Steve Carpenter, painter of world renown is giving back

Steve Carpenter is a graduate of Woodrow Wilson High School, Portland, Oregon. He is an example of when your high school teachers and friends believe you can be an artist to the fullest depth of the word, the seed of the dream can materialize with work and focus. In high school Steve's biggest dream was to be an illustrator like Norman Rockwell which he accomplished early on in his career. He was a commercial artist for Disney as part of a rich art journey taking him to Europe where he was a fine arts painter. Recently he returned back to the United States to give back to the arts by creating a school in New York. Steve says anyone can learn to draw and learn from him by watching a four hour long video on building a portrait.
Below is his painting "Cosmos Dialous I".

Below Steve's teacher, Henry Heine's demonstration from years ago has sharp differences and faint similarities.

"The Mechanical Birds" by Henry Heine was part of his lesson. He showed us a number of examples of cubist painters and talked about the history of science impacting the artists of the early 20th century. Artists learned from science that there were more ways to see. Mr. Heine, also, demonstrated the process at work. He applied the paint with a sprayer and used printing techniques as well as brushes. He demonstrated an energetic attitude and promised us a break through where we would let our hair down, feel freedom, and promised it would be great fun for us when we make a break through where creative expression would flow. During the 60's there was a movement in art education to paint from our own notions and disregard the tradition of representational painting. This philosophy produced practitioners of painting who complain. Many felt misguided because they don't know what they are doing when painting abstracts. During the three years we were with him, Heine gave us an understanding of abstracting the essence and directional guides based on art history in many of his assignments.

Henry Heine somewhere in the cosmos is very proud of Steve. To learn more about Steve click on the links in blue and underlined above.

Inanimate things or people the most difficult to paint?

I find no difference in difficulty whether I am painting something alive or inanimate. I paint their gesture and energy. When I am painting the rocks I feel myself as a rock. The gesture of the rock comes from its skelton-like creation standing up to water and wind. When I am painting the ocean water instead of picking a still moment. I do a dance of gestures as though I were to paint. I feel slish, slosh, kazame of water moving into the rocks pushed by weather and tidal forces. My muscles do the planning in a state completely in the moment. Theoretically my goal is to live in tha moment.
The end results do not always flow. But when they do I am pleased.

Oystercatchers' rocks at Seal Rock

Completed at home with the aid of Rain's photographs

Painting in progress before finishing it at home. I am not sure the desire of making the oystercatchers more distinct really improved the painting.

Plein Air Two Hand View Finder or Painting Mask

My right arm is bent at the elbow at 90 degrees and held firmly while the left moves. The closer the arm is to a straight line the smaller the image is in the box formed by my fingers just like a camera viewfinder. In addition a 21 box grid can be made by spreading the fingers apart and flicking the left wrist to lineup with the left arm.

At the Lima Anthropology Museum there is a diorama display of what anthropologists think Mesoamericans' camps were like around 14,ooo B.C. Most of the activities were self explainable except one man wearing an animal's head disguise. He was facing the wind break enclosure. He appears to be sizing up a distant object. He could be measuring where to put another support pole to add to the enclosure or judging from his posture. He could be roughly gaging the speed of movements of people or animals on the horizon.

Inspirational motivation VS. critical appraisal and Dr. Watson's plan

Sea Bass that Don caught the other day.

For some weeks I have been critical of maybe over a thousand of my past works. I identified some gems from the mass that just didn't have enough cut. I put the incomplete work in recyclable piles. Maybe a few changes would save them. Experience, however, shows my best work is in the immediate here and now. Small changes to works that have been around for some time usually kills the energy and life of the painting. After being in the critical mode, I am having trouble switching to inspired energetic painting.

I accept my difficulty of going back into painting while being concerned of how I am expanding with more paintings. Commencing painting again requires confidence. Making more, however, will be problematic ten years from now when I might want to live in smaller quarters. Ultimately my children will have to deal with too much of my work if I haven't found a place for it. I could dwell on the fact that I have not found a market and I don't want to be a slave to the marketplace.

Years ago a psychologist Dr. Watson suggested putting a cap on the amount of works I could make and keep. For him one painting was all he needed to feel he was an artist. Actually my benefits from making art is more than ego but a way of life. I ignored the Watson plan for years so now I am going to go to greater lengths to be a responsible family member. I am not only going to limit my work in numbers but I am going to reduce my inventory.

I have gone ahead for 25 years with confidence that my paintings will be found. Every new piece was begun with confidence that I would be able to store it somewhere. I had in 2010, however, reached the point where I was spending more time moving paintings from pile to pile than actually working.

