Our Back Field and Pump House

Our pump house has seldom been a subject in my painting since we lived here the past 22 years but now that we are selling our field, I am eager to enjoy our property by using it as a beginning for some works. As I work I become closer to the beauty in what was so common place to me. I am not reproducing the landscape. I am making interpretations. At first the paintings will be impressionistic. Future paintings will become more abstract and emotional.

Our Apple Trees

'Our Apple Trees' is oil on cradled wood board 14" x 11" x 1", for sale $175
I am really enjoying my early morning painting adventures, but the time has come to make up my mind if I will do more. Tomorrow the temperature will be 20 degrees colder - below freezing and the wind chill factor in addition may be more than I am willing to endure.

Rainy Day Painting of the Woods

"Rainy Day Painting of the Woods" is oil on linen, 3' x 5" for sale $86.
From our patio cover I painted what I call the nursery woods where does have their fawns and foxes have cubs.

I Hate Fixed Paintings

I hate the superficial fix. But I keep feeling that I can save the painting when I could do better by doing another painting.
Solution of questionable value: Obliterate and paint a new. That works sometimes. But on other paintings it is obliterate day after day until the canvas is a highly textured, dried fruit cake. Luckily most of mine work most of the time.

Is this toll or oil painting?

A lady walking her dog approached me and asked if I had seen the squirrel. Are you painting the squirrel? Can I see? I said I had not noticed the squirrel. Then she was disappointed and asked, "Is this toll or oil painting?" A very good question!! Much more deep than the lady thought!!! She only wanted to express some hostility in the pretense of being ignorant.
My answer is that some painting is more craft than art. To some extent I want to make a pleasing painting of my impressions of the landscape. In doing so I have used the brush in learned toll painting fashion as opposed to being honest about the moment. I also found that I still want to make changes after returning home today. Only I think these changes are superficial. Most of the them were not about living in the moment and my first impression.
The superficial brushing is of the distant trees on the upper right. I put them in because there was some perpendicular linear raised texture from the underneith painting covered with gesso. The painting that I did today is of the field in back of our place and it is done on a 10" x 8" canvas stretched over plywood. I am eager to try again tomorrow with honesty. I am encoraged to learn that my secondary fixes are apt to be superficial. I may be able to make paintings of the moment and leave tham as finished.

Painting in My Own Backyard Field

This is the second morning I have tried working smaller only this time I painted one twice as large. This 8 x 10 painting was more comfortable for me to paint than the 5 x 7. Sold I was delighted by the sunrise this morning and what a good subject my own yard can be. Then my husband noticed the sun streaming through the oak tree. I painted it.

Extending Myself

Today I tried a new way of painting. With oil paints I painted from start to finish in just a little over an hour. The big change for me was to paint a very small canvas of 5" x 7". for sale $86. But can I be satisfied painting small canvases? The set up was swift and I had a fist full of small brushes so I did not clean between colors. The small brushes cleaned up easily at home afterwards. Maybe this is the way I will be painting in the future when I am traveling about the country. But I am not sure I can get all my personality into such a small area. I was pleased on this first one because I was not all tight as I anticipated. Standing up while painting had much to do with my freeling of freedom. Another bonus is the promise of a flow of work. I can think about my next painting and not go back into my first impression. On small canvases I can break the habit of making little changes for months and even years after starting a painting.

# 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

Returning to Mother Whale

Painted on location at Rocky Creek, Oregon, I applied acrylic paint directly from squeeze bottles and mixed colors with sticks and paper towels. 24" x 36" Finally I am painting without using clean up water.

