Lisa McShane Art

Thomas Cole. Study for Catskill Creek. Oil on Wood. 1844/45. National Gallery of Art. Avalon Fund. There's a wonderful permanent installation in the east wing at the National Gallery of Art in DC, Small French paintings. But there are also a few gems by American painters such as Church and Cole. This one is really special.

Whistler. Nocturne in Blue and Gold: Valparaiso. 1867/74.  Freer Gallery. When you live on the west coast, far from the world's great museums, you end up learning a lot about art from books. For instance, Whistler. While I'd probably seen paintings by him in museums in years past I'd only become truly interested in his work in the past two years.  Last week I had the opportunity to take a trip to Washington DC and spend several days in the museums. The first one we went to was the Freer Gallery to see the Whistlers. In person, his nocturnes were not what I expected them to be. They were more layered, more painterly on the surface than I'd read. So below are closeups shots of the above painting. 

Red Mountain Altar. ©2010 Lisa McShane. Oil on Linen Panel. 9" x 12" Another view of above. Red Mountain and Rattlesnake Mountain along the Yakima River in eastern Washington is one of my favorite subjects and I especially like it in this wonderful altarpiece frame from Mountains Edge Frames in Texas. I created this special piece for the December show at Smith & Vallee Gallery, opening tomorrow in Edison, Washington - objectifications 3. 

Clouds Above the Snake . Oil on Linen Panel. 12" x 12". Crab Creek . Oil on Linen Panel. 9" x 12". Both Clouds Above the Snake and Crab Creek are on display and for sale at the upcoming show Small Treasures at The Little Gallery in downtown Bellingham. The Little Gallery is a lovely small space at 1220 Bay Street that's new to the Bellingham art scene this year. It's owned and operated by an exceptional local artist, Lanny Little . I'm very fond of the space for two reasons: first, it was the site of my very first show a year ago - Babes and Byways, held by fifth on sixth (thank you Marisa Papetti!) and second, it was one of the offices we rented for a campaign in 2008.

River Triptych . Oil on Linen Panels. 9" x 21". This is a small triptych I painted for a holiday show at the Roby King Galleries. The opening of the show is this Friday so if you're in the Bainbridge/Seattle area - head on over! What's that you ask? Where did I get that beautiful frame? It's made to order by Mountain Edge Frames, click here for their website .  They make amazing frames. I have another one I love even more that I'll share with you later this week.

Slice of Yakima — Landscape painting bound for US embassy | Yakima Herald-Republic We stopped at a 7/11 in Yakima today to pick up several copies of the newspaper - my painting is front page, below the fold. It reproduces well in newsprint! Love it. One correction - I didn't grow up on the family wheat farm. My dad was in the Air Force, I lived in many places. But it's a great article! Thank you Ross Courtney and the Yakima Herald!

River of Light . ©2010 Lisa McShane. 16" x 20". Oil on Linen Panel. Another painting of the Skagit River - this one is on display at the Allied Arts exhibit in Bellingham through this Saturday.

Sun Sets on the Horse Heaven Hills . Oil on Linen. 20" x 36". Last month I wrote about the Art in Embassies program. Well the curator selected  Sun Sets on the Horse Heaven Hills  and it is now on its way to Sana'a, Yemen.  This painting is based on a sunset visit to the top of the Horse Heaven Hills this August.  While the photo in the link is of Rattlesnake Mountain to the north, the picture with my husband and dog is the view I painted. It looks south toward the Columbia River and from here the Horse Heaven Hills are a long, slow slope to the gorge. Atelier 4 is the art shipper who came to take my painting. Fascinating! It took them just a few minutes to wrap it up. They have been on the road for 7 weeks picking up and delivering art. You can see all the wrapped paintings in the back of their truck, below. Staff with Atelier 4 packing my painting in the living room. My painting is loaded in  the truck. But check out all the other paintings in the...

