1,000 Paintings

Palouse Road

2012-02-02T10:44:00.000-08:00

I always have a painting of a road in progress in my studio. Now that this one is done, I'll be starting another one soon.

This is the Palouse, an area of rolling hills in southeastern Washington. My cousin's wheat farm in Connell is on the very edge of the Palouse; the rolling hills are at their most distinct just north of Walla Walla. The soils are very productive for wheat and wine grapes and the patterns those crops create on the landscape add to the feeling that the entire world is rolling.

Winter

2012-01-30T11:49:00.000-08:00

When I drive east in the winter across the Yakima Valley the sun sets early on frozen fields. It's not warm out but the sky is often glorious to the west.

Paintings of Clouds

2012-01-14T14:45:00.000-08:00

Last year I ran across a painting called 'Cumulus' by a 19th century Russian painter named Fyodor Vasilyev. I loved it and decided to copy it. That's harder than it sounds. I started this painting in April, while at a workshop at Deborah Paris' studio, and signed it today. While working on it I narrowed the cloud, widened it, created a foreground, painted the foreground out, darkened, lightened and darkened the sky.

Winter in Northwest Washington

2011-12-28T13:49:00.000-08:00

As the new year comes to a close the drizzle coats my skylights and I'm focused on finishing paintings of winter in the Northwest.

This is what I often see to the west when I head home - the sun slipping under the clouds just beyond Blanchard Mountain, with the oyster gray clouds piling up overhead. Blanchard Mountain was an area I worked to protect for a number of years and it holds great meaning to me.

More from the Milwaukee Art Museum

2011-12-09T14:19:00.000-08:00

The Milwaukee Art Museum has a really interesting contemporary exhibit and then European art on their main floor. We went up to the second floor where there was more interesting (and some ordinary) modern art and folk art. My son checked out the basement and reported that there was nothing to see there. Since I hadn't seen any 19th century American art in the museum I asked him if there was anything that I would like downstairs. "Maybe..."

In addition to the Inness there was this by Frederic Church. I really like the composition and color of this one.

A Passing Shower. Frederic Edwin Church. 1860. Oil on canvas.

But one of my favorite pieces in the museum was on the main floor. I went back 3 times to look again:

Madonna and Child. Nardo di Cione. ca. 1350. Tempera and gold leaf on panel.

Gorgeous saturated colors, lovely skin, all in remarkable condition. It takes my breath away.

Inness at the Milwaukee Art Museum

2011-12-07T15:00:00.000-08:00

Sunset in Georgia. George Inness. 1890. Oil on canvas board.

Thanksgiving weekend my husband and I visited the Milwaukee Art Museum and tucked away on the 1st floor were 3 Inness paintings. A very nice collection. For those of us concerned with stray bristles, bits of our wool sweaters or pet hair in the paint - Inness' later paintings are full of that texture.

Closeup of Sunset in Georgia, Inness.

Autumn by the Sea. George Inness. 1875. Oil on Canvas.

Close up of Autumn by the Sea, George Inness.

Closeup of Autumn by the Sea, George Inness.

Sunrise, also known as Sunset and The Rising of the Moon, 1888. George Inness. Oil on Canvas.

Closeup of Sunrise, also known as Sunset and The Rising of the Moon, 1888. George Inness. Oil on Canvas.

Dryland Wheat

2011-12-06T15:11:00.000-08:00

This small piece is the result of my experiments with painting wheat.

This is the plateau that my great grandparents settled. It's always struck me as a strange place to settle. Around the time they moved there, Washington was a new state and this was a rocky, lawless area. The land was carved out by massive floods and where they live, water is a long way below the ground. Each farm is huge and is spread out along the tops of plateaus, separated by coulees. There are basalt outcrops in the coulees and rattlesnakes. It's hard to picture arriving in a wagon and thinking, "Yes, this looks like home."

But it's the edge of the Palouse and according to my husband (a geologist) the soil is windblown loess (that's a good thing.)

Now I think it's stunning.

Art Opening this Friday on Bainbridge

2011-12-01T14:51:00.000-08:00

This Friday, 6-8pm, is the opening of Invitational Small Works Exhibit at Roby King Galleries on Bainbridge. If you're in the area I hope you'll stop by!

Study for Wheat 1 is one of several small studies I spent months with over the spring, summer and into September. I paint a great many paintings of fields, especially wheat fields, and have struggled with them. Deborah Paris made some suggestions last spring and I diligently went to work trying them out. Study for Wheat 1 was a back and forth process of opaque paint with thin, transparent paint glazed over and wiped off.

My favorite art inventory system

2011-10-13T10:08:00.000-07:00

Over the past couple of years I've looked at and played with a lot of computer programs for keeping track of artwork.

Here are past blog posts on the subject:
Art Inventory Systems, here's what I've tried
and then this
Update on Art Inventory Systems

Alyson Stanfield has also written about this riveting subject on her great blog here.

I come to these systems with built-in bias. I prefer a FileMaker based system to an Access based system because I think it's a more powerful and smoother software to use. I'd worked for a nonprofit that used Filemaker and it's what I know. I also prefer a system without goofy graphics. I'm an artist. I care how things look. If I open up software every couple of days I would like it to be clean and simple and not ugly.

But computers evolve and the next direction is to the cloud. That is a system where software doesn't live on your computer but you access it via the internet. I operate on 3 devices: my iMac in my office, a little Macbook Air for travel (and I do move around a lot) and my iPhone. My art files are now in Dropbox so I can get access to them wherever I am. But my current art inventory system is software based, and on my iMac so unfortunately if I'm elsewhere I can't open it up.

This past month I've been trying out a new art inventory system: The Artwork Archive. For full disclosure, the developer contacted me and asked me to try it out. He was kind enough to give me a year for free so that I could really experiment. And because I have lots of opinions about things I sent him suggestions.

All the art inventory programs allow you to put images in and add prices and titles and information. I think nearly all track the provenance of the piece. But after that there's some fall-off. I think systems should track what you have in each gallery so you can pull that list up with a click - but not all of them do a good job at that. Most seem to do better at tracking shows that you put together, which is helpful when you do a lot of shows and fairs. Less helpful when your work is primarily in galleries.

Of the software I've seen I prefer eArtist, which I've been using (even though it doesn't have a good gallery inventory system), and GYST, because they seem to work hard at keeping it up to date.

But software is old school and I'm switching to the cloud. Over the next month I'll migrate my inventory to The Artwork Archive.

The Artwork Archive
Here's a snapshot of my experiment with The Artwork Archive. I entered paintings that were going to my last show to see how it worked and if it could export the kinds of lists I want. It did great. Below is an image of my inventory page so you can see how it looks:

It also generates a great consignment report for galleries or shows (a show is called a gallery, FYI, it worked fine.) It's easy to return work that was in the gallery to your inventory. It seems to do a good job at tracking contacts and sales. And a fun feature is 'reports'. Similar to your home financial system, it generates bar charts and pie charts of your inventory, sales, location and value. Cool.

Spring on Rattlesnake Ridge

2011-10-12T09:54:00.000-07:00

Spring on Rattlesnake Ridge. Oil on Linen. 22 x 36.

I make no apologies: I am painting and repainting Rattlesnake Ridge. Different seasons, different vantage points.

