Portrait Study #20

"Portrait Study #20", 14 x 11 In, Oil on Museum Board
Doing a series of paintings is a good strategy, because it allows for experimentation along with the vagaries of the day. "Vagaries" is a good word for it, thought I only knew what it meant in a vague sort of way until I looked it up in the thesaurus: Vagary: an unexpected and inexplicable change in a situation or in someone's behavior. Now doesn't that speak to the truth of the painter's way?

Portrait Study #19

"Portrait Study #19", 14 x 11 In, Oil on Museum Board
I've been doing mostly portraits of models with dark hair. It was strange how light colored hair changed so much in the approach to the portrait.

Portrait Study #18

"Portrait Study #18", 14 x 11 In, Oil on Museum Board
This portrait was was a study in the use of a slightly different palette--more ochres and yellows than pinks and reds for flesh tones.

Portrait Study #17

"Portrait Study #17", 14 x 10 In, Oil on Museum Board
I would like to thank everyone for bearing with me on this portrait journey. I think maybe after 100 or 200 of these, I might figure a little more what I want to be doing with them. But spring is coming and outdoor painting is in the wind. Still, I have a few more to go.

Portrait Study #16

"Portrait Study #16", 14 x 11 In, Oil on Museum Board
There are so many factors that go into a portrait and this one is maybe best described as being about expression. A tiny touch of paint on the corner of the mouth or the eyelid can change the entire expression of a portrait. It makes me think about everything we see in another's face and the instant understanding, often unconscious, of the meaning of these small nuances.

Portrait Study #16

"Portrait Study #16", 14 x 11 In, Oil on Museum Board
Sometimes I go through old photos for models to paint from. I don't usually try to create a likeness--its more a study of color, value and structure.

Portrait Study #14

"Portrait Study #14", 16 x 12 In, Oil on Museum Board
This was my 2nd study done at the Plein Air Washington Paint-In in February. The model had a wonderful purple wig. The best thing about a model is that she takes breaks--forcing me to step back. When I am painting in my studio, I forget to do this at times, until I have to have lunch. And then when I go back in the studio, there it is, a totally different painting than the one I remember from before when I was standing for an hour two feet away from it and intensely focused on the painting and my palette.

Portrait Study #13

"Portrait Study #13", 14 x 10 In, Oil on Museum Board

I'm calling these portraits "studies" to give myself psychological space to experiment. My raison d'etre for doing this series is to push myself beyond my habits. That is a lesson in itself which requires awareness in the moment of how I'm standing in front of my easel, how I am holding my brush, which brush I am using, which direction the stroke, keeping my values separated on my palette, continuing to use enough paint! I find that in the beginning one person is holding the brush and at the end of the painting it is almost as though another painter takes control. At what point does this change? This is fascinating.

Thank you all for viewing my artwork!

Portrait Study #12

"Portrait Study #12", 16 x 12 In, Oil on Museum Board

This portrait was done during the Plein Air Washington February "paint-in" in Edmonds. We had a wonderfully experienced model who takes things into her own hands--she brought the purple wig, which made for a very enjoyable color study.

Zangle Sunrise

"Zangle Sunrise", 10 x 12 In, Oil on Museum Board
This was the 4th painting in the Facebook challenge. Like the portrait series I'm working on now, sometimes I pick a theme and just keep painting. Every painting is a lesson and some of them come together.

Mountain Meadow

"Mountain Meadow", 12 x 10 In, Oil on Museum Board
Mountains with mist or otherwise are ever the place I most want to be painting. This is on the Snake River north of Jackson.

Mist on Mt. Shuksan

"Mist on Mt. Shuksan", 10 x 8 In, Oil on Museum Board
When the mist rolled in on a very cold late September morning on the ridge of the Artist Point trail between Mt. Baker and Mt. Shuksan, we thought our painting day was over, because it also started to rain. But it was a "can't dance" moment (when you can't dance and it's too wet to plow, you may as well do something because you can't or don't have the opportunity to do anything else) so we set up our easels anyway. The mist was so thick we could barely see anything but the nearest rocks and lichen. So that is what this painting is about--the amazing color of the steep alpine meadow in fall colors.

Mt. Shuksan Morning Light - SOLD

"Mt. Shuksan Morning Light", 12 x 10 In, Oil on Museum Board

After a rainy foggy Saturday up at Artist Point at the end of the Mt. Baker Road, Sunday dawned with a brilliant clear sky. It was so bright I thought to myself that it is a heck of a lot easier to paint in the fog, where you don't have to rig contraptions to prevent glare on the canvas and paint with part of your palette in the sun and part in the shade! Definitely need to re-think my system for that!

But the more important point is that standing in this spot watching the sun come up behind Mt. Shuksan, casting the blue and violet shadows on the glaciers, makes it clear why Mt Shuksan is said to be the most photographed mountain in Washington State.

Fort Casey Beach Road

"Fort Casey Beach Road", 10 x 10 In, Oil on Museum Board

Sometimes I look at a view and it doesn't seem like much and so the lack of a definitive or
spectacular subject becomes a different kind of lesson. It requires a different kind of thinking.

I wish I could tell you what went on in my mind after those first thoughts about this view,
but I don't remember! But I'm guessing, looking at the painting now, that it had a lot to do
with sticking to abstraction.


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Malign Lake

"Malign Lake", 10 x 12, Oil on Museum Board

This is one of the beautiful Lakes in Jasper National Park in Alberta, Canada. Members of our group, Plein Air Washington, painted there for a week in July. It was 90 degrees most days and a forest fire began in one of the canyons we had painted in the day before.

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Coupeville Wharf

"Coupeville Wharf", 10 x 12 In, Oil on Museum Board

I painted this same scene years ago in a plein air competition and won an award, so I was scared silly doing it again. But the fact is, every painting is different--the tide at the very least is different, not to speak of the state of mind and feelings. The hand is different as well, as strange as that is. I always think I will just progress in some direction, but its not to be--the direction takes its own turns.

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Beach at Fort Casey

"Beach at Fort Casey", 10 x 12 In, Oil on Museum Board
I painted from this spot right above the beach at Fort Casey several years ago. It is strange how paintings have their own memory separate from the scene that I am painting.

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Tilbury Portrait

"Tilbury Portrait", 12 x 10 In, Oil on Museum Board

At the out-door Tilbury paint out in May 2015, the models dressed in early American costumes. I did a couple of portrait sketches. This was one of them.

Roses with Orange - SOLD

"Roses with Orange", 12 x 12 In, Oil on Museum Board

Another painting from my recent "roses" obsession.

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Two Roses

"Two Roses", 6 x 6 In, Oil on Museum Board

Between all the trips and plein air painting, packing and unpacking, driving to far away places, the heat and the cold and carrying the gear--sometimes its a relief to be out on the deck with a couple of flowers, just smusching the paint around.