Utah Light

"Utah Light", 8 x 10 In, Oil on Museum Board
Here in the rain of the Northwest, I am thinking about Utah and the warm colors of Escalante and Capitol Reef which I'm picturing in my April of this year.

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Girl in Blue

"Girl in Blue", 14 x 11 In, Oil on Museum Board

The other day I was out where there were crowds of people, which is not particularly comfortable for me. I like to go to places like Escalante, where I head out in my 4-wheel drive with my artist friends and we never see another soul. But I can get along in most any situations if I can find a definite purpose, and in this case, it was surreptitiously taking photos of the many faces for portrait paintings. This painting is actually from a photo from long ago. And yes, I would rather have a live model, but in the end, its all about letting go and taking liberties--the more, the better.

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Utah Sky

"Utah Sky", 8 x 10 In, Oil on Museum Board
I'm hoping to go back to Utah in April to paint again. There are so many places to go in Utah, but my favorites are the backside of Capital Reef and the Grand-Staircase Escalante. You definitely need a 4-wheel drive and a good map.

Rocks and Waves

"Rocks and Waves", 10 x 12 In, Oil on Museum Board

Sometimes I struggle with a painting. This one I did twice, thinking the second time I could resolve the problems, which mainly had to do with basic lifelessness. But the second one was just as bad. So I got mad. I took my #10 brush, loaded it up with paint that was not at all the color I had thought was the right color, just sort of random color that was on my palette mixed with other random color, and with abandon randomly painted over what was there, sort of with my eyes closed--metaphorically speaking. I let something else "decide." And it was surprisingly much better! The next day there were a couple of things I thought I would "fix", until I realized that was the whole point. This must be a metaphor for a certain attitude toward life, but I admit I can't quite make it out--how random it actually is.

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Quinault River

"Quinault River", 10 x 12 In, Oil on Museum Board
I painted this last fall with artists from Plein Air Washington on one of our trips that focused on the National Parks. Each river valley in the Olympics and Cascades is unique and this one, in August, was filled with color. I grew up hiking in the Olympic Mountains.

Please read about the Quinault Indian Nation from their own website: http://www.quinaultindiannation.com/

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White Dress

"White Dress", 14 x 10 In, Oil on Museum Board
I am fascinated by the portrait, maybe because I find it so difficult. With a landscape you can smudge around--change the design and look to harmony without having to put a structure called a nose in approximately the right place. You can make the sky bigger or move the tree to the left or the right. But maybe, in the end, it is a good strategy to think of a portrait as a landscape--just another interesting set of shapes and planes and darks and lights.

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The Columbia

"The Columbia", 10 x 12 In, Oil on Museum Board

This was another painting done near The Dalles looking down on the Columbia River last August during the Pacific Northwest Painting Competition in Hood River. I live in Western Washington, where everything is green--giant firs and cedars surround my house. But on the Eastern side of the Cascades, the beautiful warm colors of the land contrast with the blue of The Columbia.

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Golden Hills

"Golden Hills", 8 x 10 In, Oil on Museum Board
This was painted near The Dalles looking north across the Columbia River on a warm day last August during the Pacific Northwest Painting Competition in Hood River. The Columbia River is so iconic for anyone growing up in the Northwest--as very young children we learned about the "Mighty Columbia" and sang "Roll On, Columbia Roll On." Its hard to remember exactly where all the imagery comes from--the grandiosity and the mystery of such a river and it has never really occurred to me before to even ask the question. But since childhood it has included all the stories of Lewis and Clark and the Grand Coulee Dam and the Columbia Gorge and the Vantage Bridge. This is a simple painting--a sketch of a moment on the River.


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