Off the Alaska Highway

"Off the Alaska Highway", 8 x 10, Oil, NFS

Cantwell Sky

"Cantwell Sky", 8 x 10 In, Oil, 2007

A painting done years ago on a trip to visit my friend, Mary Bee Kaufman, in Cantwell, Alaska. We painted from her home in Cantwell and also took a workshop in Denali, painting from a sandbar in the middle of the Savage River. http://marybeekaufman.blogspot.com/

NFS

Alaska Sky

"Alaska Sky", 10 x 12 In, Oil on Museum Board
I've been to Alaska twice to paint with my buddy Marybee Kaufman, who lives up near Denali. Sometimes I want to remember the big landscape spaces, so I pull out my photographs.

Purchase this unframed painting.
Contact me if you would like to purchase a plein air frame.

Alaska Sky - SOLD

"Alaska Sky", 8 x 10 In, Oil on Museum Board
This is another sky painting, with a different set of colors and a different feeling of the atmosphere--and in a very wild place compared to where I live in the south part of Puget Sound. It is strange how the land has its own feeling and vocabulary.

View from Colorado Lake

8/16/10 "View from Colorado Lake", 9" x 9", Oil
This is a small painting done from my friends' property on Colorado Lake, near Cantwell, Alaska.  It was misty and rainy but still beautiful as ever.  I came home with a copy of the Kaufman's book, Untamed Alaska, and I am envious that this week Steve and Marybee are in Denali Park with photographer's permit!

I mentioned that the last day we hiked down the Savage River in the Park and hung out with a couple of Dall Sheep rams. This is a photo of the bigger ram eyeballing me--about 6-8 feet from me. I had been busy doing some drawing and suddenly he was right there in front of me! I threw down my sketch book and grabbed my camera. Marybee took this photo.

Teklanika River - NFS

8/14/10 "Teklanika River", 16" x 20", Oil  NFS
This was painted the last morning of the workshop on a sand bar of the Teklankika River where the Murie Science Center Field Camp was.  We stayed in tent cabins.  This was the only clear sky day during my time in Alaska and the wind was fierce!  You can see the white spots where I used a bungy cord to keep my panel on the easel.  One thing I loved about the workshop was that David, in a completely laid back manner, defied conventional outdoor painting wisdom.  Here are two of what we called the Molleticisms:  Just put the paint on, leave it there, and don't step back to look at what you've done--don't look at your painting when doing it.  Chase the light--you can't remember what it was like before.

Sable Pass -- NFS

8/13/10 "Sable Pass", 16 x 20, Oil  NFS
This is the second painting I did on the second day of the workshop about 40 miles into Denali Park on Sable Pass--the same area that from the safety of the bus the previous day we'd seen a mama grizzly and her two cubs browsing the berries!  For this painting, I had the opportunity of watching David start a painting--with simple flat shapes that defined the overall design, color and value.  As the plein air tradition in the lower 48 comes more out of the California Impressionists (it seems to me), the images of David's paintings are only now sinking into my brain with the possibility for more abstract design--the type of painting that I have long admired in artists such as the Group of Seven.

Valley Near Toklat -- NFS

8/12/10 "Valley Near Toklat", 16 x 20, Oil,  NFS
The only time that worked for my visit with a painting friend in Alaska was during the time she was taking a workshop from David Mollet, Chair of the Art Department at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, at a field camp in Denali National Park.  Luckily I got in from the waiting list.  David's work derives more from his study in New York than the plein air movement in the lower 48 and in fact he was not familiar with Edgar Payne and John Carlson, the current gods of outdoor painting.  There is an amazing abstract quality to David's on location paintings that I rarely see in contemporary outdoor painting.  We were working big (small to David) with 16 x 20 panels, four times bigger than my average outdoor painting size, out in Denali Park in mostly overcast, rainy and sometimes exceedingly windy conditions. I do not consider any of the paintings I did  "finished"--they are at the most 2 to 2.5 hour worth of painting time, but I do consider them experiments in painting differently.  This was the first one.

Kathryn in Denali

8/07/10 Kathryn in Denali, Photo
I'm still in Alaska and don't have my camera to take photos of paintings, so I'm posting
this photo taken by my friend Mary Bee Kaufman where we painted at Sable Pass in Denali National Park.  On this day we saw (from the bus) two mama grizzlies each with two cubs, one set sauntering down the road and voraciously eating red berries by the stream.  We also saw several Dall Sheep crossing the road, a wolf crossing the road, a fox and several caribou.  There is almost no private vehicle traffic in the park--everybody rides on buses--and animals have the right of way, so sometimes there are bus back-ups.  The weather cleared yesterday and Mt. McKinley was in full view from spots on the road.  We painted on a sand bar of the Teklanika River in the full blast of the wind near where the field camp was located.  More later!