Palouse Falls . ©2010 Lisa McShane. Oil on Canvas. 36" x 36". This one is a favorite of mine. Palouse Falls is in a remote area of southeast Washington. It's not a place you accidentally stumble upon. People go there intentionally. I was there in August intending to see the falls with the idea of painting. It was everything I'd hoped and more. But the high winds kept me from setting up my easel there that day - instead I chose a somewhat less windy and barren field 20 miles farther down the road near Starbuck. For years I've been looking at paintings of Kaaterskill Falls. It's in New York and the Hudson River painters used it often as a subject. Here's Thomas Cole's wonderful version . And one of my favorite contemporary painters, Stephen Hannock, tackled the subject again with an amazing result. Click here to see a previous blog post on Hannock's  ' Kaaterskill Falls for Frank Moore and Dan Hodermarsky (Mass MoCA#11)', 2005.  Bu...

Quiet Valley. ©2010 Lisa McShane. Oil on Linen. 12 x 20. This is just framed and ready for the show Lay of the Land , at Allied Arts in Bellingham this Friday. The opening party is 6 - 10. This painting is of an area above the Snake River canyon in southeast Washington and it's a lonely, melancholy area but a place of sweeping beauty. There are beautiful abandoned houses and historic barns falling into ruin. Side valleys leading to the Snake reminded me of the valleys in Donegal in northwest Ireland. It's a dryland wheat area but it's unusual - they don't plow the fallow fields. I'm used to seeing a patchwork of brown and gold, fallow fields and this year's crop. But high above the Snake the fallow fields aren't plowed and are silver in the sun. It's a patchwork of silver and gold.

Something came up recently and I've been thinking about it: this notion of discipline and the value of either taking time off after you produce a body of work or pushing on, and leveraging that energy into the next body of work. I believe - strongly - in work. I think the cultural myth of artist as dilettante is the opposite of what's required to produce good work. I think good work comes when you paint every day. It's not glamorous or exciting. It's lonely. Sometimes it's tedious, sometimes it's amazing but just like any work, it happens daily. Here's a great article, one of my favorites, because it discusses Chris Ofili and a number of other well-known artists in the context of their discipline. They all go to their studios and paint every day. It's what works. Click here to read  Wake Up. Wash Face. Do Routine. Now Paint . by Michael Kimmelman, May 5, 2005, New York Times.

Mt. Baker from Margaret's. ©2010 Lisa McShane. Oil on Linen Panel. 9" x 12". Mt. Baker from Margaret's will be in Art + All That Jazz , a benefit for Whatcom Museum. It's one night only: Friday, November 12 from 6-9 pm. If you're in Bellingham, please come! There will be amazing art for purchase. This is a plein air painting - different from my studio work. This was painted in Skagit Valley looking at Mt. Baker to the northeast on a sunny afternoon. When you watch Mt. Baker in the light of the Skagit Valley, it changes color about every 5 minutes.

Rattlesnake Mountain from Mesa. ©2010 Lisa McShane. Oil on Canvas. 24" x 44". Working to capture that warm, late evening sun in eastern Washington. Rattlesnake Mountain is the prominent landscape feature for 60 miles or so in every direction and I've been painting it from all angles. This painting, Dusk Falls on Rattlesnake and Red , is from the other side.

Winter Wheat on the Plateau . ©2010 Lisa McShane. Oil on Linen Panel. 24" x 36".  This is the land my great-grandparents settled almost 100 years ago. My grandparents farmed the land, my mother and her 4 siblings grew up there, my uncle Dale farmed the land for decades and today my cousin Dan and his wife live there and harvest the wheat. In 2005 WSU released a new strain of wheat named after my uncles: Bauermeister Hard Red Winter Wheat . This is an arid land. It's not irrigated and farmers here rely on winter and spring rains for winter wheat to grow. This painting is at harvest when the wheat is absolutely ripe and golden yellow. In the distance you can see the canyons and coulees cutting through the land. If you look close you can see the neighbor's farmhouse. The farms here are very large and the homes have always seemed like islands in a sea of wheat. This August we had a family reunion at the farm and on the way there my husband and I had a flat tire alo...