This is spring, early morning, very clear air. I was there in May and found a great dead end where I could sit and sketch and take notes. I'd been seeking a place where I could see the river (that's the Yakima River) and some of the eroded basalts with the fields above (wine grapes and fruit trees) and a straight-on view of Rattlesnake.

Portland Ship Yards, Night

2011-09-18T18:11:00.000-07:00

Last month I was in Portland and spent a wonderful evening with my brother-in-law and his family. After dinner we watched the moon set from the Willamette Bluffs overlooking the ship yards. It was a beautiful night.

The Road East

2011-09-16T11:02:00.000-07:00

Mid-August our youngest son left for college in Wisconsin and my husband drove him there so that he could take his bike and his guitar and amps. My husband is a geologist and he maintains a fascinating blog called Reading the Washington Landscape. (Note to artists: you don't want to know how many visitors a geology blog receives relative to one of ours.) Along the way he sent me a photo of the road, the hills and a cloud. That inspired this painting.

So this is the road heading east, to where my children live.

The River

2011-09-14T10:56:00.000-07:00

This is where the John Day River meets the Columbia along the gorge.

Last year I purchased a book of historic photos of the Columbia and I refer to it when I paint the river paintings. The book is "River of Memory, the Everlasting Columbia" by William Layman. The photos are black and white and show the river before the dams.

This would have been rapids. According to Layman, the rocks were removed by the Army Corps starting in the 19th century to allow for easier barge transport.

River Bend + Show Announcement

2011-09-11T20:39:00.000-07:00

I've got a show coming up in two weeks so I've been hard at work finishing paintings.

This is a bend in the Columbia River and is one of several river paintings that I've been working on in preparation for a larger series. I'm practicing. I've also been experimenting with more texture and have added an impasto medium from Natural Pigments to my palette.

The show:
September 24th & 25th
at Bookwalter Winery
for their annual Catch the Crush celebration

I'm looking forward to it!

Cornwall Beach

2011-08-22T16:04:00.000-07:00

Cornwall Beach. Oil on Linen. 9" x 12".

This is very near my house, just a walk through downtown Bellingham on Cornwall Avenue to the waterfront. There's a pile of riprap that makes for a perfect place for people who know their way around to sit and watch the sunset.

The clouds lately have been fantastic.

Dryland Rain

2011-07-19T10:23:00.000-07:00

Paintings seem to arrive as a combination of experiences. This one is a good example of that.

A friend of mine moved into a new house last year and hung a large photograph in his entry. It's a black and white landscape with a low horizon, a highway and clouds. It's a vertical image and because I love road images, I love to look at it.

Last last winter I was driving across eastern Washington with another friend and she asked 'do you ever paint vertical landscapes?' I said rarely and a minute later we were driving towards a virga rain cloud - desert rain where it evaporates before it hits the ground. I thought of my friend's photograph of the road and clouds. Vanessa turned the camera sideways and started snapping vertical pictures.

Then later I was working on this painting and visited the Amon Carter Museum in Forth Worth Texas with Deborah Paris, Sara Lubinski and others to see the exhibit The Hudson River School: Nature and the American Vision. We saw the painting 'Marshfield Meadows, Massachusetts', by Martin Johnson Heade. Deborah suggested that I bring the rain to the ground in my painting.

Later, I removed clouds, added clouds, changed the rain. Each painting is a composite of so many things that we see, hear and experience.

Skagit River Sunset

2011-05-31T10:26:00.000-07:00

The sun setting over a bend in the Skagit River. This is a painting that I started last September and finished last week. There are many layers and I experimented with reflection, light and composition.

Along the Ridge at Dusk

2011-05-21T13:49:00.000-07:00

I finished this painting today at noon, after working on it nearly every day for about 3 months. For a time I was posting daily images of it on Facebook, which you can see here, and I wrote about it on my blog here and here.

After awhile I stopped posting the images daily for a few reasons. It seemed that the changes were too subtle to be really interesting and for most, they might be wondering why I was posting the same exact painting every day. And then at one point I needed to make corrections and lighten up and change an area and that makes the painting temporarily seriously ugly. I didn't want to alarm friends who might wonder why I was ruining my painting.

While this was in progress I went back to sketch Rattlesnake Mountain and when I was in the studio the next day, quickly added what I needed to make the mid-ground work for me.

Perigee Moon

2011-05-15T19:14:00.000-07:00

The day we had the super moon this March it was oddly clear in Bellingham. I picked up another artist, Donna Auer, well before dawn and we drove to Lake Samish to watch the moon set and the sun rise.

We chased the moon a bit as we struggled to find the right viewing spot what with trees and houses blocking our view. We stopped at one point on a dead end road and saw the moon high through the branches. Lovely. I've placed it lower but remember well how it looked.

Remington and his amazing nocturnes. Wow.

2011-05-07T14:37:00.000-07:00

I'd seen a few of Remington's paintings over the years that pretty much knocked my socks off. Yet I'm surprised with each one I see because I think of him - still - as an illustrator. The last few paintings I saw changed that. I now see him in a whole new light. Night.

Two weeks ago I visited the Gilcrease museum in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Great paintings there by artists I was unfamiliar with, like William Jacob Hays and his painting Herd of Buffalo on the Bed of the River Missouri. Unfortunately they don't allow photographs and they sell very few reproductions in their gift shop. This one isn't on their website, nor is their fine Remington nocturne online. I've got nothing to show you. But there was a Remington Nocturne and it was amazing.

Then the Amon Carter Museum in Fort Worth which, happily, allows visitors to take photographs of their permanent collection. After all, why the heck wouldn't a museum allow that? So sensible. Here's their Remington with closeups:

Frederic Remington, The Grass Fire (Backfiring), 1908, Amon Carter Museum of Art, Fort Worth Texas.

The National Gallery of Art has some very good Remingtons and they've put together this great website with his nocturnes and other paintings. Click here for that.

3 fine painters in my corner of the world

2011-05-06T14:26:00.000-07:00

There are some wonderfully fine and kind painters up here in the NW corner of the US. All of us braving the months of drizzle for the long summer days.

David Ridgeway is new to the blogging world but definitely not new to painting. I had the opportunity to visit his home and studio on a bright snowy day in December. Click here to see his new blog and a post with a great painting of Orcas Island.

John Stinson paints NW Washington and the Palouse (yes! like I do!) but with a somewhat different approach. I love his work. The first time I saw one of his paintings it was of a field near Coupeville Washington. I'd tried (failed) to capture the same scene a few months prior. He'd really nailed it. Here's his blog.

And Kat Schneider. Lovely, lovely abstracts. Hilarious sense of humor. Here.

Kansas City has a great museum and more!

2011-05-05T13:40:00.000-07:00

As part of my extensive tour of museums and BBQ joints in the south, I also visited Kansas City. I'm pleased to report that they have a really fine museum: the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.

The museum is free to visit, has a wonderful collection of American art to study and allows you to take photographs. In fact, one of the museum guards had a nice discussion with me about how close I should be from the surface of the painting for my photographs. She approached me and said that she understood what I was doing but perhaps they'd be more comfortable if I was about 2 inches farther back. Can do, very nice.

The collection included a very good Inness, a lovely small Homer and a Sargent. There were many others but those were my top favorites.

George Inness, Old Farm - Montclair, 1893. Oil on Plywood.
This was one of Inness' last paintings as he died in 1894.
Note the wonderfully layered textures.

George Inness, Old Farm - Montclair, 1893, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.