I am going to continue painting but with a plan of reduction. Every year for eight years I will paint big ones starting at 3 feet by 5 feet using the supports I already have. Canvases will be removed for the purpose of becoming table coverings or rugs. But every year I will make sure I reduce the number of large painting supports by two. So when I am mid way through my 80's I will have only one large painting left.

Now that my plan is set, it is difficult to get into painting again, because I am in the severely critical mode. What will I do?

I have noticed interesting sunsets and clouds yesterday. We might go to the beach. I have made some tinted watercolor papers and have 17 empty tinted canvases. Also some ink, pens and new drawing pads. I'll start by rolling a dice to select which direction. The important thing in inspiration is not wait but get started then the inspiration comes.

The High of an Art Reception Coupled with Humbling Studio Management

In one painting of a thousand or so unfinished ones I poured rehydrated Bengal Rose gouache. It powdered and pealed. Then I put semi gloss, UV, satin varnish on it. The paint became brittle and pealed more. I like the pealing but it is so fragile, I am not sure I can save it. Today I adhered the 300 pound cotton rag paper to a museum board and flooded the pealing areas with Liquitex gloss varnish and medium.
An important reason for this show is empty our house so I could go through my work and separate what is important to me from the works that fall short. And there are many unfinished or do not rise my pulse. I framed works selected by my daughters and prepared 17 large surfaces for oil or acrylics.
For years I have not been so critical of my own work. Every day more and more goes in the recyclable pile. Tomorrow I hope to start working from the immediate here and now instead of trying to save an old work.

Sunday my retrospective reception talk and tour was attended by loving family and good friends. The theme of paintings was paintings while my husband fishes the past 46 years of the 50 years represented. My 9 slide show brought some good suggestions as to whether or not fish hooks were the most basic invention upon which all others stem. To cover their ideas, I am adding four more slides from our trip to South America.

Moving forward after thousands of paintings

Knitting Needle and Crochet Hook Orbs, watercolor on paper 30" x 22"

This is a time of reflection while I put together a show of 50 years of my paintings. After selecting just 40 from the ones in my collection and from borrowing some, the house is still just as crowded. My husband and I are stretching canvases to paint and then I have put a tinted coat of gesso to make a nice ground for the paintings.

I have new and gessoed over canvases in the shop studio and two piles to paint in the house studio. The sorting shelves of paper work has a shelf of recyclables. Interesting I thought I was going to make papers for collage and ended up modifying old paintings giving them some new life. A dozen have made it to keeper shelves.

Fast Drying, Juicy Watercolors Painted by the Wood Stove

Salvaging is a freeing experience. First I selected several hundred watercolors that are not special to me. Some are very old and good paintings but just not that great. I am painting either on the back or on top of bright color. I salvage all the paint from a tube, meaning I feel free to use large amounts of color. The fireplace is very warm and dries the puddles of paint with amazing speed.

Dried, painted papers are hung on the bulletin board. I am considering these for further layers, collages, or maybe as finished work.

Children's experience oriented watercolor class with environmental values

Monday, January 3rd, 23 children accompanied by a parent were eager students at a free watercolor class at the Albany Public Library. The supplies were mostly from recycled artist quality cotton rag paper. Some papers went through a long hot bath and bleaching with an additional coat of absorbent ground for watercolor. Substituting for commercial pan watercolor sets were small chunks of watercolor crayons left over from years of use with my grand children and my mother who suffered from dementia. The pealed crayons were inserted into molded plastic packaging salvaged from thumb tacks. Small lids served as water containers. Brushes were my own. In addition, I purchased 10 Camelia student pan watercolor sets with brushes from India. These sets had four larger wells perfect to fill from squirting until filled using only a small water sprayer. The small amount of water available made for paintings with brighter more saturated color and no waste water. The students used up all the water and were given seconds and thirds of water.

Cookie cutters of all subjects from mittens to animals and trees provided ideas for subjects and kept the shapes, cartoon-like, big and open. The children were creative in filling them. All selected painting the inside first. When these were ready to dry before doing the background, we gathered around the mystery table where I provided the solution to what things I carried with me on a watercolor plein-air trip. The kids checked to see if the letters they wrote down corresponded with the palette, pens, painters, and clothes I had. The use of pens and pencils were helpful in making creative decisions on how they wanted to finish their work.
Not all of the children followed my directions and for the most part that worked out fine. The small cakes of the Camelia set are perfect for small fingers and delighted one of the youngest boys who wanted to know if he could make thumb prints. Of course the set worked perfectly and he was absorbed in his painting for more than half an hour. When it was time to end class he was still making prints and he said he just loved finger printing. I was rewarded by having several examples of creative inventers of the materials that I could share with the others instead of always being the one governing what the children make. For the most part all had a good time, but there was one child who would not accept any suggestions, could not focus and became very upset when the too big watercolor brush did not provide a good enough point to paint the stripes on an American flag. The tantrum that followed was to wrinkle up the paper and throw it in the garbage. If I had taken steps to redirect this easily frustrated student, I may not have any different outcome. There are some who come to class bent on proving they are not good at art. It is curious to me that I have had an adult a few years back who painted the flag and was equally demonstrative. After class I retrieved the drawing. I am keeping it for a collage. Or save it as is: it is very good on its own merit.

