What is most precious - wildflowers on Rocky Creek Wayside ,Oregon

What is most precious to me is living in the moment and sometimes trying to capture it with the camera. Well the photographs are not like what I saw and felt not exactly. The energy of the moment is what I put down on canvas. The series about well cared for steers isn't really about steers and flowers as objects but about being alive. If you have no scientific explanation about why something is precious to you and you just love it, then is it spiritual?

June grasses and daisies in back of our place about 8:45 PM.

I would like to hear about what paintings or photographs you are making to express what is precious to you and how you feel about what you are expressing. Is your art spiritualas well?

I make dragons to express spirit and essence of the unseeable

To see these and more dragons click on the linkhttp://widlerwenzeldragons.blogspot.com/

Early Spiritual Dragon Painting

" Primeval Sea", 1965, is an acrylic painting on canvas, 19.5" x 49.5" "Rain's collection. Rain is correct in labeling the painting a spiritual abstract. "Rain," who was the first to notice hidden dragons in my paintings, saw the dragon in this early painting.

Labels, however, make me uncomfortable and when people ask what kind of painter I am, I squirm in discomfort and I stammer a few confusing words wishing I would just disappear at that moment.

I have always considered this painting spiritual. I remember having coffee with Rain the morning before painting it as we often did. That morning we thought about how the universe began and if there was a God. Spiritual means to me that which we know exists beyond what can be measured scientifically.

I am in the process of identifying which works are spiritual. I think most of my work is spiritual because of the way I go about making them like they are a journey each one of them.

Essence of Breeze and Apple Blossoms

This is my final abstraction of the apple blossoms and blue bird series. "Essence of Breeze in Apple Blossoms" is acrylic on cradled wood board 6" x 8." For sale $120 plus postage. The peak of the blossoms are almost over and my husband is logging so I want to add to the series on the life cycle of trees.
In answer to the question - "Is a painting just a blurred photograph. I would say not today because a photograph is reproduced with small dots of ink while a painting is produced by the brush stroke. In my case the brush strokes try to be paint like and not reproduce a photographic image.

Essence of Honey Bee and Apple Blossoms

The acrylic abstract, " Essence of Honey bee and Apple Blossoms" is painted on a cradled board 6" x 8" x 1 1/2". For sale $ 120 plus shipping cost. A special only through May 31.

The question before me as I am abstracting is: On a cold cloudy gray day, am I going to get inspired in the next couple of minutes as I am painting? And I did. I kept wanting to continue painting. Then I took a load back to the patio. Coming back for a second load, the blue birds flew by. At first I thought maybe they were curious about the paintings but most likely they were thinking, "Yippy, she is leaving and it will be our turn to feed."

Essence of Apple Blossoms, Freshly Tilled Dirt, and Blue Birds

"The essence of (yesterday's painting) Apple Blossoms, Tilled Dirt and Blue Birds" is on a cradled wood board 6" x 8" x 1 1/2". For sale $120 plus shipping cost. I am having a hard time saying it is for sale because it felt so inspired by the feeling of being outside on one of our first nice days.

Apple Blossoms, Fresh Tiled Dirt and Blue Birds

"Apple Blossoms, Fresh Tiled Dirt and Blue Birds" is many layers of acrylic on a cradled wood board. 5" x 7". For sale $120 plus shipping cost.
Blue birds in flight make a magnificent iridescent blue streak. They often perch in our blossoming apple tree and when they see a bug in the freshly tiled earth, they fly down. The next painting will be an essence abstracted from the "Apple Blossoms, Fresh Tiled Dirt, and Blue Birds." My husband is also enjoying the day driving tractor to haul the cut trees to the fence where Fish and Wild Life can pick up the trees for a lake enhancement program with the goal of making an ideal spawning grounds.

Orange Moon Rise

The watercolor on paper, "Orange Moon Rise" (12" x 9") was begun at Arizona Alamo State Park. It is a watercolor on paper 12" x 9". One evening the moon, very large and orange, was rising as the sun was setting. This painting is mostly memory remembering the uneven detail of the orange glowing moon and the deep blue of the sky. I couldn't capture it in a photograph and required layer upon layer of paint.

"Pebbles Bathed in Moon Light" is watercolor on 120 pound Arches 20" x 16". Both paintings are for sale $100 each plus postage.

Abstracting Memories and Inspirational Souvenirs

"Reed Sunset" is acrylic on museum wrapped canvas 24" x 36" x 1 1/2". For sale $500
I worked not from photographs but from memories of Tucson sunsets I painted in 1965 and of recent Arizona memories. First I covered the canvas with bright sunset colors and left it for several hours. Then I came back working in considerably more reds, magenta, white and yellows. Last I did the reed-like strokes recalling the reeds I watched from our motor coach. I remembered enjoying the reeds in front of the last glow of the sunset in a dark motor coach because we were conserving our power not having an electrical hook up. There were sounds from the nesting birds but not frogs. Later when we camped in a different location on the lake we heard frogs around sunset time.
I noticed as I was painting that I was unintentionally but pleasantly influenced by an installation in my studio. An earlier post is about the little installation of rocks I did in response to Martha Marshall's challenge to manipulate one of her abstracts.

Pebble from Cebolia Camp

"Primal Pebble"

I picked up a cool pebble in our Cebolia camp.

If she could see and speak, she could tell us an epic story.

Rounded and polished in the Colorado's ancient glacial floods,

her surface is blackened by air and sunlight.

The shiny black conceals a heart of hot iron colors from a fiery birth.

Ages ago sister rocks were visited by native hunters

who carved through the black to warm life colors.

Prayerfully imaging their memories, maps and dreams

the natives made the blackened rock a character in our story.

