one if by land

30 x 22. mixed media on BFK

This painting started as a small Sumi sketch. I enjoyed the happy shapes, the simple lines, and the composition. It was no hard decision to translate the sketch into a full sized painting.

Rives BFK is a soft but sturdy paper and I love to work on it. It can take rough treatment and handle a variety of techniques and still hold together beautifully. I started with a charcoal sketch, then used gouache to set up my color palette. Once that was dry, I applied Golden's Acrylic Pastel Ground and incised the medium with calligraphic marks to add interest and texture.

Once the APG was dry, I started layering on pastel. The final touch was a gestural application of Sumi to bring back the lines of the original sketch.

These are busy days in the studio for me. Tick tock. Soon I will be back on the boat. There are three plein air spots aboard the boat and I plan to make good use of all of them throughout the summer.  But for now, I'm on land. And enjoying a bit of time in my studio!

At least, when I paint on the boat, I don't have to worry about the bears, like this artist did!  I always think that bears are wonderful, but only FROM A DISTANCE! Sheesh!

nothing to lose

Sometimes the best results come from those times when I use a surface I don't care about. Since I have nothing to lose anyway (paper I would have trashed if I didn't use it), I experiment and splash and let it rip. In this case, BFK with fine grid of Artist's Tape and a great figure model.It doesn't matter what they tell you, you don't have to stay within the lines!

That reminds me of this old Isuzu commercial. Do you remember it?

paring it down

12 x 10, pastel on BFK

Juicy treat

9 x 13

charcoal, gouache, pastel on paper

Mussels appeared with the extra low spring tide, a juicy treat for observant birds.

Chinook start and finish

Charcoal, acrylic pastel ground on Rives BFK is the recipe for this start. I painted many starts at once and have been finishing them more slowly. I actually like the starts so well that I may leave some in their Notan form and not add any pastel on top.

Chinook

11 x 17

pastel on top of charcoal start

Start

11 x 17

BFK Rives, charcoal

acrylic pastel ground

Wandering but not lost

10 x 10
pastel on BFK

2 x 2
watercolor sketch

a full sheet of watercolor sketches

The bottom photo shows a brainstorm I had this week. What would happen if I took five simple landscape sketches and blocked them in with color in a variety of combinations? It was easy to create the grid for the sketches with 1/8" artist tape on a full sheet of watercolor paper.

Each color and value combination urged me on to try something else. What a rush!

Since then, I've looked at the sketches to see which excited me, which colors appealed to me, which shapes seemed to generate my energy and interest. I selected the sketch seen in the middle photo and made that one into the larger pastel piece you see in the top photo.

From Notan to watercolor sketch to pastel painting. Another way home. Not all who wander are lost, they might just be seeking a new path. And, for some reason, that reminds me of music (of course) and a nice hike I had last summer in Ketchikan, AK, called "Married Man's Trail." Most definitely the long way home.

Expressive stroke

Sunflowers
10 x 8, BFK
oil

Alla Prima: Everything I Know About Painting by Richard Schmid is a must-read for oil painters. My copy is open and I am taking notes as I read what a living legend has to say about the very thing I am trying to learn. In an aside, Schmid comments that he enjoys painting flowers in an informal set up. His paintings of sprays of roses, scattered pansies, and baskets of other flowers are beautiful and simple and elegant and WOW!

That inspired me to pull the sunflowers out of my bouquet from October 1 (here) and see what I could do. So much of this painting is mediocre (again, contributing to the crappy painting pile) but there are a few brushstrokes that I put in just the way I imagined them. A few expressive brushstrokes out of hundreds and I am giggly with excitement.

More fruit

Plum, No Drape
oil on BFK (gesso)

The paint slid across the surface of the gesso-ed BFK paper. What an improvement over the unsealed straight paper (from Lace Capped Hydrangea sketch)!

In the last still life, I did not like how the shadow was a separate shape from the fruit, so in this piece I tried to get the shadow dark enough but lose it with the dark side of the plum. I really enjoy the creamy texture of oil paint. So much to learn! I hope I live long enough ...

Hydrangeas
oil on BFK
10 x 10

My neighbor brought me a bouquet of lace cap hydrangeas from her yard and I set them up in a little pedestal vase. I still have not stockpiled oil-painting supports (oh, goody, an excuse to browse the art supply stores! hooray!), so I painted this one on Rives BFK paper. It seems like the paper absorbed the oil and dulled the color, so it's probably not the right thing to use.

For now, I am just excited to play with the paint, to mix the color, to hold my brush in different ways, and to have fun. And, I did have fun. Does it show?

Haiku

Brevity. Good in speeches. Good in poetry. Good in explanations.

And here, in a painting.

Just the briefest of color and strokes to tell the story of the island suspended in lemon sky and water.

Water as mirror

Sometimes the wind does not blow, the tide is slack, and the water is like polished glass.

Three views of the same subject

One scene, painted three times.

Looking for ways to explore the same elements in different ways.

San Juan Island near Lime Kiln State Park.
Water, rocks, trees, sky, light.

Mary Island Anchorage, AK

Departure from Prince Rupert, British Columbia at 6:00 am. This painting done in Alaska at Mary Island Anchorage at 5:00 pm. Life is good!

Clouds

I recall laying on the grass with friends and looking at the clouds in the summer sky. As 7 year olds, we saw dragons and puppies, faces and cars, and giants with big open mouths that could eat you in one bite and not even notice it. On such summer days the sky was filled with clouds and possibilities.

These days, I search the clouds for clues about the upcoming weather. From which direction will the wind come? Lightning or no? Should we race for the shelter of a breakwater or are we safe at anchor?

And, while all of these grown up concerns march through my mind and force organization to my observations, a little girl's daydreams on summer days skips through and around, too.

Penn Cove

Brilliant End
8 x 8, pastel on BFK

Fresh

8 x 8, BFK

A sun break lured me from my preparations to the wildlife refuge. Today it was all about the sky and I simplified the land mass. Now it's back to overcast with no blue holes for light to flood the landscape, but the moments are etched forever in my memory.

Monotype with Jef Gunn

my first (ever!) monotype print
half sheet, Arches 88

Today was the first of a two day workshop with acclaimed Portland artist Jef Gunn on Monotype. I have no experience with print-making, so everything was new to me. No wonder I am so tired!

Ray Neufer press
a piece of local (Portland) history

First things first. Paper, measured and torn into half sheets. I used Arches 88, which is used dry, but others used Rives BFK, which is used wet/damp. Maybe I will have a chance to try that tomorrow. In the photo above right, Jef demonstrates how to manipulate the inked plate using a Q-tip dampened with alcohol or odorless mineral spirits and scraped through the ink. He also used crumpled paper stamped into the ink for textured areas.

Here you can see an inked plate in a cradle before it goes through the press. The cradle keeps the plate from slipping when it goes through the rollers. The paper is marked and these registration marks are carefully lined up each time the piece is put through the press.

Every time a print goes through the press, there's a giddy moment of peeling up the paper to see what happened. I wanted to see every one that went through!

At the end of the day, the brayers, full of beautiful inks, have to be cleaned. All is ready for tomorrow and day two of the workshop!