Headland at Sunset (watercolor 5 x 7) SOLD
Sunset at Agate Beach (watercolor 5 x 7) SOLD
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May 2, 2010 7:38 am
April 30, 2010 6:57 am
Making Waves (watercolor 5 x 7) SOLD
On our last trip to Newport, my husband and I found a tiny little state park, not even big enough for a highway sign from 101 let alone our road atlas. It is a wave watchers paradise. Wet fireworks. We spent a happy hour there with out noticing either the time or how damp we were getting. This little part of the rocky headland didn’t produce such spectacular spray, but we were fascinated by the whirl pools the breakers kept forming against the rocks.
I began by masking the whites. Then I painted in the rocks in burnt sienna, phthalo blue, cobalt blue and a little raw sienna. The water is phthalo blue, burnt sienna, and raw sienna.
April 29, 2010 9:53 pm
Mothers' Day Daffodils (watercolor 5 x 7) $25.00
[This painting is currently on display at Art in the Valley, Corvallis, Oregon.]
I’ve spent my gallery shifts this month making postcard sized paintings for the OSU Mom’s Day Weekend Craft Fair. It’s a fun fair to do. Where else do you get to see a crowd of college boys with their moms?
As part of the Mom’s weekend celebration I’ll be at the gallery demonstrating polymer clay cane-making on Friday from 1:00 to 2:30 at Art in the Valley, 209 2nd Street, downtown Corvallis. The craft fair will be on campus in the Memorial Union Quad. The fair runs from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Saturday.
Three Tulips (watercolor 5 x 7) $25.00
April 25, 2010 8:58 am
Sliver Stream (watercolor 5 x7) SOLD
Like yesterday’s paintings, I did this little watercolor at the gallery last Wednesday. Postcard sized paintings work really well for gallery shifts. Space at the gallery for painting is limited and I want to be able to drop whatever I am doing to greet and talk to patrons. At this scale there’s hardly ever a bad moment to stop painting.
These little paintings make good sketches for working out larger work too. It’s so much easier to experiment with composition when the paper I’m risking is only 5 x 7.
The subject is Agate Beach in Newport at sunset. If the stream has a name, I don’t know it. And it wouldn’t surprise me to discover it seasonal runoff. It’s course over the sand varies every time I visit. But it’s always wide and shallow. This Spring the it’s mouth was over fifty feet wide and perhaps two or three inches deep. I liked the silver reflections in the late evening and early mornings.
The palette is burnt sienna, new gamgee (yellow), quinacridone deep red rose, cobalt blue and phthalo blue. I painted the sunset colors in tandem working first in the sky and then in the reflections and back again to the sky as I added new colors. I began with the yellows, then worked along through the oranges, reds, and purples. The purple is phthalo blue and quinacridone.
April 19, 2010 7:11 am
The View From House Rock (watercolor 5 x 7) SOLD
This is the view looking west from House Rock just north of Brookings, Oregon.
I’m not sure why House Rock is named House Rock. When we were on it we weren’t sure if we were supposed to be on it or looking for it. A little google search made it clear we were on it, but no information about the name. I have my guesses though. The hill was surprisingly flat on top and hiking down below it I discovered wild onion, wild iris, wild rose, and strawberries. Only the iris were in bloom. Many years of hiking around ghost towns have taught me which domestic plants go native when the settlers leave. Onions, rhubarb, strawberries and roses were common survivors in Colorado and they appear to be survivors here too. I think there was once a house on house rock, not that the rock is shaped like a house.
The palette is burnt sienna, raw sienna, cobalt blue, and phthalo blue.
April 18, 2010 7:58 am
Beach Walk (watercolor 5 x 7) SOLD
This another painting of the beach at Brookings.
I just had to do one of the dogs. Dogs and beaches go together. So much to see. So much to smell. So many, many other dogs.
This older dog wasn’t tugging too hard, but he was strongly encouraging his person to walk faster. I want to see. I want to run. I want to go. I want to do.
I used my typical beach palette: burnt sienna, raw sienna, phthalo blue, cobalt blue. I masked the waves before painting to preserve the whites. Painted last Wednesday at Art in the Valley, Corvallas, Oregon.
April 17, 2010 6:54 am
Beach Birdie (watercolor 5 x 7) SOLD
We call my youngest daughter “Bird” and “Birdie” and even “Birdles” because she looked a little like a bird when she was a baby. It’s been a long time since I thought she looked much like a bird. But crouching down on the shoreline, she made me think of long leggity shore birds.
The palette is simple, cobalt blue, phtalo blue, qinacridone deep red rose, and burnt sienna. I used liquid mask extensively to make preserve the white paper.
See more little girl paintings at Fine Art America: girl paintings.
