Heron Contemplating

"Heron Contemplates", 7" x 5" is watercolor and acrylic made permanent with UV protecting varnish. I used pencil and watercolors first and then acrylics. The watercolor is painted on absorbent ground on wood and then deeply cradled.

Siletz Canyon Gulls

"Cleaning Station Gull" is looking up for few scraps of salmon. It is acrylic paint on cradled wood, 5"x7".

Sun light on the sea gulls is dramatic aginst the shadowy canyon mixed with ocean air dampness. I love the atmosphere. "Siletz Canyon Gulls is acrylic and interference acrylic on cradled board 7" x 5".

Hunter's Moon and Crows

A pair of crows hung out around Coyote Rock at Kernville, Oregon. Getting up one morning I saw them just before daybreak flying with the full hunter's moon in the background. "Crows' Moon" is acrylic painted on cradled wood, 7" x 5".

Spider Gliders over the Siletz River

They are tiny, almost transparent gliding with the breeze on their silk strand. I have always been amazed by spider weavers but I see a new treat. So new to me I am amazed and enchanted to see the sun lighting the critters' silks as they move from the high tree boughs with so many strands helter skelter moving in front of the sun and then gliding this way and that until they come down, down still bright with light passing the shadowy fir forest to meet the river and then the air picks them up again. They glide past small flies and birds and past fishermen too. Sometimes a spider silk catches me. Oh well, if only my interpretation of their beauty in paint would succeed. I didn't capture the spiders flight on film although I tried.

A Day in Our Motor Coach at the Oregon Coast

My prize of the day is "Breaker Foam Dragon" - a break through for me. I have been painting over and over "Sea Foam Dragons" not getting the feeling I want of playful happiness. "Breaker Foam Dragon" is mixed media with interference and regular acrylic paints on a 12 ' square cradled board.

At 7:00 A M my husband served me oatmeal with raisins. He then busily prepared to go fishing while I have hardly finished breakfast tea. Our windows were steamed and dripping wet. I couldn't wipe them enough times, so I turned off the heat and opened the windows to a beautiful sunny day. I took a few photographs of the oil slick on the marina. Did chores.
9:15 AM I left to do grocery shopping in Lincoln City, Price and Pride Grocery Store.
10:45 AM, I was back at the motor coach . As I was setting up my paints I waved at my husband as he trolled by. I moved the crab pots on and around the table to make room to paint outdoors. I just started painting and it was noon.
12:00 my husband came back for lunch. We had Hebrew Kosher low fat hot dogs and honey crisp apples.
1:00 We walked Gleneden Beach. A sick seal was on the beach yesterday according to another beach walker. We saw the remains of a seal pup. Mostly the beach was bare except for course sand with small grey pebbles.
2:45 my husband made pop corn and we broke out the lawn chairs for the first time since we came in mid September. We soaked up the 72 degree weather.
3:00 I set up my painting again on the outdoor table and had the best most successful painting session. My memory was fresh from our beach walk and the little drawing I did on my wood block when we first walked onto the beach.
4:00 I started dinner. Roma tomatoes on local lettuce from the Barking Dog Organic Produce Farm. A slice of bread with toasted cheese and big shrimp.
5:30 Finished up my blog
This evening I will enjoy the mild weather outdoors and at 8:00 PM my husband and I will watch Dancing With the Stars.
My day is the best day in awhile. It has been so wet and gray. The fishing was poor and most of the other Rvs have drove away leaving the resort very quiet and peaceful.

Walking Softly: Carrying Big Canvas

Rain's blog http://rainydaythought.blogspot.com/ had an entry about things to do and see before I die. Her blog was linked with http://www.nobodyasked.com/ My dream is to walk softly barefoot in the sand and create an energetic canvas. Seeing as an artist and creating your own vision is what I do and dream I will continue doing. This is also the twelfth dream in my "When I Get to be Older" book posted on my second blog. Walking softly: Carrying Big Canvas is a new vison of a painting I did two years ago. It is acrylic on museum wrap canvas 2' x 3'.

"Crab Fishing"

"Crab Fishing" 10" x 8" on a deep cradled box is #1 in the silent auction to fund a scholarship for a Lincoln County Community College Art Department student. The silent auction is taking place at the Glass Studio in the Taft district of Lincoln City on Highway 101. I painted this Saturday October 6 looking at the Siletz Bay shore at the little park covered area near Mo's Restaurant. It was raining and windy and wet but these brave beach goers were enjoying each other's company by their warm fire.

Lincoln City Plein Air Art Festival

I am the generic plein air artist on the Lincoln City Plein Air Art Festival 2007 poster. Last year was beautiful weather on the first weekend of October when I enjoyed painting out.

This year it was a wet on the Oregon Coast. Not conducive to exhibiting or selling. Here in the picture, I had just mopped up the water off my boxes which by the way are rainproof with a coat of acrylic medium sealing the watercolor. Well, maybe not as rain proof as I would like and could make them. There was a little bleeding and the acrylic will lift with lots of water if it is thick. Some that had just thin paint and thin multiple layers of medium were more waterproof then the ones with thick watercolor and one thick layer of medium.

I set up the exhibit at 7:45 AM and took it down at 1:00PM to participate in the quick draw, a fund raiser to support the scholarship fund of the Lincoln County Community College. There were only five other artists participating this year. I certainly enjoyed painting wet and juicy a group of people crab fishing and their chairs and fire in a very wet landscape. the high humity is very special for painting in acrylics because there is no rush to finish before the paint dries. Tomorrow I will go to the local glass gallery and take a picture of the dry painting to post here. This year they are doing a silent auction.

A Blizzard Rain

"Reflections Before Blizzard Rain" is a watercolor and acrylic medium painting on a deeply cradled board 12" square. This memory of the morning was painted over an attempt to make a "Blizzard Rainstorm on the River." Without color hue and contrast from dark to light I did not have paint to make enough texture. But I have a clear idea for a painting to do of the blizzard rain. The rain was not like a down pour. The wind blew it as snow is blown.



A blizzard rain pockmarked the river like many toes sprinting to the finish.
There wasn't much color change - only great textures on the move.
Sitting at my RV window overlooking one blast after another racing with the tidal flow, I observe the water receding. At slack tide the quick fishing fishermen pulled up their anchors and returned to the marina. Seeing my husband coming, in seconds I screwed on the caps to my few watercolor tubes, screwed on the lid to my matte medium acrylic and stored all my painting stuff in the basement.
Tomorrow perhaps the painting will be dry enough to photograph.

The past two weeks I have been painting for an outdoor art festival sale this coming Saturday and Sunday in Lincoln City, Oregon. I feel these paintings are more about making something I suppose will sell and less about living my life. So today I made one about the rain that drenched my husband while I was happy to be back in the RV having enjoyed the boat ride earlier in the day.

It is tomorrow. Before day break my husband returned to the river and made his way between other boats each with a light bulb and a green and red light to indicate their direction of travel. Bait fish jump at the water's edge catching the lights splashing and flashing. Maybe yesterday there were a hundred fisherman and three Chinook were caught. Will the Salmon run begin today after the rain or is it just a poor year?

The Oregon Hatchery Research Center asks artists to give their time to instruct others on seeing the nature of fisheries through the artist's perception. I will be teaching River Trip, Watercolor Journaling, one of the workshops, November 3, at the Fall Creek Hatchery on highway 34 between Philomath and Waldport. The workshop is free but preregistration is required.