"Primal Pebble" is acrylic on canvas 48" x 24" for sale $500.

To connect with a tour of spiritual painting click here.http://umbrellapaintingjournal.blogspot.com/2008/01/modular-frame-3.html#links

Looking Back and Thoughtful Development of Modular Frame Series

" Ruth's Pond" ,1961, oil on Belgium linen, 29" x 38" for sale $400
During school vacation I painted outdoors at a friend's house. This is a style I come round to and develop.

"Yellow experimental abstract", acrylic with balsa wood relief, 1966 For sale $180

"My Table: My Palette", oil on canvas supported by wood and plywood corners, 32" x 43" , 1990. For sale $400 The support frame was scavenged from an earlier experiment - a silk painting stretched over fiber fill to make the wall hanging look like soft fiber sculpture.

Like in the past the modular frame series could be an isolated series of abstracts. I don't want to crank them out. Each must have meaning for me and be a part of my goal to have a rich involvement that I hope will evolve into a rich development. Each will start without knowing what adventure I will have to achieve the resolution. The resolution will be the recognition of feeling and symbolism that communicates. Usually development comes from limits and repeating the same type of picture. I have taken the path of trying many directions and there has been a great deal of time since my first similar paintings. When I am doing other kinds of painting new ideas for these abstracts incubate. At least incubation is the excuse I use for not pursuing abstraction continually.

Looking at these I feel I have just begun to stretch my muscle for abstraction by working at it now and then during the years.

Yesterday's frustration : today's multiple accomplishments

"Grandma Riding Sea Dragon", acrylic on museum wrapped canvas, 40" x 30" is for sale $400. For while there was a second dragon in the far lower right. As I mentioned earlier the woman talked back to me. Finally she became engaged in riding her dragon.

"Dragon's Shadow" is acrylic on museum wrapped canvas, 36" x 24" x 1 1/2", for sale, $400. "Dragon's Shadow" was at first non-objective. After many starts I became worked up with emotion. I worked towards express myself with energetic spirit. The title came after it was finished when I thought the dark looked like the distorted open jaws of the dragon.

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".

Seeing my dragon series in new ways

One way of seeing my paintings differently is showing them in a gallery setting. The picture shows a public display of the story with the title in the center and the story revolves around it. This will be up until the end of August at Pegasus Art Gallery in Corvallis, Oregon. The whimsy of my subject goes well with the intent of the gallery.
I am renting the wall and need to think if I want to continue marketing. If they don't sell, it is very expensive for me to show my work here. $150 /month for really fine public exposure that not only is for selling but also educates the public. It is a gift from my heart.


The painting here, one of the ones in the exhibit, started as a peace rose. And peace and war is a topic in museum settings and might my work fit into that venue? Perhaps I should be applying for shows at schools, colleges and universities where selling is not the prime motive?

I do enjoy the process of making art and journaling on the Internet. The Peak-a-boo Peace Rose Dragon with the slight suggestion of a dragon's eye in the upper left corner. But then I saw the face and decided that it went well with Rain's story. Rain of http://rainydaythought.blogspot.com/ seeing my blog and following the course of this series helped me with a story when I didn't think there was one.

Swinging To Imaginary Voyages

"Swinging to Imaginary Voyages" is acrylic on museum wrapped canvas 12" square by 1 1/2" deep. For sale $800 Here is the painting which links the book "When I Get To Be Older" with paintings I have been doing about my Widler family who lived for generations in China. My painting motives and aesthetics have been influenced by the Chinese culture. The theme of my book also is inspired by the Chinese respect for people of many years. Our culture idalizes youth and when I painted my dreams of old age I learned why the best years are really the golden years. See http://widlerwenzeldreams.blogspot.com

Day Dream Painting: "Granny's Wind Dance"

Acrylic on stretched cotton canvas, 18" x 18", no stapples on the sides, For sale$800.

"Granny's Wind Dance" began this morning when I saw a touch of blue behind the clouds and low whispy darker clouds moving swiftly. Then I thought I would just do sky, but after chatting with my friend "Rain", I decided to do as she suggested and make a picture of myself against the sky. My first impulse was to do myself dancing. I'll be doing some more larger paintings from time to time.

For more spiritual paintings click here. http://umbrellapaintingjournal.blogspot.com/2005/11/shared-treasure.html#links

# 2 of the "I see a Poem" series

F
One small release for a man: One giant leap for all life. an adaptation of Neil Armstrong's words ( acrylic on 36" x 24" canvases )






For more spiritual paintings click on the link here. http://umbrellapaintingjournal.blogspot.com/2006/10/i-see-poem-series.html#links

I See a Poem Series

Keep a green tree in your heart and maybe a singing bird will come. Chinese proverb Kiribati women of Christmas Island are waiting for the island bus but also they wait for the return of the singing birds killed by our automic bomb test off shore from the island in 1962. The heart of their life is the palm tree and their own family. They are very brave.
For more spiritual paintings click here. http://umbrellapaintingjournal.blogspot.com/2007/01/day-dream-painting-grannys-wind-dance.html#links

Shared Treasure

Sold

A dragon feels light and free being able to speak out. I have felt this way when I loaned a vase to the Jordan Schniter Art Museum, University of Oregon. Without intention my twisting twirling style sometimes makes form that are like dragons. to see a hidden dragon look closely at "Primeval Sea" and loop back to the beginning of the tour by clicking here.

Birth of Flowers in Seed Pod

This half sheet watermedia painting is for sale. $ 100

I saw a dried up daisy sprouting new life in our yard. It got me to thinking. The seed pod was a vessel like a womb. The vase also like a womb is my symbol for creation and the beginnings of all time. Out of the dark comes life again and again.