Wet Summer in Big Sky Country (watercolor 10 x 14) (SOLD)
I grew up in the mountain-west. It’s dry country. On the plains it’s high desert. In the mountains it’s not exactly a desert, but it sure isn’t lush either. This summer, it was wet all across the mountain states. Wyoming was green. Let me repeat that, sage brush covered Wyoming was green. Yellowstone was positively lush with green grass. The park probably had twice it’s usual allotment of wet land.
This is the east side of Yellowstone National Park above the lake, but below Yellowstone’s Grand Canyon. The colors looked like spring, but the grass was much too long. The silver stream is really just endless wet ground—a spontaneous marsh, made just for this year. But between the cloud shadows and the sky reflecting on the water it was beautiful.
I painted it conventionally beginning with the sky and stream, then building up the greens layer by layer. To get all those shades of green I used three blues (cobalt, phthalo, and cerulean) and two yellows (quinacridone god and yellow ocher). In addition I used burnt sienna and quinacridone deep red rose.
This painting has sold, but you may purchase a print from my gallery at Fine Art America.
Autumn Landscape of the Mind (pastel 12 x 17) SOLD
This pastel is based loosely on a photo I took just east of Tetons National Park in Wyoming. The early morning light made the grass glow almost yellow against the darker hills. I drove my family slightly batty stopping the car over and over to take yet another picture of light on the hills. I was actually pleased when when had to wait twenty minutes twice for construction. I liked this view in particular because of the way the beckons you in.
But my pastel could hardly feel less like early Wyoming summer. It seems we’ve never quite gotten summer here in Oregon this year and my mind has moved right along to fall. So I went where my mind is, and left June behind, converting dying pines into turning foliage and taking the grass even further yellow. But I left the morning light.
Working on the rough side of peach colored Canson Mi-Teintes I used almost entirely soft pastels. Only the foreground grass went in in hard pastel. The shadows in the grass are more soft pastel.
The blues, greens and oranges came very naturally. I added a few hints of purple in the shadows to set of the yellow grass.
This painting has sold, but you may purchase a print through my gallery at Fine Art America.
Can you find my painting?
At the Water's Edge
ABC has purchased the right to show “At the Water’s Edge” on Desperate Housewives. It will probably show up on camera somewhere this Fall season. I don’t know when or as part of what set. But I’d really like to know. So, if any of you spots it, please comment here or drop me a line.
They have purchased a 12 x 16 inch print on gallery wrapped canvas, so it could appear framed or unframed.
So far it has been a surreally fun experience. ABC/Disney has entered into an agreement with the on-line printing house Fine Art America, to facilitate licensing images for use on sets. Artists selling work through Fine Art America can opt in or out of the program. I opted in and then promptly forgot about it. It seemed much too unlikely.
But Wednesday morning I got an email from the design staff at Desperate Housewives. Thursday they arranged for FedEx to pick up the signed license agreement and Friday they purchased the print.
The young women who facilitated this has no idea which episode or where. Not surprising really.
My husband suggests I add “Painter to the Stars” to my resume. Slight overstatement? Of course. After all picking artwork for sets is akin to picking artwork to go with the sofa. It is fun, but not a critics seal of approval.
Prints of the painting may be purchased here.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Or purchase prints from Fine Art America.com.
After the Slumber Party (8 x 10) sold
This Friday, my daughters went to a slumber party. Predictably they stayed up until one. They got up at eight. When I picked my girls and a friend of theirs up at noon, they had just finished breakfast and were wide awake and chattering. We stopped to drop our guest’s things at her house and then took all three girls to library. Chatter, chatter, chatter. A very late lunch at the Road House followed. Chatter, chatter, chatter.
It was it was 2:30 by then. The chatter continued through lunch. But Road House lunches are heavy and plentiful. Stomachs full, the girls were suddenly overwhelmingly tired. My youngest leaned against her friend and both girls would have fallen asleep right there had we let them. I snapped a picture.
Reference Photo
Today I painted it. I did my best to correct the ugly green blue light of the restaurant. I made red-purple shadows of blue green ones, and removed the excess pink from their faces.