Below: Winslow Homer, Gloucester Harbor, 1873

Winslow Homer, Gloucester Harbor, 1873, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.

Below: John Singer Sargent, Fisherwomen Returning, ca. 1877.
Sargent was 21 when he painted this in 1877.

John Singer Sargent, Fisherwomen Returning, ca. 1877, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art.

And a final note on Kansas City: don't miss Oklahoma Joe's for the best BBQ burnt ends I've ever had. And you might want to stop by Creative Coldsnow art supply store to stock up on all those things you need.

Thomas Moran at the Amon Carter

2011-05-04T13:21:00.000-07:00

Thomas Moran, Cliffs of the Green River, Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth Texas

First, thank you Amon Carter Museum for allowing people to take photos of the paintings in your permanent collection! Artists learn from studying artists and without the freedom to take a photo to look at later, again and again, it is difficult to study paintings.

For me it's important to look closely at the surfaces to see the hand of the artist. For instance, here are three closeups of the Moran painting. With the top photo I'm interested in his trees and the edges of the hill and sky.

Beautiful clouds here and nice darks. The warmth and dark values in the foreground are interesting to see.

But this closeup is what I'd wanted to really nail: the reflections in the water in the lower left of the painting. Thinly painted; very nice.

Printmaking with Deborah Paris

2011-05-03T10:00:00.000-07:00

Deborah's printing press

Etching lesson

Deborah's Prints

I have wanted to learn how to make prints for about 25 years. I longed to take printmaking in art school but I was a double major in metal sculpture and oil painting and loved my art history and drawing classes so there just wasn't time.

I love the line and the inky blacks. Fortunately Deborah has a printing press and taught 5 of us how to etch one afternoon. She gave each of us a small zinc plate, some etching tools and we furiously worked to create small prints. Then we heated the plates, rubbed ink on and rubbed it off and each of us made a print.

Mine wasn't good but I absolutely loved the process and can't wait to do it again!

Amon Carter Museum & the Heade painting

2011-05-02T19:12:00.000-07:00

On Friday our workshop group hit the road and went to the exhibit, The Hudson River School, Nature and the American Vision, at the Amon Carter Museum of American Art in Fort Worth Texas. It was about a 3 hour drive from Deborah Paris' home and studio in Clarksville, Texas.

The Hudson River school exhibit was very good and I especially liked the work of William Hazeltine. Because it was a traveling exhibit, we weren't allowed to take photographs.

However the museum's permanent collection is terrific and I took photos, including closeups of several key paintings.

Here is Martin Johnson Heade, Marshfield Meadows, Massachusetts, ca. 1866-76.

And here are the closeups I took because I'm working on a painting with rain:

Tomorrow: more paintings

Deborah Paris at her easel

2011-05-02T18:51:00.000-07:00

Deborah Paris at her easel, April 2011.

One of the very best things about Deborah's workshop is the opportunity to see an artist at work. She uses her own paintings to demonstrate technique and talk through ideas for us. In several years in art school I don't believe I ever saw one of teachers painting. I took one other workshop and again, didn't really see the teacher paint (other than on students' work...and that's just not the same thing.)

Because Deborah teaches an approach to painting that's technically challenging - indirect painting - she spends time each day demonstrating for us. She also often simply works in the studio while we're painting in the afternoon. And that's really fun too. So here she is at the easel.

Deborah Paris' palette, April 2011

And here is Deborah doing a paint mixing demo on her palette. That's seriously fun to watch and the discussion about transparent, semi-transparent and opaque is interesting.

Workshop in Texas

2011-04-30T21:47:00.000-07:00

I just finished an 8 day workshop in Clarksville, Texas with artist Deborah Paris. It was my second Texas workshop with Deborah and in some ways, even better than last year's.

Writing up a workshop is a challenge. First, there's simply no time while you're in the thick of things. You paint all day, enjoy your meals with the other artists and then some of us paint again until bedtime. I had good intentions of taking time to write, reflect and take long walks. That didn't happen. I painted a lot. At this workshop, when I had a spare moment I looked through Deborah's collection of art books. She's got a great library. So I'll take this piece by piece and start by setting the stage.

Here we are: the 2011 Texas Workshop group with Deborah Paris. The only person missing is Deborah's husband Steve Whalen. He is a remarkable cook, kept us all well fed and - bonus - is fun to hang out with.

Left to right: Deborah Paris, Phoebe Chidress, me, Sara Lubinski, Rae Eklund and Bea Lancton.

The workshop is at Deborah's home and studio in Clarksville Texas. It's a rural place just east of Paris Texas and not far from Oklahoma. It's a beautiful place: very gently rolling land with beautiful trees. The restaurants aren't good and it's a dry county but as you can see from the photo below, red wine from Bookwalter Winery fits in well and Steve's a great cook. Moments after this photo, we dove into a big pot of jambalaya.

Steve also has a wonderful garden and pictured below is artist Sara Lubinski with some of his lettuces, grown just for us.

How rural is it? Here's the neighbors:

These are the neighbor's cows silhouetted at dusk. Usually they keep their distance but Friday night Sara and I lured them to the fence to take a closer look. This is them thinking about how close they might come. They came very close but it took awhile. Notice the remarkable light and trees.

Coming soon: paint mixing, print making and a trip to Fort Worth.

Deborah Paris' Palette

2011-04-27T15:17:00.000-07:00

I'm at a painting workshop in Clarksville, Texas! This is a close-up of Deborah Paris' palette during a paint mixing demo. Greens!

We've had a great time here despite a bit of weather. More later.

Horizons and World Views

2011-04-05T10:00:00.000-07:00

Last week I went to Chicago with my husband and son and we went up in one of the super-tall skyscrapers twice to see the views and have tasty adult beverages (that last would be me.) I was struck by the horizon. It's an unbroken line in every direction. I'd seen Chicago on a map but never really thought that it's essentially a city on the plains. How does this impact your view of the world?

We loved the city - the architecture was stunning, the people warm, the winds cold and the food delicious - but I was unsettled by the horizon.

We talked about it awhile because our son is planning to spend the next four years at a small college in Wisconsin far from the ocean and mountains that establish our internal compasses every day of our lives. He/we thought it may seem disorienting.

Flatness.

When he goes for a walk how will he know which way is north?

From where I sit at this moment, in my corner office on the second floor of my house I can see the Pacific to the west and the endless peaks of the Canadian Cascade range to the north. I see the San Juan Islands and behind them, the Olympics. On the other side of my house I see the foothills of the North Cascades. Mountains after mountains after mountains.

Or flat.

Last summer there were big forest fires in British Columbia and it changed the light in northwest Washington. It was the talk of the town: "Did you see the sun turn orange?" Then Timothy Egan wrote an essay in the NY Times that is pinned to my studio wall called "In Fire Country" His ending still moves me:

You think you are out of fire country, in control, in a metro area of 3 million people. You live in the arms of the land, an intimacy that comes with the immodest illusion that there is such a thing as a safe distance.

When the horizon is flat, are you in the arms of the land? If not, how does that affect how you understand the earth?

George Inness in the Chicago Art Institute

2011-04-04T10:30:00.000-07:00

George Inness. Catskill Mountains. 1870. Oil on Canvas. Chicago Art Institute, Edward Butler Collection.