Detail showing lines made with Chinook Salmon fish bone

Above are my paint scraper combs. From our freshly caught Chinook, I kept the head bones for oil and watercolor painting tools. These tools could be seen as a gimmick but I like how they feel and look. Plus I am avoiding cleaning brushes and dumping noxious solvents in the wilderness. Can you find the mark of my natural fish bone tool in my paintings?

I found it very difficult to use only fish bones with watercolor. The interesting line quality worked on very small details added as a last touch. I used fish bones through out the building of an image in acrylic and oil paint more successfully.

Details of changes on "Bovine Catching Lily's Song"

I just can't do daily paintings. I start out fresh with a feeling but sometimes that feeling goes to desperation. Like yesterday when I made this great departure leaning towards fantasy. The other factor was I have more than doubled the size of my surface and it took some doing to completely cover the canvas without using solvents that cause headaches.

This afternoon I was pleased to work into the still wet paint in order to reclaim the happy song of the lilies.

There maybe more steers. Tomorrow I will paint with the Albany Painting Enthusiasts. and will be able to build on the series at Nicole's Nursery.

A Sunday in a Retired Painter's Life

This Sunday is a good day in the life of a retired fine arts painter – retired from a focus on sales shifted to an intensified exploration of my feelings for life’s forms and colors. I am searching for relevance in today’s world. As readers of this blog know my new series is of flowers in my yard and the steers in our neighbor’s pasture. With my new direction I have become on most days a stay at home painter.
I woke up at 6:00 AM and enjoyed my husband’s waffles with berries and Cool Whip. Then on the Internet I read a blog about a caregiver for an aging Mum and how she feels about the enriched relationship she has. I am impressed at how Cath can balance her creative development with care giving and work. Inspired by Cath’s continued sharing of her life, I had fantasies of making a difference from my past care giving experience. Maybe make an art u-tube movie from some video tapes of how my mother and I painted . She suffered from dementia and painting brought us closer together in many ways.
Then I checked http://www.recovery.gov/ I was almost assured that we are headed for prosperity in the long term. I felt elated by a generous sum of stimulus money for education. It is also sobering to realize that people must learn to watch and influence where that money is spent. With the transparency of the administration and the aid of computers, much more can be accomplished much faster and better than any time in history. I speculated more. People are still thinking we are in 20th century low gear and keep the usual fear of change. I had some fantasies of applying for an education grant for a Children’s Ceramic Project. A letter on CCP to Michelle Obama has not been answered and probably I need to start at another level. Or I should figure out how much it would cost on a small scale local program. Or maybe the idea would not work at all.
My husband called for me to steady his ladder while he climbed up to replace roofing on the patio cover. While waiting for him to come back down, I set up my paints and made some very poor choices of paint strokes on one of my new oil series. When my husband finished the roofing we went for an hours walk in McDonald’s Forest. Then we picked early blue blueberries for half an hour. At home we had lunch and I spent another half hour cleaning berries before freezing them.
I spread out 10 of my paintings for viewing and then looking at my original sketch I ripped into the calla lily painting and improved it heading it towards a resolution that will satisfy me. I tried to call a friend to confirm our visit tomorrow but I am not getting a response so probably she has left to visit her daughter in another state. I considered going to a Vistas and Vineyard paint out Wednesday but I won’t do it because I am so happy for the first time in 24 years able to say no to distracting activities.
Now, 8:30PM, it is time to relax and unwind for the evening.

Iron Mountain photos and paintings

My husband likes to point out the arch near the top of the trail up Iron Mountain. On a folded watercolor paper I sketched the edge of where the rock meets the sky. Later I painted in the car as we wound our way down the mountain.

Today I may have done more with my camera than with my brush.

Here is my husband on the Cone Peak Trail below the Iron Mountain Trail. In the foreground is larkspar.