The palette is cadmium red, cadmium yellow and cobalt blue. Which the exception of some yellow ochre along the jaw lines, those were the pigments I used on the faces. I defined the eyes, nostrils and shadows in cobalt first. Then I painted the faces working mostly wet into wet.
The girls’ hair is various combinations of burnt sienna, cobalt blue, and yellow ochre. I used these three for the brows and lashes too. I added a little phthalo blue to the jacket and the wall.
purchase a print at Fine Art America.com.
Clouds Over I5 (5 x 7) SOLD
This little postcard sized painting is home. The view is looking west at the Coastal Range off I5 just north of Salem. I took the photo for it coming back from the airport this summer. But I could have painted it from memory. It is yet another painting done at the art fair in Tigard.
The Breakers at Seal Rock III (5 x 7) SOLD
The Breakers at Seal Rock IV (Sold)
Art in the Vally’s December feature will be a group show of mini paintings. So yesterday during my gallery shift I painted another couple of postcard sized watercolors. (Update: One of these paintings did sell at the Art in the Valley show and the other sold the following day.)
These are the view north from Seal Rock Wayside, looking downs on the beach. Seal Rock is a great place for wave watching because the beach drops sharply into the ocean and the beach is ringed by rocks for the waves to crash against. If the tide is coming in, we can always happily waste an hour or two just wave watching there.
The palette for both paintings is cobalt blue, phthalo blue, cerulean blue, and burnt sienna. The cerulean is all in the sky.
Update: One of these paintings did sell at the Art in the Valley show and the other sold the following day.
A Little Wind and Water (5 x 7) SOLD
Twixt Wind and Water
Yet another little painting I did at the fair. This one is a smaller version of one of my favorite paintings, Twixt Wind and Water. The only thing I didn’t like about the original was the vertical format. I thought the painting would look better with more sea and waves to her left. So I played around with that idea in this smaller version. I do like the extension of the the sea, but I think I made a mistake in showing too much of her right side. If I do a full sized painting of this one again, I will keep the extended horizon but still crop-out most of her right shoulder.
Reference Photo
As you can see, both paintings show a complete change in compositional thinking from when I took the reference photo. Taking the photo, my thoughts were all about the shape of her figure and the rock. But when I looked at the photo up close, I fell in love with the hair spilling out of her braid. That required some rethinking. Looking at the photo again, I’m tempted to include more of her body to increase the feeling of movement.
The Breakers at Seal Rock II (12 x 16) $125
This is the second painting I’ve done of the tide coming in at Seal Rock Wayside. The first was a little postcard sized painting I did while demonstrating at the fair. That little painting sold immediately. I liked it too, so when expanding it to a full sized painting I didn’t mess around with the composition much. But I did want to get some more variety into the rocks and spray.
Like the previous painting, I began by reserving the whites with liquid mask while painting in the ocean and rocks. I used phthalo blue and burnt sienna for the ocean.
I used the same basic technique to lay down the rocks as I did with the first little painting. I started with raw sienna and quinacridone gold. Then I added burnt sienna and quinacridone deep red rose. While the burnt sienna and deep red rose were still wet, I dropped in cobalt blue and phthalo blue. Finally I added some heavy burnt sienna and some French Ultramarine.
Once the painting was dry, I scrubbed the edges of the rock where the spay hit them with a stiff filbert brush to show how the waves obscured them. Then I broke out the white gouache (an semi opaque white) and added more spray. Over the dark painted rocks the gouache white looks gray. I used the gouache primarily for the shelf of the biggest rock and the bases of the rocks on the shore side. Finally I pulled out the razor and scratched in fine white lines where the water spilled over the rocks and little cuts for droplets of spray. All four techniques work very differently, and each has a character of it’s own. I like the variety that resulted from using them all.
Or purchase a print at Fine Art America.
The Brothers and the Sea (5 x 7) SOLD
This is another little painting I did at the state fair. I used yet another photo of the two brothers who were trying to give a log back the the sea. No sign of the log here, just companionship and beautiful afternoon light.