In the American Wing in the Chicago Art Institute, first floor, there's a little room that you walk through to get to the larger gallery. On one side is the Gifford and on the other, three Inness paintings. The first day I visited I spent time on my knees in front of this painting so I could see the application of paint up close. To the right of this is an older Inness and I could see the weave of the canvas clearly under the entire painting. On this one, the weave was rarely visible beneath the thicker application of paint.

The second day I sat on the bench in front of this painting and sketched it to think through the paint application, the composition and the arrangement of values in the painting.

I was trying to figure out how he conveyed the atmosphere. It looks as if he painted a milky, creamy glaze over a blue background and wiped it back in areas. Naturally I took close-ups. Here are a couple of the mountain:

Sanford Gifford in the Chicago Art Institute

2011-04-03T16:34:00.000-07:00

Sanford Gifford. Hunter Mountain, Twilight. 1866. Oil on Canvas. Chicago Art Institute. Terra Foundation for American Art. Daniel J. Terra Collection.

Just back from a spring trip to Chicago where I spent a couple of days looking at paintings in the Art Institute. Of particular interest to me were the treasures in the Terra Foundation for American Art collection.

There were two in particular I spent time studying - this by Gifford and the one immediately behind it by Inness (more on that later.)

It was Sanford I was following when I began paintings this winter with a burnt sienna base. He used that warm base to achieve a luminous effect in his landscapes. And of course this one has a composition that I'm drawn to. However, in my eyes Gifford's surface texture lacks interest or subtlety. While the quality of light makes them sing from a distance, up close they're flat.

Across the Fields

2011-03-24T11:56:00.000-07:00

Just back from a quick trip to eastern Washington where the sun and light were - as they often are - amazing. I drove up to the top of McBee road in the Horse Heaven Hills to see dawn on the face of Rattlesnake Mountain.

But it was good to be back in the studio and put the last glaze on the grasses of this painting of Skagit county, looking west late in the afternoon.

Burnt Sienna and Sanford Gifford

2011-03-23T09:08:00.000-07:00

Closeup of Rattlesnake and the River with burnt sienna ground.

This winter I read in several sources that Sanford Gifford first stained his surface with burnt sienna.

I first read about this on Philip Koch's great blog in a post titled Bold Power Hiding in Subtle Colors. And of course the next day an artist friend, James Lourie, forwarded me the link to Philip's post knowing how I'd love it!

Loriann Signori wrote about it on her blog here, saying "Sanford Gifford stained his white canvas with burnt sienna, drew in white chalk and then glazed more rapidly. He would paint non-stop from sunrise to sunset when he began the color part of his painting. He had already worked out his color idea in his oil sketches. Gifford kept working and blending his glazed layers while they were wet. "

David Dunlop, in a blog post titled Luminous Skies has a great, brief explanation along with images. (BTW: his blog is great, deep with information and his own work is inspiring. Check it out people!)

So I immediately tried it on two paintings, Rattlesnake and the River, and the Road North.

The Road North was a straightforward direct painting with some glazing. Not at all what Gifford would have done. Rattlesnake and the River follows his approach more closely: opaque underpainting for the sky with the foreground crafted by extensive semi-transparent and transparent glazing. The foreground has areas of thick, built-up surface next to areas of bare burnt sienna linen.

The sky - and this to me is the most important part of this painting - was much more interesting and frustrating to paint with the burnt sienna base. I painted three layers of titanium-zinc white mixed with a touch of indian yellow over the base using broad vertical strokes. Even after three layers the burnt sienna sang loudly through. So I decided to work with that and began painting the dawn colors I sought over that burnt sienna/pale yellow base. There were times I thought the painting just wouldn't work out but in the end, I'm very pleased with the results.

My Facebook experiment still in progress

2011-03-21T09:30:00.000-07:00

In progress - Rattlesnake dusk.

This past few weeks I've been trying something out on Facebook: posting an image each day of the progress of a painting. I started with just the sketch and at the end of my day in the studio I pull out my camera and tripod and snap a shot.

You can join the crazy fun by clicking here and then 'liking' my page on Facebook.

As it turns out, it really doesn't influence my process. I don't paint differently because I take a photo each day. But I don't know that it's really all that interesting for those who follow me on Facebook. The nature of Facebook is that an image pops up randomly in their feed and they may see one every few days but without context unless they click on it.

At the end I think I'll take each image and put them together in a quick slideshow. What I'd like is a 'flipbook' or 'time lapse' approach to quickly see the changes take place. If you know what program will work to make that happen, please let me know.

Now it's finished

2011-03-19T18:00:00.000-07:00

Now it's finished. Just a little more work on the sky.

Rosemary Brushes, Part 3

2011-03-18T09:45:00.000-07:00

A new shipment of mongoose and chungking bristle Rosemary brushes

Yesterday I arrived home to find a wonderful little box leaning against my front door: a new shipment of Rosemary brushes. It's been awhile since I've written about brushes, and my Rosemary brushes have clocked several miles of strokes, so I thought I'd narrow down my list of what I like and don't.

I think the mongoose and the chungking bristles are amazing. The prices are shockingly low, the quality exceptional. Buy these.

At first I liked the ivory line - a synthetic bristle brush - but now they seem to splay when loaded with paint and the splay is not for me. I think these would be good for acrylic painters but for oil, I think natural bristle just performs better.

The ebony brushes are good but they do turn into a sort of crazy mop, like the bad perm I had in 1st grade, and no matter what I try I can't seem to persuade them to go back to looking like the brush I ordered. It could be my cleaning style but...this doesn't happen with the mongoose. The ebony bristles also seem a little more brittle to me than the mongoose. I do see small pieces of bristle break off usually when I use a paper towel to wipe the paint off.

But the mongoose are fantastic. They clean easily, hold up great and do what I want them to do. I can use them for more opaque heavy paints (although they smooth the surface more than I like) and they are rock stars for glazing. My favorites are the basic flats, series 274. I have the long flats and those are nice for a long stroke, but I prefer a stubbier brush. As you can see in the photo above, I just ordered two of the short filberts (I also have and love the long filberts) and can't wait to try them out.

Similarly the Chungking bristle brushes are wonderful. Soft but they hold their shape without splaying. After washing, they go right back to shape. They are my favorite for laying down opaque paint for skies and more texture in the foreground. But I've even used them for glazing and blending - they are that soft. I love the filberts.

And a note on Rosemary & Co's wonderful customer service. Last fall one of my ebony flat brushes started to dissolve. Bristles came out each time I touched it. I wasn't sure if I'd been too rough or if something was wrong with the brush. So I sent Rosemary & Co an email telling them what was happening and a minute later Rosemary replied :

Oh dear !

Sounds like one slipped through the net - the glue probably hasn't penetrated to the centre.Please let me know which shape and your zip then I can send another out to you.

sorry for inconvenience.

Kind regards

Rosemary

So yes, wonderful brushes, well-priced, handmade in England backed up by exceptional service. Order them here: www.rosemaryandco.com

My past blog posts on brushes here and here.

Rattlesnake and the River

2011-03-14T12:17:00.000-07:00

I'm sure 99.9% of the artists who blog and who post paintings online wait until the painting is finished before they post the image.

I'm not in that camp.

Sometimes - and this may be one of those times - I post the image so that I can see how it looks at a distance, in a different format, from a different angle and at a tiny size. Yes, it's wet and I'm still trying to decide whether or not I want to add clouds.

