Finley National Wildlife Refuge from Bird Viewing Blind

"Finley Marsh Atmosphere" is acrylic color droped into wet acrylic medium on cradled wood box 12" x 9" x 1 1/2" for sale, $ 150.

Cabell Marsh, Finley National Wildlife Refuge

"Junary 8, 2008 Cabell Marsh" is acrylic on a cradled wood board 12" x 9" x 1 1/2" for sale $100 Last Sunday was very special because it was a rare sunny day. the news media here in Oregon have said that this year the unseasonal snows and cold weather makes it more like January than June. I painted from memory and a small drawing done while walking along the marsh with "Rain" and her husband "Ranch Boss".

Finding new beginnings in older paintings

To "Cebolia Wildfowers" I added a thin layer of paint around the flowers sympifying and thus making the areas relate to one another. The way I draped the flowers over the landscape reminds me of the Iris Patch Dragon that I just painted. This painting is acrylic on canvas 16" x 20" for sale $300.



"The Iris Patch Dragon" is watercolor and acrylic in Acrylic medium on cradled wood board 6" x 8" x 1 1/2" for sale $100. The iris hve been beaten down by the rains since I first started this painting. The way they line up on the ground in curved lines suggested the legs and claws.

The weather is very rainy and cold. So in my studio I am adding myself to old painting such as this one.

"Riding the Dragon of Windy Bend", is acrylic on museum wrapped canvas 24" x 36" x 1 1/2" is for sale for $300

Plunkett Creek Loop, Beazell Memorial Forest

"Plunkett Creek Larkspur" is watercolor and acrylic paint in acrylic medium washes on cradled wood board, 10" x 8" sold. Saturday my husband and I with "Rain" and her husband, "the Ranch Boss", enjoyed walking at Fort Hoskins taking photographs. I have some sketches in my mole skin sketch book ready to develop further and will soon be posted. On Sunday we were treated to a extraordinary surprise. We met again at Beazell Memorial Park in King's valley, Oregon. We walked through the little valley with a brook lined in larkspur. Every flower and towering oak truly made me feel small like I was walking into a fairyland of my childhood.

Redwood Sapling

"Redwood Sapling" is acrylic on cradled wood board 12" square by 1 1/2" deep. Not for sale until the completion of my series on our urban forest is complete.

Memory of Our Cut Down Fir Tree

"Memory of our Cut Down Fir Tree with Nest" first painted with two blue jays in flight is acrylic and iridescent color on cradled wood board, 12" square by 1 1/2" deep and will be for sale when I complete this series on urban forests. There is much work to be done on our neighbor's overgrown Christmas tree lots. more and more houses are being built close by. The city ordinance says in vacant areas the grass must be cut and in order to get to the grass the trees need to be thinned. Our neighborhood looks like it is between being a park and a tree farm.

Reducing Fire Danger in Overgrown Christmas Tree Lot

My husband on tractor is pushing the burn pile together burning excessive branches.This picture was taken exactly a year after posting my environmental painting of birds and fish benefiting from a root ball in a pond. When I did this final painting of the series about loosing the fir trees I had no idea that I could continue the story this year. Pictured above is one of last years paintings, " The Dream, A Submerged Root Ball is a Fish Nursery." acrylic on cradled Masonite, 12" square by 1 1/2" deep, will be for sale when series is complete. This is an important series in my life work. More paintings will follow soon.

I am overwelmed that my dream came true. My husband is lining up trees to be transported soon to ponds which fill old rock quarries where gravel was dug for the I 5 Freeway that traverses Oregon between California and Washington. The stumps and root balls will provide habitats for fisheries thaks to volunteer workers like my husband.
Oregon Department of Fish and Wild Life loading fallen trees.

Thinned Overgrown Christmas Trees

"Thinned Overgrown Christmas Trees" is acrylic on a cradled wood box 6" x 8" x 1 1/2", ready to hang, no frame necessary, for sale $100 plus postage. For fire protection my husband is thinning a neighbor's Christmas trees grown to 45 feet tall. These trees are not of much commercial value so they are being donated to the Department of Fish and Wild Life. The tree with root ball will be placed in the old gravel pits left behind when they were dug out for the construction of I5 Freeway. These gravel pits have filled with water and will become better fish habitats with the addition of these spindly trees and roots.
This project came about after I painted a series on the trees cut down on the lot we sold. I imagined that their roots were placed in a lake and fish fry were swimming and taking shelter in the tangled roots. So this means I will continue the series started just over a year ago. http://umbrellapaintingjournal.blogspot.com/2007/05/fish-habitat.html#links

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.