The palate is once again phthalo blue, raw sienna, and burnt sienna. Burnt sienna is more orange than it is red; so the paintings that I do with this trio tend to be earthy in feel with blue-grays and brown-oranges where one might expect there to be purples. Obviously there are no bright reds either. I find this a useful pallet for the Oregon coast as it makes very easy to reproduce the actual colors of the beach and ocean. On bright days the addition of cobalt blue helps to get the water as blue as it really is.
A Gift For the Sea (5 x 7) SOLD
This is another postcard sized painting I did while demonstrating at the fair. This particular one is yet another view of the two boys I had so much fun watching. They were trying to return a log to the sea. As the tide was coming in, it kept spitting it out. They were having a marvelous time.
The palette was my usual ocean foursome: cobalt blue, phthalo blue, raw sienna, and burnt sienna. The Northwest beaches here rarely show the ocean in bright colors. It’s a earth tone world on the Oregon beaches.
I reserved the figures and the whites with liquid mask before painting the ocean and beach. Notice that the crested waves in the foreground are greener than the waves in the background. When a wave crests you can see into the water from the side and here isn’t much sky reflected into it. Consequently it tends to look green rather than blue, like the edge of a glass pane. I used cobalt blue for the background waves and the greener phthalo blue mixed with a little raw sienna for the crested waves. I like the effect.
After the paint dried, I lifted the mask and added the figures. I was very careful to preserve the whites on the front of their swim trunks. The light was strong that afternoon and I wanted to keep it in the painting.
I added the reflections as I added the figures. I didn’t reserve space for them with mask, because painting them over the beach and water colors mimics the way they really look.
Mommy and the Waves (5 x 7) Sold
Before demonstrating watercolor at the fair, I asked various other painters for advice. The message I heard loud and clear was never try to start or put the finishing touches on a painting while talking to the public. That’s good advice and I took it. But I found spending five days painting the middles of paintings unsatisfying and vaguely unsettling. So I also painted some little postcard sized paintings from start to finish too. Yesterday’s postcard sized painting was one of those. Here’s another one.
I think I took the reference photos on Lincoln City Beach, but it could be anywhere. What matters about this image is sun and sparkle contrasting with cool water. Also, I just love the way both mommy and daughter appear just a hair afraid of the waves, but they are right at the edge anyway.
I used phthalo blue, burnt sienna, yellow ochre and added little quinacridone deep red rose for the figures. The “sparkle” is reserved white created by splattering the page with liquid mask. I didn’t have a toothbrush to splatter with so I used a stiff filbert brush.
- Seal Rock Breakers I (5 x 7–damaged) SOLD
Seal Rock Park is one of our favorite waysides on Highway 101. This little painting shows a small part of the view north from the headland looking down at a string of volcanic rocks ringing the shore.
Last winter I took a series of photos of the waves crashing against the rocks as the tide came in. The photos look good in black and white but strangely lifeless in color. The contrast between the black rocks and the white waves is almost too much for color. So I left the photos on the back burner. But earlier this week I decided to try a small close-up view just to get me started.
To solve the overly black rock problem, I decided to make the rocks a chocolate brown. I began with raw sienna, and layered burnt sienna over the top. Then, while the burnt sienna was still wet or in some cases damp, I dropped in phthalo blue and let it interact with the sienna on the page. The result is almost as dark as the black in my photos but much more alive.
As usual I saved the white paper for foam and breakers with rubber mask. But I had a hard time getting the mask fine enough to show the run off down the base of the rocks. So when I tore the paper a little removing it from the pad (left of signature), I decided it was a good time to experiment with sgrafutto. After all, what did I have to lose?
Sgrafutto is an Italian term. It means to scratch the surface of multiple layers of color to reveal the lower layers. It’s a good technique for fine detail. In this case I used a razor blade to scratch through the brown rock to reveal the white paper below. Dragging the tip of the razor perpendicular to the cutting edge worked best. Dragging it toward the cutting edge produced a line so fine it didn’t show.