Clouds in a landscape are such an integral part of the composition that they will be in my original sketch and then I add them in during the underpainting. But with this painting, I've just been uncertain. No need for feedback, I'll just be thinking about this.

Update on Art Inventory Systems

2011-03-13T12:42:00.000-07:00

Update on Art Inventory Systems for 2011

Since I wrote the post on Art Inventory Systems a year ago I've changed up my own inventory system and thought I'd report in and let you know how that's going.

First I made the full switch to eArtist and it was working great. But then my 2-year old Dell Vostro laptop decided life wasn't worth living and died. So I bought an iMac (which is a fairly major change!) and began the big switch.

eArtist

I contacted eArtist to find out if I could use the same license for Mac software. I heard back right away that yes, the license key is independent of downloading the software so just download the Mac version. The eArtist switch to the Mac was seamless for the software but less so for my files. My Mozy online backup works great for those who own a Mac and backup to a new Mac or who own a PC and backup to a PC. But it was very, very difficult to get files off the cloud that were saved as PC files and put them on the Mac. This was not the fault of eArtist! My art inventory files fell into that category so many things had to be reentered. But it didn't take long and it's been working fine ever since.

No database system is perfect and I do have 2 complaints with eArtist. One is that there is no category for 'Destroyed.' There are paintings that I enter into the database only to decide later that they need to be removed from inventory. I need to be able to mark them as destroyed in the database, rather than just deleting them. That would provide me a record of my mistakes and since I learn from those, it's useful. The other is that the process of tracking gallery inventory is clunky. Exhibitions are tracked very well in this program - it's probably the best out there for that - but the loan/consignment system to a gallery isn't ideal. I'd like to have a category for galleries where they aren't simply a constituent.

Art Tracker

A friend of mine recently went with Art Tracker because the price was so appealing. I've looked at it and at $45 that's what I'd go with too. It looks very useful and seems to track gallery inventory well. If you are an artist who doesn't do shows outside of gallery shows, this could be a good one for you. I'd try this one out for you if they allowed a trial without purchase. They don't, but they do refund your money if you're not satisfied.

GYST

The folks from GYST have revamped their software and I dutifully downloaded and tried it out. It seems to work fine. Similar to eArtist. So that remains a top option.

GYST provides a significant amount of other informational resources which can be helpful. For instance, they have information on how to write a press release which you may need. There are also many ideas for exhibition space outside of a traditional gallery system and that's helpful. For those who send work off to various exhibition opportunities and might lose track of when to expect things back, the calendar system reminds you as long as you've put the return date in.

But for some of us, all that information might be too much and could get in the way of just getting in, adding inventory and getting out.

What is your experience?

This is the most read portion of my blog. If you have other ideas and experiences, I know other artists would be really interested to hear about it. Please feel free to share your experience with art inventory systems in the comments below so we can all learn from each other.

Road North

2011-03-10T11:36:00.000-08:00

My studio faces west toward the alley in an old Victorian era neighborhood in Bellingham, Washington. I'm about a mile from Bellingham Bay on a slight hill so I can see over the houses behind me. Northwest Washington tends to be cloudy and a day of solid blue is very rare. It tends to be breezy to windy here. When I ready about hurricane force winds elsewhere I think pffft - pansies - can't they take a breeze? That's just the same old, same old winter storm.

The enormous benefit of all of that to me is that I can just look up from my easel and out the glass wall of my studio to see clouds. I spend a lot of time looking at those clouds.

Rublev Paints

2011-03-06T10:25:00.000-08:00

Rublev Paints in their box

Antica Green Earth and Nicosia Green thinned out

Last month I finished a painting of wheat fields in August afternoon sunshine. That sensation of pale gold is hard to capture in paint and I'd spent a few months moving back and forth between glazes and laying opaque ochre mixtures into the glazes. It's easy to make the field too yellow and thus, lacking in depth and visual interest.

A couple of weeks ago I was telling Deborah Paris of my difficulties with the wheat fields. She suggested I try several experiments (which I'm doing) and asked if I had Rublev's Yellow Ochre Light. (Why no I did not!) So the next day I had 6 tubes of Rublev paints headed my way.

They are lovely and more than that - seriously interesting for an oil painter/art history buff/married to a geologist. They are more fully called: Rublev Colours Artists' Oils, "Oil Paints from Natural Mineral, Organic and Historical Pigments for Fine Artists." These are single pigment, often granular because they are ground pigments, not synthetic and not ground to a consistent texture across their line of paints. They have a great range of transparent to opaque and clearly state what is what and where it's from. I like knowing that.

The top photo is of the pristine paints in the box. So clean, no drips or dried paint clogging the top. And the bottom photo are two transparent greens I wanted to tell you about. The top, blue green one is Nicosia Green Earth and I know this about it from the Rublev website:

"Rublev Colours Nicosia Green Earth is a transparent deep green with yellow undertones, medium grained and low tinting strength. Our Nicosia green earth is from glauconite deposits in Cyprus.

The color of glauconite, a mineral of hydrated iron potassium silicate, varies considerably from pale green to dark green and from bluish-green to olive-green, depending upon its constituent elements.

Natural green earths, such as Nicosia green, are transparent and are absolutely permanent in oil. Most oil colors labeled "green earth" from artists' paint manufacturers do not actually contain the natural mineral, but rather is a mixture of synthetic chromium oxide green and sometimes barium sulfate with either a natural yellow ochre or yellow iron oxide. Rublev Oil Colours Nicosia Green earth contains only the actual mineral and linseed oil.

Green earth was used in verdaccio--a style of underpainting that uses green-grey colors to establish values for later layers of paint. Verdaccio is renowned for being particularly effective when painting flesh tones. It was popular amongst Italian Renaissance artists, such as Leonardo da Vinci who used verdaccio underpainting in his masterpiece, the Mona Lisa.

The one on the bottom right is fantastic. It's Antica Green Earth from deposits in Prun, in the Verona region of Italy. It's an incredible transparent green with a nice earthy texture that brushes out transparent. Yesterday, as you can see from the palette, I was working with a mix of Antica Green Earth and the Nocosia green. To the right is a little yellow ochre mixed in. Yes, you should buy these. They are seriously great to work with.

East Fields at Dusk

2011-03-02T11:41:00.000-08:00

The wide open fields of eastern Washington, looking west towards the Cascade Mountains at dusk. This is just north of my family's wheat farm in an area that's simple and stark. The interplay of light, clouds and fields have a subtle beauty.

Blanchard Dusk

2011-03-01T11:07:00.000-08:00

Looking east across Samish Bay at dusk with the toe of Blanchard Mountain on the right and flooded fields in the foreground.

Blanchard Mountain is a special place. It's the only place along the coast where the Cascades reach the sea. From the top of Blanchard Mountain you can see the entire San Juan archipelago to the east and to the west, Mt. Baker and the Twin Sisters.

Kittitas Hay, Big Sky

2011-02-28T17:52:00.000-08:00

The skies in eastern Washington are big and vivid. This area - Kittitas - is windy and the cloud formations there are often extravagant and dramatic.

This is a painting of corn and a hayfield. Kittitas county produces a lot of hay, some of which is shipped to dairy farms near me but a lot goes to Japan through the Port of Tacoma. Three years ago I had the opportunity to tour the hay compacting plant and meet with the owners and our Governor. It was a fascinating look at the transportation and shipping plans for an expanding company.

Rattlesnake Twilight - follow along with me on Facebook!

