Mt. Hood Summer

"Mt. Hood Summer", 8 x 12 In, Oil, 2021

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Utah Snow

"Utah Snow", 8 x 12 In, Oil on Museum Board

I've actually been painting a lot in the last three months, but have posted few paintings, maybe because they all feel like an experiment. Sometimes I simply can't remember how I used to do it and the most benevolent interpretation of that is that the universe is trying to tell me something.


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Burgundy Mist - SOLD

"Burgundy Mist", 8 x 12 In, Oil on Museum Board
Sometimes the scene has little color change and in the mist, little value change. So it is a challenge for me to do a painting like this. It is mostly abstract color/value shapes.

Zangle Cove Snow

"Zangle Cove Snow", 8 x 12 In, Oil on Panel
It rarely snows here, maybe once a year, and today was the day. I think it requires some kind of weather convergence--wet weather from the southwest that is usually warm with cold air from the north that is usually dry. So I couldn't resist a painting of the Cove, even without sun.

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Red Salt Shaker with Spoon - NSF

"Red Salt Shaker with Spoon", 8 x 12 In, Oil on Museum Board
One thing I find interesting about using a palette knife is that it is easier to keep values and colors more distinct from one another however close or contrasting they are. I hope I can transfer this to my use of the brush!

Dana Passage Windy Day

"Dana Passage Windy Day", 8 x 12 In, Oil on Panel
It was so beautiful today after the last few days of heavy rain, that I did a couple of warm-up paintings of the view outside my studio window. This is one of them.

A couple of people asked me about the size of the "big brush" I used for the painting yesterday. The one I used yesterday was a beat-up old thick #8 bristle. I've been watching the PKR videos and Peggi generally seems to use #4 and #6 brushes--these seem small to me but are what I've been using the last week because of the lessons. When I take a workshop from Ovanes, I use #8, #10 and #12 bristle brushes. Brushes of different brands seem to also be slightly different depending on how thick they are. But the important thing is that whether you use a smaller or bigger brush, it is loading the brush with paint that will make a difference--its just that a bigger brush forces you to load more paint (if you don't use a lot of medium). If you watch Peggi's videos, she really loads her brush. Ovanes lays out big piles of paint and he really loads the brush. There are so many variables with the question of brush size such as loading the brush, use of medium or no medium, consistency of paint, how you hold the brush--it is a huge topic and one that I am always experimenting with. I read some place that you should hold your brush in a way that feels natural. However, any different way of holding the brush will initially feel unnatural and I've found it worth exploring new ways and creating new habits. For example, I taught myself to be able to hold the brush at the very end with my thumb and first two fingers in order to make a thin line after watching Jove Wang hold his brush like that. When I first tried this, my hand was so unsteady that I was lucky if I got close to the place I wanted to paint. But with practice, now I can do it much more easily.

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Winter Light

"Winter Light", 8 x 12 In, Oil on Museum Board
This is the view I see out my studio window. It changes daily and hourly as the tide rises and falls, the clouds move across the sky, the wind changes from north to southwest and all the seasons bring different colors along with the natural life that abounds here.

I've posted now for an entire year to my daily blog, some 330 paintings! You can read my article, "Lessons from the Daily Blog," that I wrote in March 2010 about the trials of the first three months. Can I get it together to write another article? I'm thinking about it!

Thank you to all of you who have supported me during the last year. I wish you all a productive New Year! Here's to always being on the path of learning!

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Utah Horizon

"Utah Horizon", 8 x 12 In, Oil on Panel
Some subjects lend themselves to the simplest of compositions along with fast and straightforward painting. Such was this painting of the distance on a Utah backroad.

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Cliff Shadows

"Cliff Shadows", 8 x 12 In, On on Panel
As much as there are warm colors in the Utah landscape, at certain times of the day there are beautiful blues with the atmospheric perspective. This painting was an exercise in painting that perspective.

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Apples - SOLD

"Apples", 8 x 12 In, Oil 0n Panel

Apples are the simplest of fruit and what better way to express everything that we cherish about Thanksgiving than to paint a still life of apples.

Last Light Escalante - SOLD

"Last Light Escalante", 8 x 12 In, Oil on Panel
I still have a few more Utah paintings since I painted ahead for the holidays. This one is basically about color patterns. The snow is still on the ground here around Puget Sound and my cats are flummoxed by this cold white stuff--and I'm still dreaming about the warm colors of the Southwest.

Open Space Montana

"Open Space Montana", 8" x 12", Oil on Museum Board
I usually drive to Eastern Idaho by coming across I-90 to Missoula and then south to Idaho. I love the open spaces of Montana along this route. Missoula has a special meaning to those of us interested in the geology of Washington State. During the ice age, the ice from the north dammed what is known as Lake Missoula, but over time, and apparently this happened many times, the dam broke and the water from the lake flooded over the Columbia Plateau in Eastern Washington, through the Wallula Gap and out the Columbia River, filling up the Willamette Valley in the process. The scab lands of Eastern Washington were formed by these events. Dry Falls, where I painted in the spring, is a remnant of this process. If you ever fly across central/northern Washington approximately over the Grand Coulee Dam, try to get a window seat.  You can see the wave patterns on the land.

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