Cloud Dragons

Acrylic on cradeled Masonite box 5" x 7" x 1 5/8"
These summer days have brought Oregon some dramatic clouds as the weather systems are building up to rains.

A Peace Rose for Heidel

On Golden Acrylic Absorbent Ground I painted watercolor mixing it with water soluble crayons and acrylic. Then I fixed it with thinned acrylic gloss varnish. Painting watercolor on gessoed wood was an assignment I did in a graduate level class from Frederick Heidel in 1976.

Two Repainted Oils Fresh from the Incubator Oven

A new look for paintings twelve years or more old.

I am feeling much happier now.

The Siletz River in June

Siletz River tide water is spectacular this time of year. Spring Chinook Salmon is next to being a myth. If there are any in the river maybe a seal could tell you. Despite the poor fishing the scenery is wonderful and bird watching is very good. I started this painting in our boat completing it back at our RV's front window. The mixed media watercolor painting is 12" x 16", 140 pound, hot press Arches paper.

Twice Baked Oil Paintings

Below are two of the three plein air paintings ( "Seal Rock" and "Wayside" ) as they appeared after the first baking ten years or more ago. Did I really improve them by painting over them?

"Seal Rock" 19" x 30" is of one of my favorite places to paint. Begun as an acrylic painting on location in 1991, it is now three quarters oil paint.

"South Santiam River " is a 29" x 22" oil painting that has seen changes through the years but today's changes covered almost the entire surface. It was a joy to cover up all the picky overworked surface.

"Wayside on Hwy 101" is another rescue of an unwanted eleven year old, 24" x 18" oil painting. Once it had a lovely gold frame and was exhibited in several distinguished galleries but just didn't sell after repeated exposures and changes of frames. Even my family never took this puppy in. I have really changed the foreground and like it myself much better now.

Series of Intense Watercolor

Perinone orange and yellow compliments ultramarine blue on half sheets of 300 pound rough Arches paper. I used a comb and a metal clip to scratch through still moist layers of watercolors applied with just a little water. I started this painting as a full sheet and took liberty to tear it in half. This one did not come forth as easily as previous watercolors in this new series.

Crooked River, Oregon

To repaint or not to repaint is a question? This painting is at least ten years old. I have repainted it several times in the past. It was started on an overnight camping trip in late October.

I am very much distanced from the first outdoor painting experience. Yet this extreme distance allows for making it an internal distillation similar to arranging flowers. This is an acrylic painting on canvas 32" x 18".

Abstract Hot Landscape

On a 300 pound rough full sheet of Arches I painted with house painting brushes and a little water. I squeezed watercolor paint directly on the paper and mixed colors with the damp brushes. The lines are scratched in with a little metal clips for holding paintings in an aluminum Nielsen Frame.
Today's painting felt like a release and a joy to be creating something new using new materials. I need to save, tomorrow, old tired works that are not worthy of the space they are taking up in my home.

Preparing for New Work

I feel the let down after the exhilarating opening of the "Feathers, Fins and Fire" exhibit. So I start cleaning up the studio and making plans for future exhibits. Finding this old painting of a ferry docking, I begin to paint over 80% of the surface. It is 22" x 28"

Giustina Gallery opening of "Feathers,Fins, and Fire

The three exhibitors are myself, Gordon Dobbie, and Diane Hoff Rome. They finished hanging their works at 9:00 PM last night and then started the food prep for putting on the exhibit at 2:00 PM. We must have had a crowd of between 70 and 90 people, mostly artists or friends. A friend now living in Eugene came and I was so pleased that she recognized a consistency in my work from the 70's when we lived in Bellingham and used to market fiber work in Bellevue and Seattle.

"Feathers, Fins, and Fire" at Giustina Gallery

Yippy! My pintings are hung with wonderful help from my husband Don and friend, "Rain," and her husband. Thank you thank you !!!!! I am so happy.

Dragon of Windy Bend

The past few days I have been at first making small changes and then I made a few more until I really added more drama to all my paintings going up tomaorrow at LaSelles Stewart Center on the Oregon State University Campus in Corvallis, Oregon.

Grouping Paintings for the walls of Giustina Gallery

Checking measurements of paintings and the gallery. I wonder how it will all sort out.