2011-02-21T08:47:00.000-08:00

This is a page from my sketchbook where I began to work out the concept and general shape of a new painting, Rattlesnake Twilight.

Last fall a visitor to my studio suggested that I document a painting each day through to the finished painting because - unlike a direct painting - these go through a slow but dramatic change.

So I'll be posting the photos of my progress on Facebook. If you don't follow me, please look to the right and click. That's where I'll be most diligent in sharing the images of progress.

What you see here is simply the general land forms. After much thought I decided to include an immediate foreground with bunchgrass, to the left a close hill and then in the distance, the fields, the scabland, the Yakima River and then Rattlesnake.

The decision to include a close foreground is always a big one for me as my preference is often the big sky and the vista. But I've been looking at the Luminist painters and the Tonalist painters a great deal - especially Cole and Inness - and in reference to their work, the foreground will be in shadow. The light will be in the middle at the skyline and the land forms will be fairly dark.

Ahtanum Ridge

2011-02-17T15:35:00.000-08:00

It's been a great week of painting in the studio! This is finished, after many adjustments to the foreground glazing and many repaintings of the sky. And, very important, I started several paintings that I'm excited about.

I listen to a lot of music in the studio. Generally I shuffle about 8 days of songs in my iPod but after 3 straight days I decided to order new music. I ordered 5 new CD's: Arcade Fire, Mumford & Sons, Black Keys, the Decemberists and Head & Heart. I also ordered tickets to next week's Josh Ritter show in Seattle so it was a great day for painting and for music in my studio!

The area of this painting is between Ellensburg and Yakima in Washington state, near the Yakima Firing Range. Not a place to do a lot of hiking. But it has wonderfully eroded hills.

My favorite love poem - West Wind 2 by Mary Oliver

2011-02-14T13:51:00.000-08:00

for Dan on Valentine's Day

West Wind 2
by Mary Oliver

You are young. So you know everything. You leap

into the boat and begin rowing. But, listen to me.

Without fanfare, without embarrassment, without

any doubt, I talk directly to your soul. Listen to me.

Lift the oars from the water, let your arms rest, and

your heart, and your heart's little intelligence, and listen to

me. There is life without love. It is not worth a bent

penny, or a scuffed shoe. It is not worth the body of a

dead dog nine days unburied. When you hear, a mile

away and still out of sight, the churn of the water

as it begins to swirl and roil, fretting around the

sharp rocks --- when you feel the mist on your mouth

and sense ahead the embattlement, the long falls

plunging and steaming---then row, row for your life

toward it.

Harvest, Blue Mountains

2011-02-09T14:13:00.000-08:00

It's cold out now but I'm still painting the harvest and late summer light. This is of the patterns left by combine tracks in the wheat stubble.

I started a book the other night about George Inness and enjoyed reading about his process and the extent to which he worked his paintings - layering and adding texture. It was a comfort because I've been working on the same few paintings for a couple of months now - layering and adding texture.

The Artist - Toltec, c. tenth century

2011-01-24T13:38:00.000-08:00

I've been cleaning out old files and found this. It was tucked away during art school in the late 1980's:

Anonymous (Toltec, c. tenth century)

The Artist
(From the Spanish translation of Toltec Codice de la Real Academia, fol. 315, v. With the help of Elvira Abascal who understood the original Toltec.)

The artist: disciple, abundant, multiple, restless.
The true artist: capable, practicing, skillful;
maintains dialogue with his heart, meets things with his mind.

The true artist: draws out all from his heart,
works with delight, makes things with calm, with sagacity,
works like a true Toltec, composes his
objects, works dexterously, invents;

arranges materials, adorns them, makes them adjust.

The carrion artist: works at random, sneers
at the people,
makes things opaque, brushes across the
surface of the face of things,
works without care, defrauds people, is a
thief.

[Translated from the Spanish by Denise Levertov]

Toltec: an Indian people who flourished in central Mexico before the Aztecs, and who are said to have laid the foundations for Aztec culture.

Evening Above the Horse Heaven Hills

2011-01-21T10:31:00.000-08:00

In December I spent several days at museums in Washington DC studying paintings. I was most interested in Inness, Twachtman and Whistler. But mostly George Inness. Since my return - well there were the holidays & visitors & a bit of flu & a little project of insulating a 117-year old hosue - but I've slowed down my painting to experiment with some of the techniques I observed with Inness and others.

This one has more layers - many, many more - in the opaque paint - mostly in the sky. I placed the foreground in shadow and put the light in the middle - a compositional approach Inness used in many of my favorite paintings.

The foreground is a mix of transparent glazes and scumbles - back and forth and back and forth between the two layers - but with more visible texture than I had been using in the transparent passages.

I used the sky as a way to focus on the light falling on the wheat fields in the distance and to call attention to the disappearing horizon - that's the Columbia River. Where the viewer stands is a high point on the Horse Heaven Hills, with a long, dramatic slope to the Columbia gorge in the far distance. This is an arid area and the winter wheat in the mid-ground gives way to shrub-steppe and now, increasingly, vineyards in the distance. This south-facing slope of the Horse Heaven Hills is one of the best red wine growing areas in the US and is a place where you can see geology clearly at work.

Here is a painting - also looking south - but of the hills that you're standing atop: Horse Heaven Fog.

Thomas Cole: Study for Catskill Creek

2010-12-20T00:07:00.000-08:00

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 up close and in person

2010-12-16T22:07:00.000-08:00

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

2010-12-03T16:26:00.000-08:00

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.

Small Treasures at the Little Gallery

2010-12-01T11:12:00.000-08:00

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

2010-11-30T22:23:00.000-08:00

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

2010-11-27T22:15:00.000-08:00

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

2010-11-22T09:24:00.000-08:00

Another painting of the Skagit River - this one is on display at the Allied Arts exhibit in Bellingham through this Saturday.

Sun Sets on Horse Heaven Hills heads to the US Embassy in Yemen

2010-11-15T18:10:00.000-08:00

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 there!

The truck on my 1890's street. And off it goes to Yemen!

Palouse Falls

2010-11-04T09:02:00.000-07:00

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.

But of course Palouse Falls with it's sharp basalt edge, columnar basalt walls and bottle-green bowl is simply a more stunning subject.

This one will be in an upcoming show, Lay of the Land, at Allied Arts in Bellingham this Friday. The opening reception is 6 to 10 on Friday and the show runs through November 27th. If you're near, I'd love to see you there.

Quiet Valley & Show Next Friday

2010-11-01T09:00:00.000-07:00

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.

Routine, Discipline and the art of being an artist

2010-10-31T21:01:00.000-07:00

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 at the Whatcom Museum

2010-10-29T09:41:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-25T09:29:00.000-07:00

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

2010-10-20T11:06:00.000-07:00

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 along Crab Creek road near Sentinel Gap. We arrived late, just in time for the photos. Because of our tire we ended up spending the night at the farm so I spent my time visiting with my cousins and having my cousin Jim and then my husband drive me around the roads so that I could see dusk fall on the wheat fields. It was beautiful.

These plateaus are high and you can see Rattlesnake Mountain and even Mt. Adams and Mt. Rainier in the Cascade range. The contours of the fields highlighted by the setting sun were remarkable.

Five Mile Road

2010-10-19T11:32:00.000-07:00

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 + Art in the Embassies

2010-10-18T07:15:00.000-07:00

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 completed in my studio right now so we'll wait a couple of weeks before deciding. I'll definitely let you know which painting(s) make the big trip!