Five Mile Road to the Blues . ©2010 Lisa McShane. Oil on Linen. 24" x 24".  This is a painting that I started during the studio tour simply so that I could show people an underpainting. It moved much more quickly than most paintings, possibly because I'd been drawing this composition for a couple of months in thumbnails, not quite settling on the finished size.

Sentinel Gap. ©2010 Lisa McShane. Oil on Linen. 24" x 36". This is Sentinel Gap, a break in the Saddle Mountains where the Columbia River punched it's way through during an ice age flood. The power of water. I got an email last week that was such fun: the Art in the Embassies program would like one or two of my paintings for the Yemen Embassy. The new Ambassador was recently assigned and the curator at the State Department is putting together an exhibit of paintings that will be in Yemen for the Ambassador's Tour of Duty. I'm thrilled to be part of this and love that people in another part of the world will see my landscapes. They pull art from museums, galleries and artists for these unique exhibits to share American art with the world and I'm honored to participate. I'm not sure what landscapes will be heading to Yemen but the curator was interested in Sentinel Gap. I have several larger paintings of western landscapes in progress and nearly com...

River of Gold. ©2010 Lisa McShane. 12" x 20". Oil on Linen Panel. I've been working on about 10 paintings for more than a month now, painting, glazing, scumbling, day after day. Yesterday 5 of them were complete. When it rains it pours. This one was started in August after seeing the Skagit River turn to liquid gold as the sun set behind it. You can see another version, Summer Night, Skagit River, here . This is a painting that I often talked with studio visitors about during the recent studio tour. It's striking and people were drawn to it but there was something about it that was missing for me. This past week I made the darks darker, glazed the bottom of the river in a red/orange/purple, and added sunlight in a few more places. Now it works.

Poplars Above the Snake. ©2010 Lisa McShane. Oil on Linen Panel.  16x20". 2015 Update One of the questions that came up several times during the Studio Tour was that of framing. - Do I frame my own paintings? - Where do I get my frames? - Why do I use black frames? - Where did I get that sweet gold frame? Yes, I frame my own paintings. Yes, I think artists should frame their paintings as a way of reducing costs and making a living at their profession. Yes, I think buyers of art should take their work to a local frame shop for framing. It took me awhile to figure out how to frame my work. First, I decided to make my own frames. After all, I was a sculpture major and I've got skills! I bought stock lumber (1 x 3's) and painted it black to make simple butt frames. It looked all right, but it doesn't provide the same level of protection because the frame is attached directly to the side of the stretcher bars. Over time, that pulls on the canvas. Ideally, th...

Surfaces, brushes, paints and mediums. Those are the materials of an oil painter. Each of those elements are important to the finished product. One of the very best painting surfaces is an oil or alkyd primed linen mounted to a panel. For my larger paintings I stretch linen or canvas over wood bars, size the fabric and then prime the surface with an oil primer. But for smaller paintings I prefer the linen panels for several reasons: Less fragile. When you're storing or moving paintings, this is important. Easy to handle. A nice stable surface with no movement. There is no flex when you paint on it and later, that makes them more archival. You can achieve a gorgeous surface effect. You have more frames to choose from (and yes, panels must be framed!) Linen panels seem complicated to make but they're not. It's easier than stretching canvas or linen and a much higher quality surface than buying stretched canvas. And the beauty of making your own panels is that once you...

Beautiful New Frames from Mountains Edge Frames - www.mountainsedgeframes.com! Whoa! Stop the presses! My gorgeous new frames from Mountains Edge Frames arrived today. I tore into the box, framed my paintings and hung them on the wall. It's the top image - these are my three latest paintings. I can't wait for people to see these.

