MT. TABOR SHELTER

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

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

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.

HEAT CLOUDS

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

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

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

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

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.