Raining and Pouring Paintings

2010-10-14T10:26:00.000-07:00

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.

Frames

2010-10-12T08:37:00.000-07:00

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.

At this point I've been exhibiting work for a year but in that time I've tried a surprising number of approaches.

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, the stretched canvas sits - floats - inside a frame and is not directly attached to it's frame.

I then bought a special miter saw and framing stock and tried making my own frames. The miter saw is now in the basement with cobwebs. This was not the best use of my time.

Next up I started looking online to see what my options were. I explored a wide variety of websites that sell frames made to order. I talked with other artists locally to get their input on the various sources.

Here's my experience:

Frames by Mail. This is on the east coast and I've ordered a lot of small frames from them for daily paintings. They have a wide variety of frame molding in stock. The website is a little unwieldy and they don't have much available for stretched canvas. Most of their offerings have a shallow rabbet so work only for works on paper or panels. Where they've done well for me are on a couple of frames that I ordered with linen liners. Those were lovely. But since then the quality and turnaround has been less reliable. Still, if I had a small work on paper that needed a mat and a frame I'd probably order from them.

Frames Destination. This is a nice outfit in Dallas. Their frame selection was recently expanded but their focus is to frame photographs. When I need a simple black or dark brown frame fast, this is my source and there is one line of wood frames deep enough for 3/4" canvas. Plus whenever I've called, the owner answers the phone and when I've asked, my order has gone out the same day I placed it. I like that.

Franken Frames. I placed my first order with them about a week ago, for floater frames for some larger paintings, so I'll report back on that. But artists I know in Bellingham swear by this company. They're in Tennessee.

Art Ready Frames. This is a small company in Washington State that sells lovely, old-school wood frames made in China. Standard sizes only but the prices are good, turn-around is fast and these look great on my landscapes.

Mountains Edge Frames. Last but not least, my favorite place for beautiful frames. These are custom made to order in Clarksville Texas. They are gorgeous. I love the black over red in style 500, the black over red with a gold lip in style 300 and the oiled walnut in style 300, with or without a gold lip. For the quality, the price is good. Since it's all custom, they will make any size AND they make beautiful triptych frames. They take 4 weeks (faster if you're desperate). You can see style 300 in oiled walnut above. I think these are the perfect complement for my work.

My Framing Tools. You need the right tools and they need to be handy because you frame more often than seems reasonable. I do this in my kitchen, on a long buffet counter. I now keep the tools in a nearby cupboard. Here's what I use:

Drill with drill bit. Since everything requires the same size screw, I just keep it together now.
Phillips screwdriver
Roll of wire
Wire cutters
D-ring Hangers to attach the wire to the side of the frame. Buy this in large quantities.
Point Driver. I use the Logan dual drive point driver and I love it. When I framed my first show last December I didn't want to invest in a point driver and spent two days on framing as a result. So yes, I love the point driver.
Cork or plastic bumpers for the bottom corners. I don't like the frame to rub against the wall.

How to Make Linen Panels

2010-10-06T08:53:00.000-07:00

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 have the materials assembled, making them is quick. Now that I keep the materials in stock in my studio, I can make a panel in the evening and start my painting the next day.

Materials:

GatorBoard. This is a stable surface made from extruded polystyrene foam between two layers of wood-fiber veneer. Yes, it looks like you're painting on styrofoam but get over it. You're not. Yes, you can use a smooth plywood instead. I'd varnish the plywood before gluing. I buy my GatorBoard from Foam Board Source. I use the 3/16 thickness for anything up to a 16x20 and larger than that, I use the 1/2". I prefer the natural color. Shipping on this product is expensive!
Oil or alkyd primed linen. I love the 359 Alkyd primed linen from Wind River Arts in Texas. It's the kind of surface art dreams are made of. There's also a variety of lovely oil or alkyd primed linens from you can purchase from Utrecht. For all of these, you can either get a small sample or purchase small panels ahead of time to try them out. A roll of linen is a big commitment so I recommend you buy a variety of panels and paint on them to see which you prefer. What's that you ask? Can you substitute acrylic primed fabric? No!
Miracle Muck Glue. I buy mine by the gallon from Source-Tek. (And yes, you're not imagining it, they do have the worst shopping website in the industry.) Shipping is a killer on this product and I have to plan ahead so I'm not shipping this in the winter (freezing ruins it).
Small paint roller with a short nap. Get this at your local hardware store.
Condiment bottle. This will help you apply the glue evenly. Can't find a condiment bottle? As it turns out, you can use a sippy cup! (See below.)
Brayer or rolling pin. To evenly press the linen onto the panel and roll out any air bubbles.
Weights. To weigh the panel down as it dries. I use my largest art books and put hand weights and small bronze sculptures on top.
Scissors, a box knife and a straight edge.

Here are the steps, photos follow:

Cut your GatorBoard to size. Use the straight edge and a box cutter.
Cut pieces of linen slightly larger than the GatorBoard. I cut mine using good scissors about 1/4 inch larger on each side. When I cut the linen I roll it out on my kitchen table, put the panels on top, and cut around them. Very easy.
Put the miracle muck in the condiment bottle and squeeze it onto the GatorBoard in a spider web pattern all over.
Spread the glue evenly onto the GatorBoard using the paint roller.
Put linen primed side down and place the GatorBoard glue side down on top. Flip it, use the brayer or roller to firmly press the linen onto the board.
Place weights evenly on top and let it set at least overnight until dry.
Trim the edges.
Paint!

The photos below are all courtesy of Deborah Paris, who taught me how to make the panels at a painting workshop in her studio in Clarksville, Texas.

Supplies assembled in Deborah Paris' studio. You can see the roll of linen on the left, the cut linen under the gatorboard, the miracle muck glue, the small paint roller and the green sippy cup for distributing the glue. And bonus: note the gorgeous underpainting on the shelf on the left.

Deborah Paris distributing the glue on the gatorboard. In the background you can see her bookshelves FULL of wonderful art books and on the wall, some of her best paintings. Her studio is an incredible space!

Rolling out the glue. You can see the spiderweb pattern that she used to evenly distribute the glue.

Update on Studio Tour!!!

2010-10-01T14:43:00.000-07:00

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 Tour This Weekend!

2010-10-01T11:55:00.000-07:00

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!

Tomatoes & Studio

2010-09-23T13:22:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-21T20:04:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-20T15:38:00.000-07:00

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.

A New Gallery!

2010-09-17T12:07:00.000-07:00

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

2010-09-17T11:49:00.000-07:00

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.

Horse Heaven Hills at Sunset

2010-09-05T18:02:00.000-07:00

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 an area I've painted this year and will focus more on this winter. Last spring I painted two paintings of McBee Road in the fog: Road Into Fog in the Horse Heaven Hills and Horse Heaven Fog.

I've also painted the view towards Rattlesnake and Red Mountains from below: Dusk Falls on Rattlesnake and Red and Red Mountain at Dusk.

Marching Towards Dixie

2010-09-01T11:52:00.000-07:00

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!

Figs

2010-08-23T09:00:00.000-07:00

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.

Peaches

2010-08-21T17:29:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-18T12:30:00.000-07:00

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.

Fields

2010-08-17T10:00:00.000-07:00

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

2010-08-16T12:25:00.000-07:00

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.