April 16, 2010 8:58 am
Sunset at Brookings I (watercolor 5 x 7) $25.00
Last weekend I was in Brookings, Oregon for the Watercolor Society of Oregon’s Spring convention. We visit the coast often, but we rarely get so farther south than Florance. Brookings is on the California boarder and getting there from Salem efficiently requires dipping into northern California, hardly a hardship as the redwoods are on the boarder too.
The southern coast is a different. Brookings is a rocky rather than a sandy beach. The land drops off rapidly into the ocean there. The result is that the waves do not feel like them are above you as they do in Lincoln City, but they break larger closer in. I haven’t figured out how to paint the immediacy of Brookings breakers, but I’ll get it.
In the meantime, here are three postcard sized Brookings sunsets. I did the first on location and the other two at the gallery yesterday.
Sunset at Brookings II (watercolor 5 x 7) $25.00
The people in the third one are my husband and youngest daughter. It was one of the few times anyone stood still on the beach that evening. Stephen and the girls were much too busy skipping stones to stand still.
Sunset at Brookings III (watercolor 5 x 7) $25.00
These paintings are currently for sale on-line at my Etsy shop.
April 3, 2010 9:11 pm
Little Green Mister (5 x 7 watercolor)
Here are the last two watercolors for my one woman mini-show at Art in the Valley, Corvallis Oregon. Both are much smaller versions of recent paintings. Both paintings were painted at Art in the Valley in late March.
I hang the show this Monday. It will hang until Tuesday, May 4th. During the show, I will be painting in the gallery on Wednesday April 14th, Wednesday, April 21, and Wednesday, April 28th.
Single Lily (5 x 7 watercolor) SOLD
March 16, 2010 10:32 am
The Green Mister (watercolor 10 x 14) $150.00
This is probably the last watercolor for my one woman mini show this coming April at Art in the Valley, Corvallis Oregon.
I’m using a new technique to replace liquid mask when reserving soft edged areas of white paper in many of my latest still lifes. Puddles of clear water on the paper will resist paint. In this painting I made little lines of water along the reflected light from the mister and silver vase before painting the window sill. The result is a soft sliver of white paper remaining after my washes.
To use the water resist technique use as much water as you can without running outside the area you wish to reserve. You may need to renew the water fairly frequently too.
The water resist technique is more trouble than either masking whites or carefully painting around them, but it has the advantage of creating a much softer edge. This technique is not suitable for fine detail.
Or purchase a print from Fine Art America.com.
March 12, 2010 5:43 pm
Apples and Oranges (13 x 18 inch watercolor) $250.00
I had to watch my youngest daughter like a hawk to get this one painted. She loves the sweet miniature Clementine oranges and kept threatening to eat my still life before I had it painted. I don’t blame her much. Clemetines are so very sweet and so small you can eat three or four of them and have had less than a full sized orange.
The palette is raw sienna, burnt sienna, cobalt blue, french blue, phthalo blue, quinacridone magenta and hansa yellow. The magenta and the new hansa make a perfect orange colored orange.
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March 10, 2010 6:52 pm
Cherry Blossoms in a Blue Pitcher (watercolor 12 x 19) $250
We planted a two ornamental cherry trees the year we moved into this house. Five years later the trees put on quite a show each Spring. The branches I take inside don’t make a dent in the abundance of blooms.
I made two fundamental design decisions in painting this image. Both help make the blossoms pop. First, rather than paint the blue gray evergreens in the actual background, I added an abstract green background to compliment the pink blossoms. Second I painted my white window blue. I also moved the branches around to improve the composition.
I began by masking the blossoms. Then I painted the background and window casing. The blossoms and branches came last.
The palette was raw sienna, new gamgee (yellow), phthalo blue, quinacridone magenta, opera pink, dioxazine purple, and burnt sienna. The background is raw sienna and phthato blue painted wet into wet. The casing is phthalo blue and burnt siena. The blossoms are magenta and opera pink grayed with phthalo blue or diaxazine purple. The leaves are a wash of new gamgee and magenta washed over with dioxazine purple.
This painting is currently for sale on-line at my Etsy shop.
March 6, 2010 2:29 pm
Jade and Tulips II (watercolor 11 x 14) $250
This is much the same composition and color scheme as Jade and Tulips I. I lowered the tulips which causes them to stand out more than in the original version, but makes the upper line of the composition less interesting. Including more of the jewelry box increased it’s three dimensionality as did opening thing lower drawer.
The palette and work methods are the same as Jade and Tulips I.
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March 5, 2010 6:04 pm
Tulips, Jade, and Books (watercolor 8 x 11) $100.00
Our house is covered in floor to ceiling book shelves. So it was really only a matter of time before the shelves showed up in one of my still lifes. This time they feature only as a reflection.
