Dry Falls Bluffs

5/11/10 "Dry Falls Bluffs", 10" x 12", Oil
Once I am finished with an outdoor painting, I almost never change it, except for an occasional minor adjustment, because I can never recapture the immediate response to the scene in front of me in the studio. However, sometimes an outdoor painting doesn't quite work out and it is interesting to try it again in the studio--a new painting, not working on the old one. This is one of those cases.

Dry Falls Shadows

5/7/10 "Dry Falls Shadows", 8" x 10", Oil
One of the days I was in Walla Walla was rainy, so I actually painted this from a Dry Falls photo on my computer in my motel room--a first for me!  I was so paranoid I laid plastic everywhere.  The main things I like about this painting are that its not tortured--its just a lot of big paint strokes, and I like the colors.

Dry Falls Basalt

5/6/10 "Dry Falls Basalt", 8" x 10", Oil
Imagine a waterfall three and a half miles wide and 400 feet high, with flood waters from the massive Lake Missoula plunging every 50 years across an area that had been repeatedly covered with successive lava flows, in some places two miles thick, the second biggest lava field in the world now known as the Columbia Plateau.  What you see now beneath the dry head walls of the falls are big chunks of oxidized black basalt.  It is spring there now and there have been a lot of rains (it rained the day we were there after which the wind blew with substantial gusto).  So the desert floor is a dusky green.  A really beautiful area and a challenge to paint.

Lake Lenore

5/5/10 "Lake Lenore", 8" x 10", Oil
Painting out of doors after being in the studio for most of the winter is a humbling experience.  Dealing with all the gear and nature's elements as part of the outdoor painting experience is both exhilarating and sometimes a great challenge.  This was the first painting I did on the trip to Dry Falls.  Lake Lenore is part of a long string of lakes and coulee's that were created by the Missoula Floods during the ice ages.  It is a dry, rocky, windy and deserty area with a lot of sage and usually a lot of sun.  I rushed off to SE Washington at the end of the trip because my daughter had broken her foot, so I'm not sure this photo I took of the painting is very accurate.  I can see some small areas I probably would have "fixed up" and I still might when I get back, but in the spirit of posting a daily painting--here it is!

Dry Falls Cliffs - Sold

5/4/10 "Dry Falls Cliffs", 9" x 9", Oil - SOLD

This is one of the paintings from Dry Falls this past weekend.  Dry Falls is the remnant of the largest known waterfall in the world that occurred as a result of the Missoula Flood.  Click here for a complete description of this incredible geologic event.  I've actually seen the wave patterns on the land of Eastern Washington from 30,000 feet above in an airplane.  The rock is a kind of blackish basalt and hard to paint as it is not luminous, but the land is beautiful and the winds over the weekend were fierce.