Peace Rose Series Progress Report

The above ones are before the changes.

I am thinking about continuing the series around all three sides of the doorway. Should I? More maybe too busy.

I am satisfied with changes. There is such a dramatic difference in how well the " Dancing Nose to Nose" complements rather than over powers the other paintings. Bulls eye eyes are now just an indication of barely opened eyes. Color changes are working towards more weight at the bottom not just for this one painting but the whole group.

Peace Rose Series and Architecture

I have not decided if I should include the one of the dragons embracing in the series of Peace Rose interpretations.

The cradled Masonite boxes requiring no frame, pose possibilities as architectural elements in my home. Some would say these boxes have a decorative function. Today I have substituted another large box for the one that became a fantasy of me hugging a dragon after a battle that bloodied our noses. But a heavy one is needed at the bottom of the stacked boxes?

I am pleased with this new way of working all six paintings at the same time together. I would like to continue with more to surround the opening between our dining room and entryway.

Dragons Emerging in Peace Rose Series

If you have not seen my blog yesterday, I have started a new series. I am trying something new by painting the group at the same time. Two of the three were previously completed but will change as they are developed with the new paintings. I am using watercolor paints over Golden absorbent ground on gessoed Masonite boxes.

The ghost white is absorbant ground over standard and metalic acrylics. I am beginning to see two dragons in an embrace. They have bloody noses.

New Beginnings and Inspirations Born from the Digital Age

I am eager to try painting a Peace module starting with the Peace Rose in our backyard and two previous paintings which could change as I work on the other three. The module idea is taken from the way Martha Marshall creates abstracts in series. http://artistsjournal.blogspot.com

With my digital camera I can within minutes see the results of taking a picture of my Peace Roses. I edit them with Photo Finale 4 to look like my paintings in color. I will continue to look at the flowers in my garden as I paint but the experience of playing with Photo Finale is another way of finding the whimsy in my garden as I depart from the object and paint my emotions.

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.