem sculpted for the purpose. By the time I return to the cabin with my precious photos, the daylight is gone. Time is finite, and I have traded mine. For today, I am content.

CLACKAMETTE PARK, OREGON

2008-10-14T15:00:00.000-07:00

Today, I explore the Willamette side of the park, taking in the view upriver toward Oregon City, and downriver toward West Linn. The cottonwoods on the island are hinting at fall color, and milkweed along the river has turned brilliant yellow. I pick a spot in the sun and put up my big easel. Jonathan shows up and paints from a pochade box.

Geese are gathering. They skim the river below us and land gracefully on the moving water. Before long, they will be gathering in large numbers, travelling over our river in long v-shaped flocks. But for now, they are content to socialize on the local sandbar.

Clouds sail across the blue, mostly to the north, leaving us in full sun. I am soaking up the last of the year’s heat. At this time of year, each day is a gift, made more precious by the imminent cold weather. I have a studio paint date tomorrow, which seems like time stolen from outdoor painting. Stay in the moment. Paint now. There is no heat, no cold, no fatigue. Only the brush and the color moving on the canvas.

BULL RUN, DODGE PARK, OREGON

2008-10-12T14:56:00.000-07:00

A beautiful fall day. Jean and I drive all over the countryside, trying to find the best way to Dodge Park. I follow the old route we took on canoe trips, up the Sandy River, up and down the hills, and around Bull Run. Pretty quickly, we discover that I have taken the long way. The old lake that was in the center of Ten Eyck is gone or empty, looking more like a cranberry field with dikes. I wonder which dam they took out the last time I was here, when Bull Run was in flood.

The park is a classic northwest woods. Hints of red and yellow color the maples and undergrowth. We find a spot by the river and begin to paint, Jean in watercolor, and myself in oil. I start an 18 by 24, hoping to have the time to mostly finish it. The weather is cool and overcast, but the clouds promise to burn off, and since it isn’t windy, we are able to paint in relative comfort.

We paint in relative quiet. A few people drive into the parking lot and walk around the river. Almost all of them stop to see what we are painting. This is more attention than usual, and I wonder if my conspicuous setup has something to do with it. I am using my new Beauport easel, which is a huge a-frame, and my umbrella is up. One lady walks by saying "I’ll buy it." Unfortunately, she is kidding, but it’s a nice compliment.

The sun comes out, making me wish I weren’t standing in the shade. Maybe I’ll have to adjust my shade rule for fall painting, especially since the light isn’t as strong. Blue sky is reflecting in the water, setting up a rainbow of new colors. I am finishing this painting with less fatigue than usual, even though I’ve been painting for four hours. Why? More breaks? It’s an idea to consider.

We finish off the day with a walk to take photos, and a different country drive to find our way home. A great fall paint day.

CLACKAMETTE PARK, OR

2008-10-04T18:33:00.001-07:00

Who says you can’t paint outdoors in the rain? My group and I have taken shelter under a highway bridge with a view of the Clackamas River. We are studying water patterns. Under the bridge there is a small patch of swiftwater, with a v-shaped light pattern. The clouds may come and go, but the strong current holds the ever-shifting sky reflection in place.
The rain comes, with a bit of wind whipping spray into our shelter. Though the ground here is bone-dry, with no sign of ever having received rain, yet beads of moisture dot the primed surface of my canvas. I wipe them off and begin to paint, confident that the real rain will be kept away.
The river is a mirror of the weather. The stronger winds come in gusts, punching the river, sending ripples upstream, like storm gods blowing on a full cup. We all put our hoods up and hold on to our canvas.
Later, the sun comes out, creating confusions of light in our paintings. The clouds offer interesting possibilities. It has been day rich with weather.

BEACON ROCK, WA

2008-10-01T18:07:00.000-07:00

This is a favorite paint spot of mine. There is no one here except me. The picnic shelter has been closed up for the season, it’s midweek so the traffic on the highway is down, and I have a spectacular view of beacon rock and the Columbia River.
Several other creatures are happy about the quiet as well. There’s a bird with a funny whooping call, and a frog that sounds as though it’s nearby, though frog calls can be deceptive.
I begin my painting in full sun. Quickly, a high haze moves in, changing the sky color and the intensity of the shadows. I stick with my pattern, and use the new colors. After about an hour, I stretch out on one of the picnic tables and rest my back.
An 18 by 24 painting is a real stretch for me en plein air. I keep pushing myself to do them, hoping they will get easier with time. After another hour and a half of painting, I am becoming impatient. I wish I had the time to just walk away from this for a half hour. Unfortunately, I have left the foreground for last, the place where I need the most detail. This means that my fatigue is keeping me from putting in as much as I meant to. Either I will have to get faster, or I will have to find ways of planning around my fatigue.
The canvas is covered–twice. I am out of time; the painting is, perforce, done.

