Paintings from seeing high surf at Rocky Creek

My intention was to use what I was experiencing as a springboard to an abstraction leading to a journey. I feel these paintings were about the energy of surf that roared like freight trains rushing to a crash on the rocks. The water exploded. These two paintings are just a beginning. Another one could make a leap to something but I don't know what yet.

September painting inspiration on the Oregon Coast

Today it is raining hard and I am taking time to reflect on my husband's photos.

I'll put my paintings out in the dry of our motor coach to look at them more critically.

Motor Coach and RV Resort Art Studio on the Siletz

Remembering painting at Rocky Creek Wayside, I did some preparatory watercolors on an accordion folded paper. The paper was damp through and through by a drizzle. The black lines were drawn after the color. I was pleased at how the Prismacolor black pencil lines melted into a nice dark line like ink.

When it is too rainy or windy outdoors I can set up my easel in the Coyote Rock's partially enclosed patio.

Abstract diptych #1 from Siletz River Valley Inspiration

Rectangular diptych, Acrylic on canvas,

34" x 24"

The object here is to use nature as a beginning of a creative journey. The next two paintings will depart farther into my own emotions and imagination.

From the Oregon Coast

I am looking forward to days a little drier than today like the one in the photograph here. I am going to paint in the drizzle but our computer locks up when I try to download pictures. So until my camera is cleared of potentially harboring a virus, I will just paint more.

The way I paint and draw is very nearly the same.

For a month abstracts approaching non-objective content have been my focus on this blog. In addition I have been making pen and ink illustrations. To my great surprise I learned that my best most direct and expressive work in both is done when I am standing up. Even when I am working in 3 inch square area I need to have free movement of my arm.
Secondly, I learned that I needed to be in a certain moment when I had a whole over all awareness of what I was making. As soon as I fixated on a part of the painting that was not as precious as another, the changes were forced. I can be very good at finessing a spontaneous look but it is always very difficult and often I fail. Like in my paintings when I draw, I started changing small areas using white-out making forced areas in an otherwise precious drawing.
In both drawing and painting, I work myself up into an emotional state of what I am making. When I tried to copy analyzing the angles and sizes, the emotion and spontaneity was dead. The same death to my spirit occurred with tracing on a light table.
Today I am going to buy more sumi ink and nibs for my old fashioned pen. I love the way it responds to my slightest differences in pressure as though I was sculpting. As for the rags, I have been using on my paintings, I am going to fashion more paint shapers from rubbish I would ordinarily throw in the garbage.

Abstract Painting of the Color of Some News Broadcasts - Red Hype and Yellow Truth Twisters

These two 32" square acrylic paintings were first about the emotion of the ocean and clouds and not about reproducing a picture of them. The meaning I wished for my paintings became clear from a single comment of my husband on the news of another dip in the economy and general worsening of the world situation from small entities that make splashy headlines. I am very much for freedom of the press and demand more journalists out there with more stories and less hype and regurgitation.

progress on large dyptic

As yet untitled these two acrylic paintings are 32" squares on linen.

Double Abstract series

Siletz River Abstracts

Acrylic on linen presented me a challenge that lasted most of the day. At 7:00 AM I went for a boat ride and enjoyed the atmsophere of a partly misty morning. Back to my studio overlooking the river at 10:00 AM. Painted continuously until almost 3:00 PM. I found the acrylic drying and could not at first keep working on both backand forth as I did on smaller oils.

New series of Oregon Coast Paintings

I have been inspired by my early art education under Frederick Heidel and more recently Diane Hoff-Dobbie to be very selective from nature and then let myself go without expectations. Only to interrupt the free flow by stopping to look and draw out several paths for a conclusion to the journey. In recent days I have set up myself for uncertain success. I have been trained to do painted studies from nature and then work in the studio. Here I am doing studies in the studio mostly from memory on 12" square Masonite. Now I am going out to the river canyons and beaches to do the larger works. I like to play and experiment but that isn't the object, I want a true, immediate, emotional response that is structured to communicate. I am not painting my impression of nature: I am painting selected nature that reflects my desire for a rich paining journey. Hopefully I won't be lost in scattered impulses too much of the time.

Abtract growth in high relief lines

If you like these two, see similar ones by clicking below on labels.

Lady Bug and Praying Mantis Abstracts