Discovering Painting Tools From Nature

Sorry at this time my pictures are not publishing to this post and I hope the problem straightens out soon. During my twelve gorgeous days near Lincoln City, Oregon I luxuriated in the fine fall weather painting at least one acrylic painting a day. Most of my paintings were of the Great Blue Heron. The series was inspired by the Scottish poet Sorley Maclean's poem, "Heron". "She folded her wings close to her sides and took stock of all around her." I observed herons on the docks and along the banks of the Siletz River. Truly they land and stock. Their movements are deliberate and sometimes they hold for minutes their spring neck ready to pounce. The long neck and long hand-like claws have many expressions. The painting pictured here is of a heron unfolding exotic full feathered wings like a show girl moving in Chinese calligraphic gestures.
All the paintings were made with sticks and beach grass dipped in acrylic paint. A dorsal fin from a Chinook Salmon made fine shading. The fin was rubbed dry with a paper towel and then dipped in the acrylics. The feel of the fin on wet canvas was like the slippery, sensual feeling of oil paints. I was enchanted and the fresh fish did not smell too much. I did not even notice the smell after the paint dried. The physical feeling of applying the paint is different with each fin type. The pectoral and dorsal are fan-like making wonderful water like swirls and the adipose is rubbery like a paint shaper. I never anticipated the fun of using natural things instead of brushes. The original reason for using discardable found objects is to save the environment from dumping paint tainted water. In the past I tried to evaporate the waste water until it was useable as paint. this is not a so much fun guarding the waste water from occasional spills and smelling the paint getting moldy. But as I worked almost waterless painting using these objects I became attached to these new tools. Sticks did not completely dry over night and I could draw with them on water sprayed canvas. Paper towels were useful in removing the excess created by mixing paint on the canvas. The rags stayed wet over night in Oregon rainforest dew. So small adjustments in the painting could be made with no need to mix more to match. When I wanted to add more in the gray distance I just used the whale spout was added the next day. First I rubbed the towel with the still damp gray on the canvas and then I could more smoothly bend in the water spout.

Art Builds Happy Memories

A big thrill for me is seeing my grandchildren painting. I let them, once in awhile, use my art materials with the expectation that we will enjoy the fruits of our shared time for years. Art builds happy memories of shared interests. Our latest project is painting the climax of a little league championship game - the Royals versus Giants. The Royals have three on bases and then they hit a ball out of the park. The children have made a story painting and record of every part of the game they like to play. I am sure that other painters have experienced similar rewards painting with their children or grandchildren. But I am feeling stretched thin between blogging and living with family and being an artist this month!!! I need time for grandchildren and time to make and carry out plans with other artists. So this is my last blog for awhile. I plan to start adding to my blog again the third week in October.

Cerulean Water Dragon

"Holding the Water Urn the Cerulean Dragon is Thinking about Giving" acrylic on canvas 40" x 30"
Nothing like a sale of my two golden yellow dragons to make me feel good about making more. This one is only the first of four more dragons expressing feelings about keeping and giving. The dragon is greenish blue to symbolize spirituality, and the healthyness of giving.

Dragons in other Forms

"Releasing Sturgeon Fish" 12" x 36" acrylic on canvas Sometimes dragons take the form of sturgeon but that was not my intention to illustrate this notion. My motive for painting this picture was not to expand upon dragons. I was going to expand on previous paintings of fishermen releasing their catch. After completing the painting I see a relationship between my fishing paintings and my dragon paintings.

More Dragons

One dragon I have always thought of as being a sharing dragon but it holds the water jar up high just behind its head. The eyes are wide and looking down like it is mischievously exposing a secret. The other dragon holding a wind blown scarf in its mouth is pouring drops of rain from the water jar. The nose twiches. The left eye is almost winking. Now that these two dragons are spoken for, can I do a dragon that is truly giving from the heart?
Two Dragons, 48" x 30" each and Two Blue Birds "1" x 16" acrylic on canvas, for sale $300

Self-Portrait Projecting 20 Years into the future

This notebook sketch is not for sale.
Rain of the rainydaythought blog has posted an intriguing self-portrait of herself as she thinks she will be at age 80. I was moved to see what kinds of insight I would have as I painted my own future visage. I see myself as being not a beauty but simply determined. The physical changes are not as important as the spirit.