Or purchase a print from Fine Art America.com. See more still paintings at: still life paintings
March 3, 2010 1:06 pm
Jade and Tulips (watercolor 11 x 14) $250
Years ago I celebrated a new job by purchasing a jewelry box I had coveted for several years. I love oriental furniture with it’s brass hinges and inset jade and soapstone. I find a whole room full of such furniture much too heavy. But the jewelry box was everything I loved about the furniture in miniature. And despite it’s exoticness, it looks perfectly at home on my plain pine dressers. And it has the added advantage of actually looking better half open with the jewelry hanging out than it does closed.
It took me some time to compose a picture with my jewelry box at the center. The problem is that the box’s shape is really just that, a vertical rectangular box. Compositions with the complete box were brought to a complete and boring full stop by the edge of the box. In the end, I subordinated the box to the tulips and cropped it along one edge. The dark open door of the box makes a beautiful foil for the bright tulips.
Once composed, painting the picture was relatively straight forward. I masked the highlights and then began with the tulips painting them in a various combinations of hansa yellow, hansa gold, yellow ochre, cadmium yellow, and cadmium red. The leaves are combinations of the same yellows with cobalt and phthalo blue. I used the same colors for the jade necklace and insets as I did for the foliage.
I went on to painting vase and metal hinges using primarily yellow ochre, raw sienna and burnt sienna dulled with cobalt blue and cerulean blue. I added the box in combinations of burnt sienna, quinacridone magenta, and dioxazine purple.
The dresser top is layered washes of burnt sienna, raw sienna, and burnt umber. The wall yellow ochre and dulled with dioxazine purple. Layed the wall on very heavily to allow the tulips to pop.
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February 28, 2010 2:54 pm
Nautilus with Marble (10 x 13 watercolor) $175
Same nautilus, new angle, new colors–after several attempts to paint the nautilus in it’s true colors, I think I understand why I keep changing them. The shell’s shadows are warmer colors than it’s highlights. Most real world objects have cooler shadows and warmer highlights. But the standards of the shell have warm local color while the base of the shell has cooler local color. Painting apricot shadows with cool blue and green highlights simply goes against the grain.
This time I ignored the natural color of the shell entirely and simply painted the colors I felt like painting focusing entirely on value. I painted the marble to echo the center of the shell.
I reserved the highlights with mask. The palette is phthalo blue, dioxazine purple, new gamgee, a little quinacridone magenta, and burnt sienna to dull the blues and greens. The background is a wash of burnt sienna which I chose to contrast with the cooler shell. I mixed the colors in multiple transparent washes. I dropped some of the softer shadows wet into wet paint.
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February 26, 2010 4:14 pm
Nautilus with Glass Stones (10 x 11 watercolor) $150.00
My husband and I spent last weekend on the Oregon Coast. The weather was so fine we hardly even went inside at all. So on our last day having not set foot in a shop all weekend, it occurred to us we had bought nothing for our daughters. So we stopped in a shell shoppe. We did find some lovey sea urchins for the girls. But we also found something for us, a bisected nautilus shell. Stephen wanted it to display it, but I wanted to paint it. I’ve just finished painting it and it now lives on our mantle together with fossil shells and a free form hand made basket. But it will visit the studio again.
I took great liberties with the color of the nautilus which is really is really a dull orange in the outer chambers fading to blue green at the center. The color shift in my painting was driven by the decision to heavily under-paint the shell in phthalo blue to emphasize the depth of the shell. I over-painted with various mixtures of new gamgee yellow, quinacridone madder rose, and phthalo blue.
In Progress
The left most of the glass stones resting in the shell is actually stone marble. But the green and rust of the actual marble would have clashed horribly with the rest of the painting, so I changed it to a blue glass marble.
The background is a wash of burnt sienna grayed down with phthalo blue.
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February 23, 2010 4:34 pm
The Opening (watercolor 10 x 11) SOLD
This is one more painting from my Valentine’s Day bouquet. In the clear glass vase the lilies are much softer and less dramatic. I emphasized the soft back-lighting.
The palette is only slightly different than Lily with Carnations. I added dioxazine violet which I substituted for phthalo blue when underpainting the lilies. Dioxazine is a good pigment for underpainting because it is strong, staining and transparent. Violet is warmer than blue, so the lilies are warmer too.
February 22, 2010 5:10 pm
Lily with Carnations (watercolor 9x12) $175.00
Yes there are red carnations in the painting. You just haven’t looked closely enough.
Both the carnations and the lily come from the Valentine’s Day bouquet my husband gave me this year. The Danish silverware vase was my Mother’s. So the painting is a family affair.
The fact that the lily inevitably points out of the picture presented a compositional problem. I used the window frame to create a boundary to contain the eye within the painting. Theoretically the window frame with lead the eye back around to the vase and into the painting once more.