Studio Wall Studio Wall w/ small paintings This Saturday and Sunday, 11 to 5, my studio will be open for the Whatcom Artists' Studio Tour! I hope you stop by. I have a number of new paintings that I'll be hanging this afternoon and I will be doing a painting demo most of the time. Tomorrow my friend Isabel Vanderslice will be assisting me. We hope someone buys a painting with a charge card so that we can use my new iPhone app to charge it!

Sam checking out the changes outside my studio Autumn has arrived in northwest Washington: it's cold, windy and wet. So this morning my husband, the Urban Tomato Farmer, harvested his crop. He likes to hang it upside down outside my studio. Actually, he likes to hang his crop upside down INSIDE my studio but...nope. This will be a shortlived curtain: Whatcom Artists' Studio Tour is October 2nd and I think it may not work to have people push through tomato vines to see my paintings!

Summer Night, Skagit River. Oil on Linen Panel. 12" x 20" This summer I drove north through Skagit County a number of times. That's common. It's between me and eastern Washington, the Columbia River and Seattle. For some reason I kept making that drive right when the sun was setting over the river, turning it to gold. One time I was driving with my son and apologized, because I had to get off at the next exit to watch the river. His reply? Said with a smile: Sure, I thought you'd want to stop. This is called Summer Night, Skagit River but I think of it as 'After Paris, Skagit River' because it was what I learned from Deborah Paris that enabled me to capture what I saw.

Requiem for a Firefighter. ©2010 Lisa McShane. Oil on Canvas. 22" x 40". This June my youngest cousin died while fighting a fire near Saddle Mountain National Wildlife Refuge in Eastern Washington. We went to his memorial service and it was one of those times in life when things come into sharp focus. We're a big family but all of my cousins were there; so glad to see each other. 300 or so neighbors from this very rural area were there to celebrate his life. He'd lived a full and vibrant life. He was one of those kids who was always in trouble. I think he totaled two family vehicles before he got his driver's license. But he grew up to own a trucking company, to serve as Fire Chief and to be loved by many, many people. Driving back to my mother-in-law's home that evening I was struck - as I often am in Eastern Washington - by the beauty of the area and the saturated light.

Still Water. ©2010 Lisa McShane. Oil on Linen Panel. 9x12. I have great news: the Roby/King Galleries on Bainbridge will be representing my work in that area. I'm thrilled to be working with Wes and Andrea and pleased to join their gallery. If you're in Seattle or Bainbridge, please stop by the gallery in downtown Bainbridge and see my paintings! Among them is Still Water. This is a favorite of mine and one that previously was not available for sale.

Valley by Waitsburg. ©2010 Lisa McShane. Oil on Linen Panel. 12 x 20. What a great summer! Short and the coldest on record up here in Washington State since 1980 but still, I had a number of lovely trips to Eastern Washington for painting. I'm very excited about what I'm working on right now: Palouse Falls, Kittitas Hay Fields, wheat fields and the Skagit River.

Dan and Sam the dog setting up our picnic View of Rattlesnake Mountain and Red Mountain from the top of the Horse Heaven Hills We spent a few days over in Walla Walla and Kennewick this last week and the weather was stunning. Friday night we drove up as far as our car could safely go on McBee Road in the Horse Heaven Hills for a sunset picnic. We then walked up to the top.  Fortunately a breeze picked up because a gazillion little winged ants had just hatched out and completely covered us with each step! It was looking like one of those romantic ideas gone wrong. But up at the top it was lovely. You can see the view to the north of Rattlesnake Mountain to the left and Red Mountain to the right. Behind us the high plateau of the Horse Heaven Hills sloped to the Columbia River. To the west, we could see Mt. Adams and Mt. Rainier. We had wine, cheese, bread, Sam rolled around and covered herself with dirt and sticks and the sunset was lovely.  The Horse Heaven Hills is ...