Blue Bird Watches and Waits for Tractor Mower

"Blue Bird and Tractor Mower" is acrylic on cradled wood board 5" x 7". For sale $100 plus cost of shipping.

While my husband mowed the fields, I painted a bluebird watching and waiting. Today the hawk was gone and the bluebirds were out feeding. There was much going on at home. Airing out the motor coach, bookkeeping, volunteer work. With so much happening at home, I wonder when we will think about our next RVing trip.

Defender Blue Bird

"Defender Bluebird" is acrylic on a cradled board 8" x 6" x 1 1/2". Sold
The weather was so nice this afternoon, I enjoyed painting outdoors. I can feel the spring day as I painted. There were many birds including a hawk in the woods near by. I did not see the blue birds who were very defensive of their bird house just a week ago. The hawk circled about with a twig.

Spring Leaves in Hail Storm

"Spring Leaves in Hail Storm" is layers upon layers of acrylic paint on a cradled wood board 5" x 7" x 1 1/2". I started this painting after our Santiam River fishing trip and worked it entirely over today outdoors under a patio cover during hail storm. This is for sale $90 plus shipping.

Sketches On South Santiam to Studio Experiment

"Healthy Trees, South Santiam" is acrylic on cradled board 7"x 5" x 1/2". Including the cradled board box and sketches for sale for $90 plus shipping cost. Sometimes it is stretching to try a new approach. Usually I begin a painting on the river trying for the most direct emotional response. On this one I planned in detail how I would paint it in the studio. At home I first mixed the colors ahead of time and then painted using memory in my muscles. I covered my eyes with a scarf so I saw minimal placement but not color. When I peeked at it I should have stopped. I reverted to my old way of tailoring the colors and shapes in a journey without a map.

Invasive Ivy on South Santiam River, Sweet Home, Oregon

Saturday my husband and I fished between Foster Dam and Sweet Home. We were in our drift boat going down river. My husband lost a steelhead before the island. Near the take out on river left just before the park I could see two dead trees strangled by ivy. The painting, "Ivy Strangles Trees" is acrylic on a cradled board 12" x 9" x 1 3/4". This one is for sale for $99.

Tomorrow I will post painted abstractions from my memory of healthy trees on the South Santiam River.

Letting Go Abstraction from Seal Rock Tide Pool

"Abstraction of Sea Anemone Tide Pool " is acrylic on museum wrapped canvas 3 feet by 2 feet by 1 1/2 inches deep. For sale $400

I worked myself up emotionally to paint from a minimal pencil sketch done on location. I tried to go back and photograph this area but the tide was coming in on a very stormy 40 mile an hour rain storm. The coral color is my own emotional poetic license. This painting is a break through for me because I need to work quickly like this to express the emotions and feelings of being at Seal Rock.

In comparison to the photographs, painting is a much more immediate and direct form of creating communicative pictures. Comparing them for value is not possible because it is like comparing apples and oranges - a subjective judgement.

Beyond the Landscape and "en Plein Air"

The ocean pictures here, as if painted, are photographs taken at Seal Rock, Oregon through a window pounded by heavy rain. I want to be like a window and paint my vision. So back to the studio for a painting of my memory. I wonder how it will compare with the photographs. The photograph failed to show all the color I saw.

Forty Miles Per Hour Winds at Seal Rock

"Forty Mile an Hour Winds" is acrylic and interference colors on a wood cradled square box 12" by 1 1/2" deep. For sale $150

"Forty Miles an Hour Winds" was almost "en Plein Air" I steped outside for a little before returning to a window on the storm was not painted outside in the storm. I painted the wind, the high winds Wednesday morning on location before breakfast. We were near Seal Rock, Oregon.