I began the painting by masking the white edges of the lily, the stamen, and the smallest white highlights. Then I laid the window frame and background in with multiple transparent washes. I began the window frame with a mixture of cobalt blue and burnt sienna. I followed that with phthalo blue, and finally added a very thin wash of burnt sienna to tone it down. The window began with phthalo green and burnt sienna. While the wash was still damp I lifted it with tissue to create a mottled look. I followed that with successive layers of cobalt blue, phthalo blue, and burnt sienna laid wet into wet. I made the background darker around the lily and lighter by the dark vase to add drama.
Next I under painted the lily with phthalo blue. I added the shadowed fuchsia with quinacrione deep red rose sometimes mixed with cobalt blue. The sunlight fuchsia is a combination of quinacridone red and cadmium red. I added the spots last in darker versions of the fuchsia under them. I painted the colored highlights in the vase in tandem with the lily. The carnations are cadmium red.
The leaves and stamen began with new gamgee (yellow). I laid a green made of new gamgee and colbalt blue over the top. The tips of the stamen are burnt sienna and phthalo blue.
This painting is currently for sale on-line through my Etsy shop.
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February 17, 2010 12:04 pm
Afterglow II (8 x 9 watercolor) $60.00
Here are another three cone flowers from last Fall’s garden. This time I painted them during my gallery shift.
I altered my painting techniques a little from Afterglow I. I under-painted the petals in phthalo blue before over painting them in opera and dioxazine violet. I under-painted petals in phthalo blue too. I think the under-painting does add to the the three dimensionality of the flowers.
I also added dioxazine purple to the palette, working it in to the cones and the petals.
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February 12, 2010 4:13 pm
- Afterglow (8 x8 inch watercolor) $100
Painted from a photo I took in my front yard last year, this is a close up of my pink cone flowers (echinacea). Like mums and asters, coneflowers are a reliable late summer flower. In the late afternoon light they just glow. I only have five of them but I hope they spread like mad.
I began this painting with the center of interest, the cone of the the cone flower. I painted the bright orange parts of the cone with a combination of quinacridone deep red rose and cadmium yellow. I began with the brighter orange edge and worked my way down adding rose to the mix as I descended the cone. I filled in around the orange-red highlights with a mixture of burnt sienna and cobalt blue letting the colors mix on the paper. I worked some rose into the mix as I reached the rim of the cone.
I added the petals next with deep red rose, cobalt blue and quinacridone opera from Winsor and Newton. Opera is a vivid pink which I rarely use, but has it uses. Nothing else in watercolor produces such a florescent pink.
I added the background last with a mixture of cobalt blue and cadmium yellow, toned down with burnt sienna. Burnt sienna which is a red-orange desaturates green but not to the extent that green’s compliment red would do. I applied this mixture in tone wet into wet layer and and used a paper towel to lift some of the final layer.
This painting is currently available on-line through my Etsy shop. Prints available through Fine Art America.com.
February 11, 2010 9:51 pm
The Magic Bowl II (watercolor 9 x 9) $100
I wasn’t entirely satisfied with Magic Bowl I. One on the things I thought lacking was textural contrast and I found the paperweight that formed the center of interest to be a weak point in the painting. The daffodil provides both color and textural contrast. I also gave the background more texture and contrast. I like the result much better. And it keeps the abstract design feel I was aiming for in the first painting.
I painted the bowl conventionally working from light to dark beginning with the daffodil and moving on to it’s myriad of reflections. I used hansa yellow light, winsor orange, cadmium yellow and cobalt blue for the flower. For the bowl I used phthalo blue, cobalt blue, cadmuim red, winsor orange and burnt sienna.
For the background concrete I applied several layers of burnt sienna and phhtalo blue. I salted each layer separately. Salting which is exactly what it sounds like (you sprinkle salt on wet paint) causes irregular lighter areas where the salt sat because the salt pushes away the water and pigment.
Prints available through Fine Art America.com.
10:47 am
Daffodils with Marbles (watercolor 8 x 8 inches)
One more still life of daffodils. This time I cut to the chase, just the daffodils and the vase.
Prints available from Fine Art America.com.
February 7, 2010 9:46 am
The Magic Bowl (12 x12 inch watercolor) $175.00
In many ways this was really a challenge painting. It took me some trial and error to get just the right amount of detail in. The metal marbles show a myriad of tiny highlights, not just the major one on top the few side highlights I have shown. The color in the marbles showed considerably more graduations than I have included in the this painting. In fact the marbles had no hard lines at all. But with more detail, the marbles ceased to look three dimensional. So simplified and simplified and simplified.
The palette was: cobalt blue, phthalo blue, cadmium red, burnt sienna, hansa yellow light, and hansa orange. I used hot-pressed paper.
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February 3, 2010 5:01 pm
Short Story II (11 x 11 watercolor) $225.00
Same song,
Second verse,
Should get better,
But it’s gonna get . . . .
Actually I like the second verse better. The dark background gives Short Story II a punch that Short Story I lacked. And I admit that painting the pine cone magnified by the paperweight was just plain fun.