Work in Progress: Above Dixie. Oil on Linen. 30 x 36. This is a painting I've been working on since June. In addition to the piece getting heavier each day, I've changed the sloped field from green to yellow, changed the sky several times and slowly increased the volume of leaves on the painting. It's still not done but it's getting there. And since my studio is full of partly done large paintings, and a commission that I've diligently worked on, I thought it was past time I share something with you. Here's the earlier unfinished version of this still unfinished painting. If you have thoughts for me, do share!

Brown Turkey Figs. Oil on Linen. 4 x 6. SOLD I went to the food coop on Saturday to pick up some bread and coffee and they had figs. So I painted them,  then served them for dessert.

August Peaches. Oil on Linen. 6 x 8. This week has been fun because my son has been painting with me in my studio! He asked me to teach him to paint, as his drawings have always been prolific and exceptional, and he's considering an application to art school. We decided to try a still life first so we went to the store to find beautiful fruit. We brought back peaches and plums and set up a few peaches in the studio. I'd love to show you his work in progress, as it's really good, but he asked me to wait until its finished. Even though he'll never in a million years look at his mother's blog, I'll wait. But I do think it's brilliant.

Slough. 9x12. Oil on Linen Panel. Last Friday I went out painting with Karen Epperson, who I met in the workshop I took in July. We had a lot of fun painting from one of the docks in La Conner. The downside of painting on a dock? Things can slip through the slats to the slough below. As I immediately discovered, the helpful gray plastic viewfinder for plein air painting fits between the boards. Since we were next to downtown La Conner our easels added to the ambience but it did remind me of this hilarious tshirt,   'Critic Be Gone .

Mill Creek Field. Oil on Linen Panel. 9x12. This is the painting from my plein air session along Mill Creek Road near Walla Walla last week. What was most instructive to me about this session was watching the light change in the furrows in the field. Depending on where the sun is, and the angle of the shadow, the furrow can be the brightest point of the landscape, after the sky. 

Beyond Dixie. Oil on Hand Primed Linen. 30" x 36". This is nearly finished. It's a painting I've been working on for a couple of months now in the studio. While I had confidence in the overall composition of the painting, I've strugged with details: leaves, field. I'd welcome ideas on what's working and what's not. I've looked at it for awhile now and it's getting harder to see it with fresh eyes. This is located in the foothills of the Blue Mountains, past what was once the town of Dixie. Today there's just a small general store where you can get a cold drink on a hot day of painting.

Near Starbuck.  Back from 3 days of meandering around southeast Washington State, painting and taking photographs. The top one looks very much like my larger paintings, only with my easel standing in the painting. Doesn't it look lovely? It was hot and so windy that I had to tie my palette down with a bungie cord. My easel in a field of chickpeas, Mill Creek Valley, the Palouse This was this morning, just outside of Walla Walla in a gorgeous spot. I painted a wheat field while standing on little chick pea plants. They popped when I walked! The backstory: Sunday we had a family gathering at my cousin's wheat farm outside of Connell. I was eager to go, to see my cousins and to see the light and the wheat fields. Since it's harvest, the light in the area literally glows from the yellow of the fields. My husband, a geologist, and I planned to paint, see geology and camp. Fun! But there was a slight glitch. Well two. First, we took a remote gravel road on our way to t...

Mt. Baker from Margaret's. 9x12. Oil on Panel. Lisa McShane On Monday and Wednesday afternoons we painted at Margaret's house, near Conway. There were a number of great views and I painted northeast, towards Mt. Baker. I especially like the gap between the trees on the Skagit dike. Through that gap you can see the layers of the foothills. Skagit Fields and Poplar. 6x8. Oil on Panel. Lisa McShane. Friday afternoon we painted at Terra Bella gardens. We were there painting several times and the afternoons were challenging. It was sunny and the views there were towards the south or west. I ended up both afternoons painting the view west simply because I could park myself under birch trees in the shade. This one, above, was an assignment to paint using complementary colors. I toned the canvas pink, my underpainting was purple and I added yellow. Then green to set it off. Poplar in Skagit. 6x8. Oil on Panel. Lisa McShane. This painting was an assignment to use analogous c...