Now that I’ve tried it, I like this technique and I’ll use it to show more water against rocks in the future. I might also use it to show highlights in brick and stone.
The other technique I used to detail the spray is lifting. I moistened the edges of the rocks where they met the masked spray and scrubbed them a little with the brush. Then I took a dry thirsty brush and lifted as much of the paint as I could along the edges of the rock. You can see the results in along the left hand side of the largest rock and at the base of the far right rock.
I like this little painting and I’ll use the same techniques to make some larger versions of it later. I have plenty of rocks and breakers to play with.
Breakers SOLD
Dances With Fountains
I expected to sell prints, but not necessarily paintings at the Oregon State Fair. It isn’t exactly a traditional art venue. So I wasn’t surprised that I hadn’t sold a painting over the weekend. But surprise, surprise, I sold two framed originals today. “Fountain Dance” I blogged about when I painted it. It’s part of my Town Center Park “Splash” Series. Breakers is a little painting I did before beginning this blog.
You can purchase a print of either painting at Fine Art America.com
The Civilized Engineer
My step-father jokes that civil engineers aren’t very civil. But he is a civil engineer and he is both civil and civilized. Here is a painting I did of him last year. The poise is characteristic and setting his own home. It isn’t a portrait, but everyone who sees it recognizes him immediately.
We will be visiting him and my mother for a few days. I just finished showing the house sitter around. She’s very helpful, about watering the garden and feeding the dog, but she won’t ship paintings for me. Any paintings purchased before I get back will have to be shipped after I return.
Nose to Nose (5 x 7) SOLD
I think dogs are at their most happily doggie on the beach. Freedom to run, other dogs, disgusting smells, people to meet, and soft sand—what more could a dog want?
The palette was prussian blue, cobalt blue, burnt sienna, and yellow ocher. I used mask to preserve the whites.
I don’t think I’ve ever taken anywhere near as many photos I’d like to paint as I did the day of the Wilsonville Festival of the Arts. Hot sun on skin and lots of water is turning out to be one of my favorite combinations.
This one took a little more teasing out to make it a good image. The photo itself shows not only the boy but also his father and sister and sub machine gun style water pistol too, all cluttering up the background and obscuring the larger fountain. It was easy enough to remove the figures and the shadows they cast. To restore the fountain I need to use other reference material.
I have have been using much the same method for all of the paintings in my Splash series. First I mask the fountains, waterfalls, and water drops. Then I can paint the water without worrying about saving the whites as the masking protects them for me.
After the Mask Came Off
Dances with Fountains (in progress)
Once the paint is really dry I remove the mask from the water features and the figures but leave the water drops over water masked. Then I mask the highlights in the water-features and the splashes obscuring the figures. After I’ve painted the figures and roughed in the water I remove all the mask and add shadows to some of the water drops.
Should you like to try using removable liquid mask yourself, I have two tips. First, use cheap synthetic brushes to apply the mask and soap them before and during the process. Second, never use a hair dryer to speed the drying of a masked painting because sometimes it causes the mask to stick to firmly to the paper.
I painted the water in cobalt blue grayed with burnt sienna. The boy’s hair is yellow ocher, burnt sienna and cobalt blue as is his skin. I added some quinacridone deep red rose to key places in his skin such as his ears. His shirt is cobalt blue and burnt sienna again.
This painting has sold, but you may still purchase a print through Fine Art America.com.
Three Dog Afternoon (5 x 7) SOLD
This little painting is of three dogs we watched playing on the beach last February. As far as I could tell they all belonged to different groups of people, but they were very happy to meet each other. I took a number of photos of them and will probably make a larger painting from one of those photos later. This little painting is just the right size for a postcard.
My favorite palette again: burnt sienna, cobalt blue and yellow ocher.
Ed Turns Forty (9 x 12) Sold
This one was fun. After all the children I’ve done lately it was lovely to get to play around with a strong featured man. And Ed is a great subject, a kind of modern day Henry VIII only better looking.
I had him in the sun for the reference photo which bothered his eyes, so I didn’t get the smile I wanted.