The palette for Short Story II is the same as Short Story I. I used more transparent glazes in building up the forms. And I mixed the paint on the paper rather than the palette.
The deep background began as a burgundy mixture of burnt sienna and quinacridarone deep red rose, but the didn’t provide the depth I was aiming for. So I followed it with several dark washes of phthalo blue. Afterwords I had to correct the glass reflections to match the background.
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February 1, 2010 12:03 pm
Short Story (10 x 14 watercolor) $175.00
It’s Spring here and my first daffodils are blooming. I’ve painted them here together with some of my favorite glass from the sun room. The box is an old cigar box I bought on Ebay. I like the look and smell of cedar cigar boxes though I neither smoke nor like the smell of smoking.
This is the first traditional still life I’ve ever done. Placing and lighting the objects increased my respect for the art of still life. And I’m tempted to play with glass and flowers again soon.
I enjoyed painting the contrasts in texture between the wood, glass, and flowers. But if I try this again, I’d like to do something with a more dynamic composition.
The techniques I used were very straight forward. I reserved the highlights in the glass and then painted wet on dry, from light to dark. I used three blues, cobalt, phthalo, and cerulean. I used two reds burnt sienna and quinacridone deep red rose. I also used three yellows, hansa light which has a greenish cast, cadmium yellow, cadmium orange. I also used burnt umber to help darken the cigar box.
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January 31, 2010 10:54 am
Storm Off Trail Ridge (12 x 15 pastel) reserved for La Salles show
My husband and I took a drive over Trial Ridge Road above Rocky Mountain National. It’s a drive I remember fondly from my childhood. But that late June day a storm was brewing. I should have known. Foul weather is perfectly normal in June, at 10,000 feet and even lower. I have been snowed on backpacking in July at 7,000 feet.
But Stephen and I drove happily on. We enjoyed the brisk cool weather and admired the clouds, ignoring their warning. The later half of the drive was white knuckles all the way. The coming storm brought so much snow and wind that we couldn’t see enough to turn around. Road construction in progress but temporarily abandoned for the snow, added to the tension. We stopped with relief at would have been the half way point of the drive, the Visitor’s Center. The Center has a lovely wall of windows for panoramic views. But that day they showed white, white and white. So we drove back down the way we had come, slowly carefully, tensely. Twenty minutes later we were below the clouds and our experience was already becoming funny.
The I took photos for this painting at the last overlook before we should have turned back. Shortly after that, all was white.
I used the rough side Canson Mi-Teins gray paper for this painting. Mi-Tieins paper has a chicken wire looking texture on the rough side which I intended to use for texture in the foreground. Like detail and warm colors, texture advances.
I began by blocking in the mountains, big and small in hard pastels. I lowered back range a little to emphasize the looming foreground mountain. In retrospect I could have brought it down even further.
Then I worked down and from left to right. Once again I worked the sky in PanPastels: phthalo blue tint, white, ultramarine, and magenta. I added some blue and purple soft pastels as well. The back range of mountains came next beginning with dark blue shade and lightening it up until it look far enough back. The darker background hills came next.
Finally I added the mountain in dark blues and greens. I used burnt sienna tint to add the lighter areas, but color contrasted oddly with the sky, so I added light violets and greens as well. When I got the mountain modeled to my satisfaction I added the trees with a final layer of dark green soft pastels which I applied lightly to allow the texture of the paper to show through. Lower down some of the gray paper itself shows through.
Prints available at Fine Art America.com.
January 30, 2010 11:06 am
Washroom Gears (8 x 10) $75.00
Yes, this is another painting of the machinery at the Mission Mill Museum. The barrel and gears are part of the fleece washing machine. It not only washed the fleeces but also pulled them apart and removed the debris. There was a lot of debris. Wool is a magnet for sticks, and bark, and other messy things.
The washroom is a dark place. Only the machinery is lit which casts dramatic shadows over the metal. In keeping with the dark room, I used a very limited palette: phthalo blue, burnt sienna, and quinacridone deep red rose. I mixed little or nothing on the palette. The color is mixed either with multiple washes or by dropping one color into another.
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January 25, 2010 11:15 am
Dusk Falls on the Pumice Field (11 x 18) $200
This is my second pastel. The subject is the pumice field on the west side of Crater Lake National Park, Oregon. The light was beautiful and I loved the way it lit up the wildflowers in the foreground, which are visually insignificant at mid day.
The support is once again Canson Mi-Teiten paper. This time I used the rough side.
I began at the top with PanPastels’ ultramarine blue, ultramarine blue tint, burnt sienna tint and white. The rosy hills are mostly PanPastel too. I used magenta, violet tint, burnt sienna, burnt sienna pint, and finally a stick of purple pink soft pastel.