How about smaller groupings as though several paintings are one work? Tomorrow I am going to just have to start some new work unrelated to this show.

Fish Habitat

The blue jays may have lost their nest of many seasons when the pine tree fell but the roots would make shelter for juvenile fish. Here I continued my 12" square block series of the fallen fir tree. The masonite block was sized with layers of gray tinted gesso. And after beginning to paint with watercolors I set the colors with gloss medium or painted spots with "Golden" canvas colored absorbent ground. The ground made the masonite board take paint as though it were paper. These mixed media applications satisfied my need to show the freshness of spring.

Success Is Not Good Enough - "If It Ain't Broke, Break It."

A detail of "Dragon Song"
The texture after two layers of glossey gooe

"Dragon Song" was a good painting but after reading Martha Marshall's post - http://artistsjournal.blogspot.com "If It Ain't Broke, Break It" I was inspired to try something that could wreck it. I wanted a candied apple dripping gloss to make "Dragon Song" a delicious red painting. Well, needless to say the Liquitex acrylic gloss varnish applied with a brush thinly did not make a smooth glassy finish. It accentuated the irregularities in texture. So I put on another coat. Still the same tortured reflective ripples. Then I poured the medium thick and gooey. It looked like a big flat lake as smooth as can be until it started drying. I sprayed to help smooth it and started making star bursts of hundreds of little tiny comets. It developed erosion canyons.

Taking in the new developments at first unwanted developments, I had to make a decision on whether or not to junk the painting. Or make it into something different. With the intention of destroying what I had done I started to do what Martha Marshal does with some of hers. I started drawing in the gooey thick acrylic medium with a screwdriver. Then I saw the possibilities of molding the new idea to what was underneath. I drew musical notes and carved around the edges of the dragon. The texture and the form work together. The little comets suggest movement of the musical notes. I like the glass effect and have enhanced it with some sprinkled glitter.

My imagination is alive with new ways of using acrylic paint that I would never have dreamt of without breaking what was a good painting.

Kiribati Abstract

This 4' x 2' acrylic painting on canvas is the most recent metamorphose of an abstract started in December, 2004 - a month before we actually traveled to Christmas Island, Kiribati, the largest ocean in the world. Christmas Island is near the equator south of Hawaii and three thousand miles from the capitol of this most widely spread island nation. This nation is at risk to loose all fish, birds and their islands are so low that they may loose their land to the ocean.

Fledgling

The blue bird house is quiet. But I saw one this morning when the moon was still high. The fledgling no doubt took a dip in the ditch and was shaking the water off before it flew off.

Three Feeding Four Blue Bird Chicks

It is good to back to acrylic painting on a 1 5/8" deep 7" x 5" masonite box for sale $100. Today I painted outdoors looking towards our blue bird house where three adults are feeding four chicks. In the distance I hear the builders working on the new house on our old pasture. They play energetic songs in Spanish as though it were still Cinco de Mayo. Soon the builder will cut one of the lower limbs of the climbing tree and he is giving it to us for wood.

New Beginnings

I am happy that the surgery is behind me and that I am recovering. My husband also had a lot to endure waiting for my surgery that lasted nine hours. And then he has been nursing me the past two days. I came home 26 hours after the surgery. I am doing really well and will soon be posting paintings from our adventures in the motor home. Only it will take maybe six weeks before I can lift any weight more than 6 pounds. Thanks for all your well wishes and support.

Nesting in a Painter's Motor Coach

When I am recuperated from surgery, my husband and I will go traveling in our Winnebago Coach. RVing is new to us and we are busy customizing our new home. I am preparing a soft sided cooler on wheels for my art supplies. Everyday will bring a chance to paint either inside in my passenger seat studio or outdoors. Managing my painting with as little impact on the environment, I may paint with acrylics on acrylic that I pour and dry. I do not want to use wood stretcher bars and discard cardboard and shrink wrap. Shrinking plastic is not good for the environment. The challenge will be the presentation. Wouldn't it be a kick to recycle throw away trash into something attractive and meaningful.

Thank you Martha Marshall for your comment. Yes low tech pencils and watercolors are good for traveling. I am open and appreciate suggestions on being an artist on wheels.