Feeling The Rain Drops

The rain showers contributed to the mood and even to making my painting. The wetness of the rain mixed with the water soluble oils. Paint was everywhere on my easel and on my gloves. The messiness of painting was exciting though. The rain damp landscape was rich with color. The thunder clouds were sweeping through the air. When the sun pierced through the clouds, the fields started to steam especially under the trees. I began to think about the lane that makes two right angle bends around the end of our field. These bends are the old path going past a barn long gone.

The Tree House of Olden Times

The family who lived here before us had a little boy who drives by every now and then to view his best childhood climbing tree. One blackened board still hangs in among the perfectly trimed branches. He says that at Christmas time they use to hang a star on the tree. Now in a few months a new family will build there home by this tree and the tree will again hear the laughter of children.

Underneith High Ground "TG", Our Pet Sheep Rests

Our back wall of the shop was a favorite place for our pet "TG." This morning before the storm I could not find a subject to paint at first. I walked around the field as though lost. I had to paint a quick one before the storm and I settled with the buildings because they are so angular that I could bite into the moody part of painting almost from the start. The black box, bat house never seemed more ominous. "TG" lay down here and could not get up about four years ago this month. One of her lambs is enjoying her golden years on my friend Rain's farm.

Yesterday's Lighting Remembered

After rain drops fell on my painting of the day, I picked up my stuff and returned to the patio covered area. Then I worked on the sentimental painting I spoke of yesterday. I feel good about it now. I am enjoying painting on 8" x 10" x 1" Ambersand Blocks. These are the blocks my mother and I painted on just before her passing away in 2003. At the end she only collaborated on a few of the blocks. I kept my favorites and pealed off the acrylic revealing a perfectly clean surface to begin again. I put aside the pealings for collage.

Sunshine Between Showers

Today I woke up in time to see a rainbow above my field but when I returned with a camera the rainbow was faint. After the shower I painted our plum tree with the fir trees in the background. Next year there will be a house between the plum tree and the fir trees. The impending sale causes my paintings to look exceedingly sentimental - an emotion I used to try to avoid. I am still working on yesterday's painting which is too pretty falling in the category of sentimental. Maybe I should go ahead with what I feel. This project after all is a sentimental exercise of enjoying my property while I still own it. After Thanksgiving maybe a house will rise on our field and I will not make any more discovery walks.

Dark Down Pour

From Under a Fir Tree

Under the fir tree my painting was out of the rain. The worst of the storm came in after I finished. I am really still excited about going out and painting in the morning. But the dampness is not good for my Andersen's easel. The metal bracket that holds the canvas has become floppy. The Andersen mechanism always did look a little weak. I am running out of Max cadmium yellow and orange. My blues are also low and I am mixing real oil colors with the water soluble ones. I like the richness of basic colors and will not order the mixed ones made by holbien called DUO. I am still debating about getting more MAX made by Grumbacker. I am not sure I will continue to do little oils like this 8" x 10".

The Field, the Creek and a Tree on a Rainy Day

The Rain and I Painted

Today it rained at near record amounts. I was still eager to go out and see what emotions could be stimulated by the mood of the day. I painted with Max, an oil paint so refined that it mixes with water. So I tried painting during a light shower. The rain made the thick oils run a little. Painting this way I needed to put down the idea and then react to the changes made by the soggy day. I feel that the pressure was on to express the feeling I had right away without getting bogged down by detail.

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.