The tree lines are soft pastels in various combinations of an ultramarine shade, a phthalo blue, a iron oxide stick and a dark green. The grass and pumice fields are various combinations of burnt umber, red oxide, burnt sienna in PanPastel and soft pastel sticks. I added the gold light last soft pastel.
I added the shadowy path leading out the foreground with purples and blue soft pastel smudged over the pumice field.
I began the red flowers by using a soft purple pastel stick to make dark bases for them. I smudged the bases in and them added PanPastel red plus a little PanPastel yellow and smudged again. I accented them with hard yellow pastel.
For the blue flowers I made a darker purple base and drew thin marks over it in light turqouse blue which I half smudged. Then I added blue squiggles again and again half smudged.
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January 24, 2010 12:32 pm
Fall Poplars (12 x 18) $125.00
I have admired pastels and mixed media with pastels for some time now. There is a sparkly quality about pastels that no other medium can match. Pastels over watercolors can create both spectacular and subtle effects.
My husband bought me pastels for Christmas, and I have been playing with them this last week. Pastels are if anything less forgiving than watercolor. All color mixing must be done on the paper either optically or by smearing. Pastel smears easily. The paper holds only so much pastel before it suddenly won’t take anymore. This last can be fixed somewhat, by using a workable fixative. Some lifting is possible with a kneadable eraser.
The method is very different from watercolor too. Working with them is a kind of cross between drawing and painting. Pastels are an opaque medium and therefore work best if the dark tones are blocked in first and the lights laid over them. Highlight go on last. Nothing runs. The chalk stays right where you put it until you smudge it.
I started this image on the rough side of a rose colored sheet of Canson Mi-Tietens paper. I laid in the sky with PanPastels. PanPastels come in pots rather than sticks and they are highly pigmented and almost dustless. Applying them is reminiscent of applying dry eyeshadow or rouge. The top of the sky is phthalo blue. Further down I switched to ultramarine blue. Then I worked back up the sky from the horizon, overlaying the deep blue with ultramarine and phthalo tints (both of which are almost white). I used white, and more of the blue tints to lay in the clouds. Then I got out a violet soft pastel stick and added the deeper shadows smudging them in as I went.
I roughed in the far tree line with a dark blue shade of soft pastel. I added a dark green shade lower down and smudged. I pushed the pastel up into the sky with a sponge applicator.
Returning to PanPastels, I added the hills with turquoise blue shade and bright yellow green shade. Burnt sienna came next. Then I went back over the hills with a variety of green and brown soft pastels to create texture. I smudged these in with my fingers.
Continuing with soft pastels, I drew in the poplar trunks first with a dark green gray and a red brown. I added a lighter gray and then an almost white gray. Then I added the leaves beginning with a dull orange, continuing with a brighter orange and finally a yellow orange. I smudged the leaves on the farther tree to suggest a little distance.
With soft pastels I put in blue and purple shadows under the foreground trees to indicate the rough grass line. I drew in the grass over the shadows with a variety of hard pastels starting with the darker colors and continuing with the lighter ones. I softened the lines with a finger.
After years of reserving or painting around the lighter colors, laying in the trees over the sky and grass felt like magic.
I enjoyed this. Watercolor will remain my primary medium, but pastel has a rough sparkly quality I’d like. Some images just seem to demand it. I may also do some mixed media, painting a watercolor first before accenting it with pastel.
I ship my watercolors rolled in a tube or, if they or very small flat. I provide free shipping for watercolors within the continental United States. Pastels cannot be safely rolled since they would smudge and they should be both matted and covered with a protective sheet. Therefore, the shipping cost of my pastels will vary depending upon size. All pastels will will include an acid free neutral colored mat and backing.
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January 20, 2010 6:35 pm
Submerged I (9 x 12) SOLD
I’ve been experimenting with a couple of new methods. These two paintings are the result. Both are based on some photos of trees half drowned by the swollen Willamette River I took this weekend. I wanted to catch the cold grayness of of the scene and the mystery of the half hidden trees.
Blowing:
I blew the trees. I placed puddles of paint on the paper and blew them into trees with a straw. The line of paint running out from the puddle looks surprisingly like a tree limb. And the direction the paint goes in is quite controllable. But once the paint has started in one direction it’s hard to make it turn. The paint follows the wet path as if it were a stream bed. The solution is to drag a little paint in the direction you want to take it and thus start a new path. Where the trees over-lap it’s important to let the first tree dry completely before starting the next, otherwise the paint form the new tree will run up the first tree.
There are several ways to vary the color in the tree. Leaving the supply puddle partially unmixed is one. New colors can be blown into the wet tree from the base. Accents and be directly painted onto the dry trees. I used all three methods on these paintings.
Layered Masking:
The second method is painting grass and bracken with multiple layers of mask. Thin lines of mask establish the highlights. Then color is applied. Then more lines are applied. Then more mask for multiple layers. When the mask is removed a complex texture is revealed. I was less successful with this method. It’s hard to see what you are doing or to guess the result. More practice is needed.