Ebb Tide at Seal Rock, Oregon

"Ebb Tide at Seal Rock" is acrylic on a 12" and 1 1/2 " deep square wood cradled box. For sale $150

My husband took this picture of me painting on the beach in front of where we were staying. We shared Monday and Tuesday an enchanted two days with blogger "Rain" and her husband. We hope to have another shared retreat soon but a day longer.

"A Veil of Spring Flowers"

April 20th I made the final resolution for both concept and painting. I have made changes all over to drape the wild flowers like a veil over the rocks.

" A Gown of Spring Flowers" is acrylic on canvas 16" x 20" , for sale $350

"A Gown of Spring Flowers" is a painting that kept defying resolution. I think I would have it and there was a voice asking why did you do this. It doesn't have the whimsy of the two other 16" x 20" painted on our trip to Arizona. I took it to the Albany Group to share yesterday. Shirley Hilts thought it just needed a little transition. Well I worked this morning to give the rocks more dimensionality and I tried to make the flowers flow over the landscape like a silk veil. The eroded Colorado river bank had a face and then it came to me. Mother Earth cracked and pebble pocked was dressed in a royal veil. This fantasy was what I was doing all along and hadn't admitted it. Now it has a whimsical concept like the other two paintings - "Jagged Mountain Combing a Head of Cloud Hair" and "Reed Dragon - The Protector" To see all three paintings look at my blog gallery http://widlerwenzelarizona.blogspot.com/

My Development Since Graduation from Portland State University

Painting on Ritner Creek 1990, photographed by "Rain" of the Rainy Day Thoughts Blog

Yesterday I wrote about what my art education meant to me. It is more difficult to honestly say how I am doing with that education. The selling was better years ago though the art making is very satisfying to me otherwise. My status as an artist in my community is ranked as a good artist. I see the main body of my work as being sincere, honest and unique. My craft skills are good enough for my needs. I do need to continue to learn and develop. As an artist citizen I am a very giving person. I am also frustrated with the groups I have been involved in. I know the groups have problems but I have not brought the skills out of me to influence the direction of these groups. In the Albany, Corvallis area I have pulsated between being out there in the community and being cloistered in my home. I have taught classes and several workshops at the Linn Benton Community Center and other public venues. I am not what the students want. They want hard fast rules so they can instantly make a painting like their favorite artist. They say they don't like my work meaning they don't want to paint like me. And I don't want them to paint like me too. I want students who want to experience all the steps of the learning process -students who want the joy of discovering what works for them. I am much more happy as a facilitator than a teacher. I have been a show committee chair for our art guild and I found businesses willing to hang our art. I started educating the business community about how and why they should be supportive of local artists. But my intention has gone by the way side and now the encouragement for the arts has been replaced by dividing the membership into not yet artists and elite exhibiting artists. I don't believe these labels are true or helpful in encouraging people. The big thing at the guild has become selling and not sharing all their true feelings in paint. I have tried for years to shape the direction of the community but I am attacked with hidden insults and rejections. This morning I am meeting with a new group forming in Albany. We are painting outdoors on location at a local nursery.

I wish to add that I still support and am a member of the Corvallis Art Guild and the Corvallis Art Center. I have hope, with the increasing membership, they will become more open minded. My statement and sample piece of art is posted on the Guild's web site tour of artists. http://corvallisartguild.org/ Although I am not looking to show my art work in the Art Center this year or next, I will again apply for showing 2010. I already have exhibits lined up for 2008 and 2009.

How my art education at Portland State University has effected my life

"Dawn's Rays Splash Cattail Cove State Park, Arizona"2008,
water media on cotton rag Arches watercolor paper, 14" x 22"
For sale $200

For something like the thirteenth time, I tackled this painting begun March 13 on the pet walking area at Cattail Cove State Park, Arizona. Every session I tried to approach the under painting as a spring board to abstracting from my memory of the early morning sunshine on palo verti. It started out as water soluble crayon and then it was watercolor and now it is acrylic on paper. Today as in the past sessions I was painting my own excitement in returning to Arizona.

Then later in the day I received a news letter from the Portland State University Art Alumni and Friends Committee. In addition to promoting community among the alumni and asking for support in the form of scholarship donations for art students, President Pro Tem James Minden said he will be asking alumni for profiles and he will be particularly interested in how our art education at PSU has effected our lives.