River Tree Fantasy

This painting has undergone many transformations and as of February 2008 it is not finished.

"Fantasy Dragon Tree" is a work in progress done with acrylics on location. Canvas is 24" x 36"
Near Chinook Bend on the Siletz River, Oregon there is a tree that refuses to give into gravity although it fell almost all the way into the river. The trunk suggests to me a proud animal.

The Clothesline Sale is another Alternative Gallery

Alternative galleries have spoiled the public giving out free and cheaply priced art. This is the opinion of the majority of artists in Corvallis, Oregon. I have a slightly different take on what causes the low number of sales and low prices the artists fetch for their paintings here. The problem is the small art center. Art Centric spotlights exhibits brought in from other locations at the expense of the growing number of local talents. The small side shows in the center's gift shop and staff office are presented as products for sale. In July in our topsy turby community Pegasus Art Gallery and Frame Shop featured the creative works of the Oregon State University retired Art Department Head and his family of three generations. The exhibit is not featured as a selling exhibit and reaches out to the community of numerous other families with several generations making art. The out reach is unpresedented here because the University Professors do not show with just anyone here. This show could never have been in our small art center. It is proof that there is more to art than just selling products. The Clothesline Sale will probably again have all the sales that should be going to support our Pegasus Art Gallery / real functioning community art center.

August is Marketing Month?

This acrylic painting is for sale. $700Only a little marketing will happen because I am expecting to do more painting near Lincoln City. This painting is Phoenix Tree (the estuary of the Siletz river near Lincoln City) acrylic 24" x 36"
Saturday August 8 my husband and I will be showing paintings at the Corvallis Art Guild Clothes Line Sale on the Courthouse Lawn. We will be in the Corvallis Art Guild tent in the middle of the lawn area.

Painting at Ona Beach, Oregon

Both of these paintings have undergone great change. especially the tree. This tree has become the base for painting my own family tree portraits sitting on the branches. This very personal painting was exhibited june 2007 at the Benton County Museum group show, "Seven Years Later"

Outdoors I enjoyed mixing a water and dilute mat medium with pan wtercolors working transparency over transparency. "View Approaching Foot Bridge to Beach", "Tree Standing on the Bank of Beaver Creek" 18" x 18" ( Update: The tree painting became the base for a painting of my family tree and an illustration in the book, "When I Get to be Older")

Grandma's Dance

This painting is not for sale as it is so personal. I have given a reproduction of it to a lady that showed interest. I make reproductions by request but do not market them.
People ask how long it takes me to paint a picture. This painting has taken me years to complete. I hope it is complete and these are all my grandchildren. I hope to keep the memory of their early years and how easily they could be entertained. I used to think that having two children would replace us and not add to the population explosion. That does not seem to be the case because we live longer and population can be increased by having the generations too close together. The green line stretching between me and my grandchildren represents transferring the joy of living.

Garden Sculpture

Our eight feet tall lilies create a little secret outdoor room at our front door. I really enjoy the visual effect but not the strong scent. The smell irritates my allergies. We are going to dig out a third of these lilies and plant new varieties. I want to select plants that suggest the whimsy of water and life.

Cardwell Hill Vineyard Thank You

Today I painted a thank you card for a favor done by Don and Nancy of Cardwell Vineyard. In this folded format I could tell the story of their vineyard - their Chateau home, Mary's Peak, and their winery.

Owyhee Flight

This painting is sold.

The First Day and a Half of our White Water Trip

This is not for sale.
June 11th we had some sunshine on the Owyhee and 80 degree weather before the wind blew. The morning of June 12th we went for a walk towards the sandstone caves. We could not agree on the geologic history of the area. Was it all volcanic or was it a mixture of uplift from prehistoric seas? In the afternoon as we continued down river, we saw dramatic weather changes.

Folded Watercolor Paper is my Journal

This is not for sale.