HUSUM FALLS, WA

2008-09-28T15:13:00.000-07:00

I’m in Hood River to see the Gorge Plein Air exhibit. There are stunning paintings, some by friends and acquaintances of mine, and I am admiring everything so much that I go through the exhibit several times. I particularly notice brush strokes and the way the artists use color. My own eye prefers a lot of variety in color notes, and the simple shape-designed paintings just don’t do it for me. How many color notes? The more the better, I think, until it becomes too blended, or too chaotic.
Once I leave the exhibit, I’m inspired to go paint. But first, some lunch. And there are peach farms, just across the river. I head across the bridge and drive up the White Salmon valley until I find a farm stand with peaches, the last of the year. They are ripe and juicy, yum! And look, I’m just a few miles from Husum Falls.
Back in the day, I used to paddle whitewater kayak. The White Salmon has a cold but fun section that ends up at a waterfall just before a bridge. There was a log jammed in the base of the waterfall, so we thought that anyone who ran it had a death wish, but it was always fun to speculate about it. Some years back, someone or some storm yanked the log, so now the falls has what appears to be a clear channel. So the boaters of today seem to take it as a routine rush. (Never mind that there is some rock down there, or the log wouldn’t have wedged there in the first place, and we hear rumors of boats hitting bottom now and then when they run the falls.)
Today, the waterfall is a perfect place to paint. There is shade under the bridge, and I have a great view with just enough river above the falls to make an interesting design. And I have the added entertainment of watching boaters come through from time to time.
This is really fun, but I’m hit with fits of jealousy. These twenty and thirty-year-old kids don’t even have very good technique. They drift over the falls at odd angles, with sloppy paddle strokes and plunge into the foam, disappearing into the white. They pop up, right-side up or upside down, execute some of the weakest rolls I’ve ever seen, and come out smiling. I could do better than that. Of course, I can’t do better than that--I can’t fit in my boat, but I want to be twenty-five and kayaking again.
Painting will have to do. And today, it does quite nicely. I enjoy coloring in the patterns of rock and water. About the time I pack up to leave, a retired couple comes down with some beer to watch the local entertainment.

SELWOOD PARK, OR

2008-09-27T18:22:00.000-07:00

Painting on the bluff with my class. We start out with morning clouds, and a view of Oaks Bottom. Sounds of birds and local wildlife (Screaming kids on roller coasters at Oaks Park, just below us.) I’m enjoying the September temperatures, which are comfortable in a light windbreaker.
The sun burns through the clouds. I keep hoping that Mt. St. Helens will peek through the clouds, as it did the day I scouted this location. The horizon remains stubbornly hazy.
Every once in a while, birds rise from the pond, circling in the river valley and rising toward us. Egrets look white as paper in the sunlight. A small raptor that I can’t identify swings overhead. Kids’ screams and laughter rise in waves, with the train-like roar. We share our paintings and they are as individual as tropical fish.

TIGARD, OR

2008-09-26T07:55:00.000-07:00

Was going to paint at the river this evening, but I forgot my wallet at Trader Joe’s, had to go home and get it, then back to Joe’s for the groceries. I walk out to the car and the sun is settling into a bank of colorful, corrugated clouds. Shoot! I will never make it to the river before it sets. And, hey, there’s a good view here. Why else am I carrying paints around in my car? I set up to paint in the parking lot.
Trader Joe’s customers stop to see what I’m doing. "You going to put that Safe Lipo billboard in?" I explain about artistic license. I’m painting on a 6 by 8 canvas. How much do they think I can fit? A white-haired lady stops by saying that she used to paint. Watching me, she seems to want to paint again. I am standing, separated by a fence and ten feet of hillside from the freeway. We can barely hear each other.
As always with a sunset, the sky is changing minute to minute. I keep reminding myself: paint the parts that will change the fastest first. The clouds become more orange, then more rose as the sun lowers. It angles sharply across the horizon. Maybe that is why the sun seems to set more slowly in these latitudes than in the tropics.
After the sky is finished (frozen just before sunset), I cover the bottom edge with a dark line of silhouetted trees. The white-haired lady comes back out with her groceries just as I am packing up. "Oh, those trees really make the picture. Otherwise, it’s just blobs of color."
It is always blobs of color. But never "just".