Sketches are more in the moment

Here is a painting previously posted with the sketches that I did the same day. The sketches were warm ups for the painting and I was close enough to the moment that I feel the painting is expressive of being in the moment.

But days later I did not sustain the excitement of the moment as I started to work from my sketch of the table. When I tried to paint the one below I was just going through the motions. I like the sketch though. I didn't think it was going to ever be the finished painting. It is done with watercolors and watercolor crayon. I rather like it and want to make the flowers like entering another world. This is Lynn Power's picnic table, the one her father built. He just passed away and days before I painted in Lynn's garden her family had come to her home for his memorial service. So I thought the table embodied good memories and I wanted to express that.
Yesterday I started an oil painting from the sketch but it seems like I was just going through the motions without the emotion I had when I did the sketch. So I have elaborated a little on the sketch and calling it a finished work and no longer a sketch.

Woodlot Mother and Grandson at Bond Butte Pond

Tomorrow my new painting will be due for "This Everlasting Valley II" at River Gallery, Independence, Oregon, May 5 through July 5.

The day before it is due I started making a small change and ended up repainting most of the painting to pop out the figures while establishing a path for the eye to explore and come back to the figures.

The purpose of my painting is to paint an update on the painting, "Mother Thinning Woodlot" my other painting that will also be on exhibit.

Celebrating volunteers and donations for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wild Life my painting is of Woodlot Mother sharing the pond where her trees are now embracing a hatch of warm water fish at an I5 Freeway pond. The pond was dredged out to build up the highway over the wetland farms. The painting is nearing completion. Next the submerged tree will embrace the fish like the grandmother embracing her grandson.

Diane Widler Wenzel’s Journey in Paint

All my paintings put together chronologically are a pictorial journal of my life. For 44 years some of my journey is Willamette Valley farming, forestry and fisheries starting from when I helped my husband to be, Donald Wenzel, plant trees near Vernonia, Oregon. I painted us trout fishing from a row boat among the flooded snags at Quarts Lake. At the Cooper Mountain Wenzel Farm I painted him on the antique family tractor putting up hay bales. Then we married in 1965 and moved away. Twenty years later we moved back to Oregon. We settled in a North Albany neighborhood with farm pasture and forest in our back yard.

Our neighbor, Dian Gerstner, is a true stewardess of the earth as she cares and tends her overgrown Christmas tree lot, harvesting firewood, and removing dead trees. She is the Mother of the Woodlot, the subject of my painting of 1999.

I painted a series telling the story of how we sold our pasture lot in 2007. The fir trees were cut down to make way for a house.

One of the paintings was a dream that did not materialize with our trees. My dream was that the root balls were placed in a pond where the tangled roots provided shelter for small newly hatched fish. This painting may have helped to inspire my husband to volunteer his logging skills.

April 2008 many of Mother Woodlot’s pine trees had dead tops and the lower branches of the trees were thick masses of dead dry fuel – a real danger for a possible hot wild fire. The cleaning up of the fire hazard was a must to ensure the safety of the encroaching urban development. Mother Woodlot donated some of her smaller trees and brushy branches to enhance the fish habitat on Bond Butte Pond near Halsey - a large freeway lake where gravel was dredged out to raise the I5 Freeway above the wet lands. My husband volunteered his logging skills working more than full time for over a month. He chain sawed out dense limbs. He pulled out less healthy trees with the tractor and put them in big piles for hauling. He arranged for Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to hire a logging trucker for the purpose of knocking down larger trees and transporting three loads to streams.

What an unexpected joy awaited me when I first visited Bond Butte Pond and saw how the pond is being transformed from a scar on the landscape to a park of great beauty enhancing the farm land of the Willamette Valley as well as providing recreational warm water fishing and abundant wildlife. Thus I have come a long way to paint “Grandmother and Grandson in the Fishery Created from her Trees – Bond Butte Pond.”

Diane Widler Wenzel Bio
Recording my Journey in Paint

Education :