On the Owyhee River there are many hot springs which are much appreciated when the weather is less than fair.

Painting Journal of a White Water Drift Trip

We just got back from a five day white water rafting trip camping five nights on the river down the Owyhee Canyon. We were 13 adventurers in seven rubber boats and an inflatable kayak. Though we were expecting fair weather, nature had other plans and we did encounter difficulties like in the times of Homer. There was some unpredicted stormy weather. We had no contact with the outside world and did not know there was a tornado and hail in Burns, the closest town.
Tuesday June 13th I saw some very threatening clouds like the clouds in twisters. I did not see a funnel cloud. I saw the rain coming so I went to the boat and pulled out and put on my rain gear. I was the first to put it on and on top of my cheap rain coat I put on my life jacket with a red whistle. Then I returned to the other rafters who were finishing there lunch as the first big drops of rain fell. And we all laughed at me, I was prepared for everything. Then they started putting on their rain gear too. That night we saw lightening and heard thunder close by. In my coffeee cup, I found an inch of rain that fell in an hour. Our 20 years old tent with pin size holes everywhere leaked so much we could have been in a stream bed. The floor had as much as 3/4 inch of water. We sopped it up over and over again with a towel and a polar fleece hat. We held the saturated towel and hat outside the tent door and ringed them out by hand. We could not keep our things dry. We just couldn't save anything at all so I rolled up the drier sleeping bag and put it in our dry bag. Then we tried to arrange our bed so we could sleep best we could when the rain stopped. Since all was wet I put on all my rain gear and was about to go to sleep when we heard this loud crack like a lightening strike followed by the sound of rocks slidding towards us. Then there was another crack and more rocks sliding. I curled up in a ball holding my head with my arms. I wondered if we were in the path of these rocks or anyone in our camp had been hit. I was frightened and shaking. After it was quiet for awhile, Don and I got up and went outside wondering if the rocks fell right next to our tent. Our trip leader came over and we tried to look about the canyon with our flash lights but could not see anything new. He went on to the other camp sites to see his children and the rest of the group. His children ages 17 and 22 had been up and saw the sparks created each time the falling rocks hit the rock wall of the cliff across the river from us. His children were calm saying it was only another rock fall. The next morning we all talked about it. Actually it is safer outside than driving a car and there is just a very smalll chance that a rock will fall where you are according to Dr. Robert Cooley, psychologist. That was not the end of our troubles. At the take out one of the cars had two flat tires. Somehow we managed to put a spare on one and use some tire fix spray in the other. We had a 30 mile drive over a primitive road forging streams six times until we reached the highway. The people were great and I enjoyed the trip despite the difficulties.

Terrifying Reverberating Cracking, Sliding and Banging of Small Bolders

This 20" x 16"acrylic painting on cradled masonite hard board is for sale. $700
Camping in a Owyhee River Canyon 2:00 AM, June 14 the splitting away of even small rocks from the canyon cliff made me shake with fear because it sounded as though the rocks were huge and headed for me. I did not know when the land slide would stop. Surely this was big enough to change the course of the river. Later I heard some of my camping companions say they saw the sparks as the rocks hit the cliff wall. They had seen and heard falling rocks before. This is a painting of visualizing from hearing the noise.

Flight of Two Swallows

This painting is for sale for $300 and looks different as the lighting changes because of the interference acrylic paints. It is on an 18" square cradled masonite board.
Birds, fish and fire are symbolic of freedom and life. Playfulness is a part of life too. The metalic and interference colors are playful and that is reason enough for me to forget my old attitude that kept me thinking that standard paints are enough for a good painter.

Aerial Tumblers

For sale $700
Little mists turned to showers. Swallows flew close to the flowing water but never crashing. Up and down then they veered away from us as we floated down the South Santiam. I drew them in pencil and was eager to paint them the next day. But you know I think next time I am going to go back to working directly on location because I like the directness. To keep the spontanaity I had to fight for it : I checked the flutter of their wings with the swallows flying in our back yard.