I used layered mask in Submerged I. But I didn’t like the results immediately. The foreground was too busy and detracted from my trees, which then looked much like the trees in Submerged II. After some thought, I painted over the trees in dark tones to match the foreground. The result is an evening picture.
Submerged II (9 x 12) $75.00
For the second painting I added the foreground wet into wet. The result is simpler and gives the feeling of the gray afternoon on the river.
The palette for both paintings is: burnt sienna, phtholo blue and dioxion purple, plus a dab of hansa yellow.
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January 16, 2010 2:35 pm
Spindles and Spools (11 x 14) $150
I love the Mission Mill Museum and we often take visitors there. We took my parents over the Christmas holiday and I snapped some more photos inside the mill. Neither flash nor tripods are permitted inside, so photography is a challenge. But the dark photos have a genuine feel since there was very little electric light in the mill when it was operational. Bulbs were few and far between and they were all under thirty watts. Without it’s numerous windows, the mill would have been dark indeed.
The machinery in the woolen mill fascinates me. It was made before modern safety rules and much more of the moving parts are exposed than in modern factories and many of the moving parts are wooden. Worn wood has a special appeal and contrasted with meta, it’s warmth increases.
When the mill ran, it ran continuously, and it was important that there be no more interruption in the looms than absolutely necessary. Therefore, the yarn awaiting the loom was arranged on separate racks awaiting attachment to a loom as soon as one became free. The foreground of the painting is such a rack. The rear shows the huge spools on which the yarn was stored.
I began by reserving the highlights and yard strings with removable mask. I washed the yarn on the white spindles first with raw sienna and then added the shadows with various combinations of raw sienna, dioxazine purple (yellow’s compliment and therefore a good gray for shadows when mixed with raw sienna) and cobalt blue. For the blue yarn I used cobalt blue dulled with its compliment burnt sienna.
For the green metal rack I used various combinations of phthalo blue, raw sienna and burnt sienna. I began by painting the grooves in light phthalo blue and then painted the background around them. Finally I accented the grooves with dark green made from phthalo blue and raw sienna.
I painted the spindles and spools in various washes of burnt sienna, burnt umber, raw sienna, cobalt blue and phthalo blue. The spindle tops and spool buttons are cobalt blue and raw sienna. For the rims and deeper shadows I added dioxazine purple.
Finally I removed the mask and greyed down the yarn strings.
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January 13, 2010 5:27 pm
Reeds at Sunset (11 x 15) $75.00
This is the Willamette again, but it could really be anywhere. I was struck by the way the reeds look like they are growing out of a sunset.
Like the Broken Dock I painted a couple days ago, I began this painting by masking everything except the water. After the mask on the reeds dried, I painting the sky’s refection on the still water wet into wet beginning with an overall wash of very diluted burnt sienna. When the shine left the paper, I added various mixes of quinacridone deep red rose and new gamgee (yellow). I used cobalt blue and burnt sienna to ad the darker clouds and phthalo blue for the water.
Once the sky had dried, I removed the mask and painted the reeds in new gamgee, colalt blue, phthalo blue and burnt sienna.
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January 11, 2010 5:24 pm
- Sundown on the Broken Dock (12 x 16) $150
Brown Minto Park is one of our local haunts. The park boarders the Willamette on one side and a truck farm on the other. Bicycle trials, bark dust trails, and a dog park lie within it’s boarders. The park has forest, field, and playground. A rather civilized asphalt trail runs along the Willamette. A shorter trail from the playground once led to this dock. The dock was falling down even when I first saw it. Now it has gone the way of all things. But I miss it.
My photo showed real sunset with only a silhouette of the trees and dock left. I turned back the clock about a quarter of an hour to show the island trees and more of the decrepit dock.
The palette is cobalt blue, phthalo blue, dioxazine purple, quinacridone deep red rose, burnt sienna, and new gamgee.
I masked the dock before painting. Then I began with the sky and water working wet into wet. When the sky and water dried I added the far bank and it’s reflection working wet on dry but, still doing much of the mixing on the paper rather than on the palette. To give the foreground bank it’s texture, I salted the paint while it was still damp. The effect was a little stronger than I wanted so I gave it a final wash of phthalo blue. Finally I removed the mask and painted in the dock and it’s reflection.
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January 8, 2010 4:57 pm
Flower Doll Ball (7 x 11) $50.00
This summer by daughters made dolls out of toothpicks flowers and buds, a game handed down to them by my mother. Here is a selection of their dolls in dramatic sunlight.
It thought the contrast between the deep shadows and flowers would be striking. But I was unhappy with the painting when I thought I’d finished it. Despite the dark shadows and bright colors, it looked curiously flat. After pondering a day or so, I painted the background a cool light gray made from the left-overs on my palate. It worked– white highlights popped. And it’s done.