Reference Photo for Ed
I’d like to catch him smiling and do him again. He’s all cheeks and twinkly eyes when he smiles.
I used the same palette as I did for the last couple paintings: burnt sienna, quinacridone deep red rose, quinacridone gold, phthalo blue and cobalt blue. I used a pinprick of Chinese white for the catch-lights in his eyes.
The original has sold but you may purchase a print at Fine Art America.com.
Winter Morning Solitude II (10 x 16) SOLD-Prints Available
This is an early morning in February on Agate Beach, Oregon. The light isn’t sunrise but it’s reflection in the Western sky.
The painting is all broad washes and wet into wet. I began by masking the white water. Then I painted in the reflection of the sunrise with yellow ochre into which I dropped rose madder quinacridone. While that dried I washed the sand and rocks with raw sienna, followed by burnt sienna, followed by raw umber, followed by cobalt blue. I finished the sky wet into wet with mixes of Prussian blue, cobalt blue and burnt sienna. The ocean is cobalt blue and burnt sienna. The rocks are burnt sienna followed by burnt umber followed by cobalt blue.
Purchase a print at Fine Art America.com.
Skipping Stones (11 x 14) SOLD
Skipping stones is like testing an echo, faced with a smooth body of water and rocks at hand, all right minded people want to do it. This is my husband and girls skipping stones into the Williamettee River. Georgia learned to do two or three skips that day and Paula found some fresh water shells.
Because the painting is really all about basic body shapes and afternoon sun I began it painting by pouring. I wanted bodies washed in color. But I did so much direct painting afterwords that it hardly feels like a poured painting to me. Whatever I did, it wouldn’t come right and I almost gave up on it. I finally decided that for design purposes I should have made Stephen’s hat white like the girls’ hats. But with watercolor white is reserved paper not paint and there was no way I could lift enough paint to make his hat white again, certainly not white in comparison to the girls’ hats.
So I pulled out the white body paint. Body paint or gouache is opaque watercolor. Dark colors are lightened with white. Transparent watercolor dilutes gouache and it won’t cover it. Consequently, gauche must be added last. So I painted the shadow of the hat with transparent colors first and then I painted around the shadow with permanent white gouache. I had to apply it fairly thickly because opaque is one thing but covering is another. While I was at it I reclaimed a little white in Paula’s left shoe too.
The gouache white is bluer that the page, so Stephen’s hat is bluer than the girls. That’s fine because he’s farther away. If he had been close I might have had to paint the girls’s hats too just to even things up.
I’m not tempted to work in gouache. I like the look a transparent watercolor too much. But every once in a while a little gouache is a life saver.
Other than white, I used ceruleum blue, phthalo blue, raw sienna and burnt sienna for the first pour. For the next two pours I substituted cobalt blue for the ceruleum. Ceruleum is an opaque color (but not gouache). I used the same palette for the direct painting with the addition of raw umber.
Prints available through Fine Art America.com.
The Red Shirt (12 x 16) SOLD
I’ve read that it’s advisable to place the horizon low when painting the sea to avoid making the waves look like a wall at the top of the painting. It’s a rule I violate frequently.
When I walk along the beach I am drawn to the leading edge of the ocean. Looking out from the edge of the waves the sea does feel like a wall above me. And the breakers rise many feet above sea level. In winter they they tower over the beach.
Standing in front of all that raw power I am awed that something so elemental is also so beautiful. My eyes follow the waves. I rarely scan the horizon.
I want to catch that feeling of being small and looking up into the waves, so when I place people right on the edge of the beach I often place the horizon high, or as in this case eliminate it altogether.
Pigment Notes: The water is phthalo blue, cobalt blue, French ultramarine, all dulled by burnt sienna and raw sienna. The beach is multiple washes, some salted, of burn sienna, raw sienna, and burnt umber mixed with a a hair of cobalt blue. Winsor red and cadmium yellow for the boy’s skin. Quinacridone gold, raw sienna and burnt umber for his hair. Winsor red and raw sienna for the shirt. French ultramarine and cobalt blue for his pants.