Great grandfather David Widler of Constantinople, Jaffa, Singapore and Shanghai

This painting is not for sale
The painting is about everybody who has immigrants in their ancestry. I have been commenting on what goes through me as I paint. Comments in this blog go back to December when a most unexpected notice was given it. My posting was picked up by Google and listed next to other references to my great grand father. Then a long lost cousin's son saw it and called me. I found a whole branch of my family. And I learned that they have developed the family dreams portrayed in the painting like singing, watercolor painting, writing books. But not in Israel at the old home place. In Tel Aviv a high rise apartment building is being built next to where the family lived. Recently there was an accident and the arm of the crane broke, fell and demolished the old house. Israel like everywhere is stretched to the limit as our populations increase and increase. New events make me want to add more people and the laborers to the painting.

I remember Mama

sold
This is a continuation in reaction to our earlier collaboration. I get into a happy joyous and intuitive mind space with my mother though she is not physically here. She has been dead for about two and a half years. During the last few years of her life we painted small paintings some taking only 5 minutes or less as she was so advanced in dementia that she needed assistance in every life function task. She had such a wonderful spirit that she could express joy and emotions and complex thoughts even when so limited. She could still be my leader as her recollection of artistic acheivements would surface as we worked together and communicated and bonded. Girl on Blue Horse, 20" x 16"

Borrowing not Plagiarizing

This painting has taken on new meaning in 2008 when I started seeing hidden dragons in my picutes. It is one of the paintifngs in my february 2008 exhibit, "Dragons Boogie Woogie" at the Keizer art Association's Enid Joy Mount gallery in Keizer, Oregon.
Giving some thought to my entry way to the dinning room and the grouping of paintings around this portal, I want it to make my heart feel closer to nature. And I want more, an invitation for me to look and keep on looking. I have tried some dark forest compositions with wood peckers but just now I want something lighter more of an abstraction as Matisse did. I love the blue birds nesting in our yard and the way they flutter as they fly. I borrow from Matisse and his blue nude series. I could keep playing and changing my configuration of paintings everytime I come back from a painting adventure and pass through this doorway.

Golden Acorns from My Grandchildren

This painting is not for sale.
When two of my grand daughters painted on this picture with me, one wanted to take acorns home with her. "Me too" I thought. A reason that I love to paint is so I can take a treasure from nature home with me. We keep cherished memories.(Click on the picture for a larger image)

Sky Light Paintings

In 2008 I finally removed these paintings from our sky light and I cut them up to sell in the conventional manner. They are matted and covered with a transparent envelope and sold in my my bin at exhibits. Some I may later post on the blog. I am looking at making another wrap around mural because it was so much a joy for so long. The acrylic colors and interference paint held up well in the intense light.

My home is my studio and my grouping of paintings is a work in progress. These paintings are intended as sketches for what I might make for my skylight. Might make? My original intention was to do studies for wrapped canvases but I like the paper and the look of not being finished. Unfinished is in keeping with my idea of painting infinity which keeps on going and is never complete. I question whether permance and archival is relevant for me as an artist living an art process. As I got up on a ladder hanging this work I decided it is an installation.
These paintings using interference and metalic acrylics and watercolor crayons on Canson watercolor paper are thumb tacked to the walls of my livingroom sky light. The painting is inspired by the Island in the Sky and my artist friend Diane Hoff-Rome who paints with pastel and interference acrylics. The hanging of these paintings in a sky light is influenced by Matisse's studio in Nice, France. Also I am influenced by Doris Duke's estate on Diamond Head in Hawaii. Doris like Matisse made her home a work of art in process. Like Matisse I tape a crayon to a long stick and I continue to make changes on my installation.