The palate is new gamgee, hansa yellow light, phthalo blue, cobalt blue, quinacridone deep red rose and opera (also a quinacridone). Most of the colors are mixed on the paper.
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December 19, 2009 5:58 pm
Winter Morning on Campus (11 x 14) $150
This is another painting from my winter morning walk on Oregon State University. Weatherford Hall is probably the photographed building on campus and with reason. That morning the sun lit up just the top eastern half of the building.
I decided to focus on the the central archway and so I cropped out the wings before I began to paint.
The palette is ultramarine blue, cobalt blue, quinacridone deep red rose, and hansa yellow. I kept the use on hansa to a minimum. I used only for the trees, lawn and the very darkest darks.
This painting is available on-line through my Etsy shop. Prints available from Fine Art America.com.
December 14, 2009 7:16 pm
Cousins at the Brook (10 x 14) private collection
This painting is a Christmas present for my father. He took the photo a couple of years ago while I was visiting him in New Mexico. He, my daughters, and my niece all went to Bandieler National Monument. It was just as hot and dry as you might expect summer in New Mexico to be. When we had finished touring the ruins, Dad snapped this photo of the girls cooling off by the brook. I liked the dappled light, and I know he will like the subject, all three granddaughters at once.
The palatte is cobalt blue, phthlo blue, French ultramarine blue, burnt sienna, raw sienna, cadimun yellow, and quinacrione deep red rose.
Prints available through Fine Art America.com. To see more figurative paintings by other painters see: figures paintings
December 10, 2009 10:45 am
Craftsmen Lantern (11 x 14) reserved for La Salles show
Last week’s art show was on OSU campus in Corvallis. Early Friday morning it was dry and clear and the morning light was stunning, but I had no time to do anything but rush inside the Memorial Building to finish setting up. Sunday was dry, clear and cold too, so I went early and wandered the campus taking photos on the sunlit buildings. Not only was the light dramatic, but since all the leaves have fallen much more of the buildings were visible than last time I was on campus.
The reflected trees in the arch above the main entrance to the Womens Building caught my eye. Closer up I noticed the sun on the craftsmen lantern.
The palate is mostly cobalt blue, dioxin purple and burnt sienna. The extreme highlights are raw sienna and the deepest shadows contain phthalo blue.
I began by painting in the windows in cobalt. I added the reflected trees with a mixture on cobalt and burnt sienna. The metal mullions are layers of cobalt, violet, and burnt sienna built up one over another. I painted the lantern and its reflection next to establish the darkest values. I saved the raw sienna for the sunlit portion of the lamp and echoed it it the sunlit side of the arch.
I showed to my painting friend when I had finished. She introduced me to a new word, “tenebrism.” It means the use of extreme contrasts of light and dark with small amounts of light shining out of vast darkness. I love extreme contrast, and I’m happy to have a word to describe it. I’m not sure that this painting as a whole is an tenebristic, but the lantern and its shadow certainly are, and they make the painting.
Prints available at Fine Art America.com.
November 29, 2009 2:33 pm
Shadows Glass and Leaves (12 x 14) $100.00
Driving down Commercial last summer, I was struck by the shadows of leaves on a stucco building. I reached for my camera and discovered I’d left it at home. I drove home hurriedly to get it. My daughters in the back seat were remarkable patient with me as I drove round the block twice looking for a parking space. Only eight or nine pictures later did it dawn on me what I was photographing. It’s a local mortuary. Never mind, the shadows and the glass bricks were beautiful.
The shapes were so simple that I drew them freehand onto the watercolor paper.
Most of the painting was done in what I think of as controlled wet-into-wet painting. First I moistened the the small area I wanted to paint and then I dropped the wet color in. I created each glass brick this way. After the paint dried I went back with a wet brush and added the darker shadows to each brick. I used phthallo blue, cobalt blue, cadmium yellow, and yellow ocher.
The shadows on the wall are two separate layers of controlled wet into wet. The first layer was phthallo blue, deep red rose quinacridone, dull a hair with cadmium yellow. The second layer was cobalt blue and deep red rose.
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November 28, 2009 5:50 pm
Sweet Shoppe (10 x 13) $100.00
This is another Central City Painting. I started it this summer at the Artisan Village at the Oregon State Fair. But I felt it lacked something and set it aside. Yesterday when looking for something to paint at the gallery I picked it up again.
What got me started on the painting in the first place is the Victorian decoration. I brightened the colors to go with the sweet shoppe theme. The result was interesting, but lacked something.
Yesterday I decided what it needed was more omph, or in other words more contrast. So I darkened up both the sky and the shadows and here it is.
The palate is cobalt and phthalo blue, quinacridone deep red rose, and cadmium yellow.
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