1966 Bachelor of Science Degree with high honors in drawing and painting,
Portland State College, Portland, Oregon.

Solo Exhibitions
2009 May, Recent Journey, Sam’s Station, Corvallis
November ’08 – January, Of the Oregon Coast, Sylvia Beach Hotel, Newport,
2008 “Hidden Dragons,” Sam’s Station, Corvallis
“Dragons Boogie Woogie,” Enid Joy Mount Gallery, Keizer Art Association
2005 “ A Vase of a Hundred Flowers” Pegasus Art Gallery, Corvallis
2003 “Trip to Tibet” Albany City Hall
2001 “Personal Symbols,” Footwise Window, Corvallis
2000 “Alaska Watercolors,” Boccherini’s Coffee Shop, Albany
“Robinson House Series,” Footwise Window, Corvallis
1999 “Watercolors,” Albany City Hall
“Waves in Abstract,” Sylvia Beach Hotel, Newport, Oregon
1998 “Water Impressions,” Illustrated Garden Gallery, Corvallis
“Watercolors and Acrylics,” New Morning Bakery, Corvallis
1993 Good Samaritan Hospital, Corvallis
Arts and Letters Gallery, Albany
1986 Two Rivers Market, Albany
1978 The Nut Loft, Aloha
My Studio, Clover Bldg., Bellingham
1969 Interactive Painting with Installation, Magnolia Gallery, Bellingham
Parlor Gallery, Portland, Oregon
1968 Hamman's Gallery, Bellingham, Washington
1967 Courtyard Gallery, Illahe Hills Country Club, Salem
Lake Oswego and Beaverton Public Libraries
La Points Department Store, Salem
1966 The Loft Theater Gallery, Tucson, Arizona

Group Exhibitions

2007 acrylic paintings, “Four Women Seven Years Later”
Benton County Historical Museum, Philomath, Or
Feathers, Fins and Fire,” a group of three painters
La Selles Stewart Center, Oregon State University Corvallis, Oregon
2006 This Bountiful Place, Portland ,Oregon
1999 13 watercolors and acrylics,
“Four Women Artists Celebrating the Seasons of Life,”
Benton County Historical Museum

Brickett and hairdryer forge a digging stick

Yesterday my husband enjoyed making a forge to hammer out a pipe to a sharp end. This is a tool for an elderly native American friend who likes to use a digging stick instead of a shovel in his garden. The pipe makes the tool lighter weight than a crowbar. I think this digging stick is exceptional.
While Don was hard at work I tried some finishing touches on my Tango exhibit paintings. I am still wondering what my new direction will be in my art journey. Reading the history of Argentina Tango, the music began to have political content during an oppressive regime. Then the Tango was banned. I think folk art including dance is real art. People do really meaningful work when there is a felt need. In the 21st century we are entering a new age and I wonder if art will be made to be given away as gifts or will be more marketable filling real needs. Should I be asking what I can do to help people with my art? In the past I did some paintings of creative people and tried to honor them in paint.

Steps in Creating an Arches National Park painting

In my sketch book a few years ago I used up some cobalt violet drying up on my palette. It was placed around the edges of a painting my mother started in her last days when she was suffering from dementia. Then when I was in Arches last week I started drawing and painting over the random colors. I liked the juniper trees and bushes that were starting to spring back to life. In the studio I added some white lines and more branches. I have expressed the struggle of life and rock. This 9" x 12" sketch may evolve into a full scale painting.

"Mother Clearing Woodlot" and two of "Woodlot Mother Sharing With Grandson"

"Mother Clearing Woodlot" plus a new painting of mine will be on exhibit in "The Everlasting Valley Exhibit" in May.

I don't know which of the new ones I will enter. I am putting them away for a week. I will be devoting the week to my family. My next post will be Saturday, April 18th. It is good to be able to again post pictures from my camera on a a newly repaired computer.

Bond Butte Pond Bio-enriched

Here is a look at my progress. For those who have not been reading my blog, this is a painting to celebrate volunteers and contributes to Oregon Department State Fish and Wildlife. Mother of the Woodlot is helping her grandson release a fish into the pond that received her wood lot small trees for fish habitat at one of the lakes along Interstate Highway 5. The lake was formed when the gravel was dredged out to build up the freeway above the wetlands.

this painting isn't for sale yet because it will be my entry into an invitational exhibit, "this Everlasting Valley II Exhibition in may this year.

In a few days when Hewlett Packard returns a repaired hard drive and we are set up, I'll post a better and completed painting. there is still work to be done on this one. This is my second painting of the subject in which I want to relate the sheltering barn with these volunteers and with the tree she donated seen submerged on the right.

Digesting Diane Hoff-Rome's workshop on intuitive process

One of the tendencies I have at workshops like Diane Hoff Rome's is to let myself be influenced to paint like the instructor. Last week at the workshop some of my work looked like Frankenthaler and some like Hoff-Rome so I have been looking at some of my older work to see if I have a way to employ her process in my own development. After all my background is working intuitively. This is a painting done around 1988 and I am wondering how I have lost this kind of movement and spontaneity. Certainly her suggestions will help me get into my own creativeness more of the time. My next projects will be painting outdoors over some old paintings. I am starting some new paintings of Bond Butte Pond and the best one will go in The Everlasting Valley exhibit.