First, I must say I am so grateful for my time with PSU Art Professors. Their examples give me confidence for my intuitive journey. When I am painting and when I participate in community, I have them at my side and I hear their words like they spoke them yesterday. In 1965 Frederick Heidel said "I hope you have a rich development." "Don't make exercises:Make a complete expressive work from every painting. Keep your work for a long time to see your development." Florence Saltzman said, "Painting is a part of my everyday doings. Painting is a language, a way of living." Richard Muller gave his students confidence saying, "You have an aesthetic sense and it is valid." He mentored me in the beginning of the student run White Gallery and instilled the idea that an artist is a citizen making bridges to other disciplines and the community. Professor Ray Grimm gave me an appreciation of ceramic craft as being a true art form where artists can have a very rich development. Dr. Kimbrell taught that through history there were two kinds of painters - one based their forms on drawing and the other type made form by a painterly use of color. I aspire to be painterly. Thank you Dr. Kimbrell I can weather criticism that doesn't understand or accept painterly work. Professor Glasier of Basic Design made me think of the many possible ways to be expressive artfully. We talked about how we moved from point to point in our daily tasks and at play. We could understand living movements as an art form. I am greatful to Colescott for his social consciousness and search for his roots which I appreciated very much when I found my own roots. Colescott's energy in setting assignments for figure painting was my guide in facilitating a figure drawing group in Bellingham meeting over a 17 year period - the group continues two decades after my leaving. Prasch was caring and made me feel my work was important. Frederic Littman was like a monk in that he lived with the bare essentials. More and more I do away with material frills in my life to keep on painting. He said, "When we have started a piece with a model and the model is nolonger before us then the truely creative part of making art may begin." Whether I start with a model or paint outdoors I am aware of these two chapters in my creative process.

In Muller's class we wrote a paper about our involvement in an art object. I found this project so rewarding to my understanding that I have self-published for my family another involvement in another family art object. I have made many observations connecting our vase to world history sharing art ideas and how we as a family have and are making a small step towards healing and peace.

When I was at Portland State the art faculty had taken to heart the words of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. "If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his vision where ever it takes him." At Portland State JFK's words meant learning to make goals for our work and not the undisciplined "Laissez Faire" typical of some other schools of that period. When JFK was assassinated Muller was a little late to class. He passed out our papers on our involvement in an art form and expressed in a few words how shaken he was over Kennedy's being shot. He worried about what this event would mean to higher education. And of course art would become a lower priority.

I was lucky to receive instruction at Portland State College when the future for art and its importance was strong. Portland State College, not yet a University at that time, just started its first graduate school - the School of Social Work. The Dean of Social Work, Dr. Gordon Hearn, was also a watercolorist and he understood the wholeness of our being needed art to be complete. His art major daughter gave me an almost unused sketch book of Gordon's which I use.

When I was a caregiver for my mother, art was the bridge that connected us in our daily practice of making a painting. Art can play a significant roll in the aging process and really a miracle that goes unnoticed too much of the time. I am designing art for the last stages of life.

Posting art on the Internet is a bridge for meeting and making friends all over the world. It is a bridge to making connections in my own personal seeing and thinking. Thank you Portland State University Art Department.

Spring Wildflowers at McDonald State Forest, Corvallis, Oregon

Sunday my husband and I enjoyed the warm spring day by going for a walk in McDonald State Forest. Monday I painted my abstraction from my feelings while walking.



"McDonald Forest April Flowers"
Acrylic on museum wraped canvas
36" x 12" x 1 1/2"


Photograph is by Don Wenzel. I am very proud of my husband who just received an award for his many years and hours of volunteer work. He is now the Association of Northwest Steelheaders 2007 Hall of Fame honored member.

Invitation to my blog of Arizona Paintings 2008

My new blog is a gallery of paintings that I did on our March trip to Arizona. I wanted to view them all together in the order I painted them to see how they flowed. Your are welcome to browse just for the fun of it. Although it isn't my primary goal to make something for sale, if you want to buy, I am willing to part with them. The act of making them is about 90% of my involvement. Prices are listed at the first listed near the end of the posts. http://widlerwenzelarizona.blogspot.com/
"Rain" has linked to my new blog and has written about her many years of living with my paintings in her blog http://rainydaythought.blogspot.com/

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.