Painting at Dead Horse Point

In Canyon Lands National Park, I found an ideal inspiration. Maybe I took enough notes to be inspired to make a four sided painting to hang above my head in my livingroom sky light. It will be as though I was looking out at endless vistas bringing the expanse of the outdoors into my cozy livingroom. If all goes well by next month I will have a preliminary trial picture in my skylight. I will see how the lighting makes color reflect and how the color will make my livingroom glow in warm desert color. If the preliminaries live up to my hopes, I will make canvases to fit my sky light.

My Angel

I made this doll for Christmas decoration but I do not like to put her in a box for the other eleven months so now she catches light from the kitchen sky light.

Catching Rays Indoors

I paint where the light from outdoors is best like the dining room. I even bring my paints into the living room entry to work on all the paintings at once. I wanted to see how they worked into the architecture. The darkness of the corner is deminished by using iridescent and metalic paints. I am enjoying painting with acrylic and oils comparing how the light rays work the richness of the colors. I want to enjoy the textures and beauty of the outdoors inside my home.

Making Progress

I see my work differently without the traditional frame. My paintings are more like decorative tiles placed to frame the life passing through my home.

Navaho Rug Design and I Painting Light

This 12" oil painting is in the beginning stages and remains unfinished even in february 2008.

The Way I Paint

After one of John Clare's poems



From the first light of dawn until dusk

The fog hides the landscape

Except for a few moments

As the light pierces through

Revealing layers of flat back drops like a stage.

I see the rocks and life damp and dripping.

The colors are at their greatest brilliance.

I take in movement and gesture in an instant.

Just for a moment! The next moment the fog rises from them covering the land
once again.

I begin to paint with the intensity of the moment while the after image
compliments passion.

My Dragons Express Opposites

This painting is not for sale.
There is the desire to keep a gag on my camel headed dragon and hide my paintings and art treasures. Being public can hurt. There is however a much greater desire to spit out the gag and be a genie sharing the pearl of my creativity.
The whimsy of these dragons were inspired by the smiling camels at Doris Duke's Shangri La. More about my paintings inspired by the museum are in earlier postings.

Spanish Window Coral Reef

This painting took several years to develop and finally took on a warmwhite and ice blue color combination. It was exhibited at LaSelles Stewart Center in June 2007 and later at Sam's Station in Corvallis, Oregon in January 2008.
I was stretching trying to compare Spanish glass windows with looking down into coral reefs seeing the depths of the Pacific Ocean and getting a glimpse of tropical fish as they swam out and then back into hiding.

Shangri La / A lens focusing my creative flow

Both paintings sold.
My paintings in the background remind me of the whimsy of Doris Duke's smiling camel sculptures at her front door. The painting on my easel completes my journal for my "voyage" to Shangri La, a museum of the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art.
After a visit to her Hawaiian home, I see and paint my home paying attention to the light from the skylight and glass sliding doors. Now I can use my paintings to frame shadows dancing as Doris did in hers. I will leave space for breathing and life in my home.
My "voyage" will be remembered as a lens that has focused my creative flow.

A Journey of Untold Memories

Ever since I can remember, I have admired my mother's painting of "East Indian Dancers." After visiting Doris Duke's Shangri La, now a museum, in Hawaii, I came home and looked again at my mother's painting. The same time Doris was beginning to build Shangri La mother in Berkeley, California painted this egg tempera on plastered board. In 1937 there was a love of the exotic and a favorite book was the "Arabian Nights." I remember my father reading it to me when I was very young. Doris likened her home to the "Arabian Nights."

After painting ShangriLa and Christmas Island Homes

Watercolor painting from skechbook. Image 8" x 10" For sale $98
This month I will be looking at my own home and myself. I painted for a little over three hours at Doris Duke's Shangrila and then flew 1,300 miles south where I painted this painting. It was started in the screened living area in Agnes' Mini Hotel on Christmas Island where I stayed for a week.
Looking at myself and my home will be a challenge. It takes a degree of discipline to do myself. So I am glad I can set my goal on a blog to help me focus on my objective.