Painting in the Palouse

2010-08-10T23:15:00.000-07:00

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 the gathering (cool geology) and a tire blew out. No phones, and it took an hour to get the tire off. Then we discovered that since I'd packed our camping gear AFTER getting home from the opening night party at Smith and Vallee Gallery in Edison, I had packed the wrong tent. Or the wrong poles. Anyway, parts of two incompatible tents! So instead of camping, we ended up staying at my cousin's lovely home Sunday and in Walla Walla on Monday. That was fine too. Because everywhere we looked it was stunning. The light, the fields, the skies, the stars, all beautiful.

My highlights:

Palouse Falls State Park. I plan to paint this, as it reminds me of a number of Hudson River paintings of a falls. Very similar, but a higher fall. And with rattlesnakes, but those won't be in the painting.
Highway 12 between Waitsburg and Walla Walla. To me, this is simply beautiful. Everything about it. The fields are lush and yellow and the side views with the poplar trees all remind me of Umbria, but better.
The wheat fields perched high above the Snake River Canyon in Columbia County, especially at Tramway Road. It was shocking, the stark beauty of it. They grow winter wheat there which means that each year, half the fields are fallow. I'm used to that, I've seen it all my life. But here they leave the stubble and it's silver. So the fields alternated between a deep gold and a bright silver. Above a deep canyon formed by the Snake. Wow.

Sunny afternoons at the Skagit Workshop

2010-08-01T11:18:00.000-07:00

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 colors. I used blue, green and yellow, starting with a panel that I toned in a vivid orange red. It was my last painting of the workshop!

Albala Workshop - Foggy Mornings

2010-07-31T11:18:00.000-07:00

Mitch Albala demo in the fog on Thursday, Conway

Painters on the dike, in the thick Conway fog.

Tedd Chilles painting in the fog.

View of the field, Conway.

Fog in the Slough. 8 x 10. Oil on Twinrocker paper. Lisa McShane

Fog in the Slough. 6 x 8. Oil on Panel. Lisa McShane

It was foggy until afternoon from Wednesday through Friday. Friday was especially thick and magical. We painted at a small park in Conway, working on small paintings. The fog lifted quickly. One moment I looked down for more paint and when I looked up, I could see all the trees.

Albala Workshop Day 3 - Fog!

2010-07-28T23:34:00.000-07:00

It was a foggy day in Skagit County - I love painting in the fog! This is a picture of 2 artists painting the value changes in the fog. A great morning for painting.

After we painted we stopped for lunch and then had a group critique. We each put 2 paintings out and used these to discuss bigger issues of painting, such as value, hue, texture and composition. I'm really enjoying my fellow artists in the workshop with me!

And after the critique we took a break. Most people are staying nearby but since I live 40 minutes away, I find ways to entertain myself. Generally that involves painting! Here's a photo I shot on my easel (I'll take a better one later, but no time this week!) of the quick painting I did during today's break:

Albala Workshop Day 2 - Skagit Wheat Fields

2010-07-27T23:24:00.000-07:00

Skagit Wheat. Oil on Linen Panel. 9x12.

This is the first painting I've completed in the workshop, of the view south towards poplar trees and a wheat field.

Here's my easel with my subject to my left.

And here's the view to the east and the North Cascades that I also wanted to paint! You can't see it in this poor, grainy photo but there's a peak in the notched valley just to the right of the middle. I'm certain I'll need to go back to this spot another time. It's stunning. We saw great views today!

Mitchell Albala Workshop Day 1

2010-07-26T20:21:00.000-07:00

Here's a shot of Mitch doing a demo in our morning session at a Skagit County farm. Our first task was to tone our surface, wipe that down and then, using the same 1 or 2 pigments, create an underpainting focused on values and shape.

There are 12 of us in the class and slightly more than half stayed in this area to paint the barn and trees.

On the other side of the barn was a field, a cottage and then a wheat field with poplars in the distance. Yes, a wheat field with poplars! Those are the best things in the world to paint, no? Naturally that's where I set up shop. We'll be back there first thing in the morning and I'll take a shot of my subject and completed painting.

Skagit Workshop w/ Mitchell Albala

2010-07-26T08:17:00.000-07:00

This morning - bright and early - is the start of a week-long painting workshop w/ Mitchell Albala. We'll be in Skagit County near Dodge Valley, one of the most beautiful areas in the Pacific Northwest.

Here's Mitchell Albala w/ his new and exceptional book on Landscape Painting.

I'll try to post what I've learned in the workshop during the week but the schedule is grueling - 7:45 to 6:30 every day. I'll be commuting from my home, about 45 minutes away. The weather report? Sunshine!

Boy will I be tired.

Meanwhile the World

2010-07-24T11:04:00.000-07:00

Meanwhile the World. 9 x 12. Oil on Linen Panel.

I've always loved poetry. As a child and a teenager, I wrote a lot of poems. We had books of poetry and I entertained my family by memorizing and reciting back long poems. I recited The Mountain Whippoorwil by Benet in a Forensic Tournament in Germany. In High School I'd go to the city library to read poetry. I copied down what I loved best and at home I'd type them up on onionskin paper and put them in a notebook. I still have my poetry notebook. It's full of wonderful, meaningful and beautiful poetry.

In May I went to Texas for a workshop at Deborah Paris' studio. Deborah reads a lot of poetry and read a poem to us. It was beautiful. When I left Texas I went to Colorado to visit my daughter and ran across a volume of Mary Oliver's poetry in a local bookstore. I bought it.

This past few weeks I've been reading Mary Oliver over and over and over again in my studio. I copied out poems and pinned them to the wall. This painting is inspired by a phrase from her poem Wild Geese.

Mary's poems are like prayers. And like a landscape, they are grounded in place: the rural northeast. That's not my place but through her poetry, I can picture it.

High in the Clean Blue Air

2010-07-23T11:04:00.000-07:00

High in the Clean Blue Air. 12" x 16". Oil on Linen Panel.

Wild Geese

by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

Do you date your paintings?

2010-07-22T16:33:00.000-07:00

David's Kitchen Paintings - with dates!

Last week a got an email from a local frame shop. A buyer had dropped off 6 of my daily paintings of fruits and vegetables for framing and asked if I'd put dates on the paintings near my signature.

Of course! So I matched paint and put dates on 4 of them. 2 needed new varnish (lint!) so I scrubbed off the retouch varnish and then put dates on. One had a couple of funny yellow spots on the white background that weren't in the varnish layer so I painted over those and hope they don't return. I'll put a thin layer of Gamvar on all of them since they are finally, mostly, nearly done drying.

I'd recently had a conversation with the collector about dates because he owns a lot of amazing art and really enjoys seeing the dates on the paintings. It helps place them in context: of the time, of the artist's career and of the buyers life.

He had a point. A very good point. In museums I notice if a painting is dated and I use that date to track the development and see the evolution of style. Since our conversation I've been painting my signature - L McShane - AND the year.

But I'm curious: do you put dates on the front of your paintings?

Bruegel & Auden & Icarus

2010-07-20T09:00:00.000-07:00

Peter Bruegel the Elder (1525-69) -
Landscape with the Fall of Icarus
(1558)

Musee des Beaux Arts
-- W.H. Auden

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well, they understood
Its human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.

In Brueghel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
--------
Note from me: I've been sorting through my Poetry Notebook to add poems to my studio. This is one I typed up and added when I was 16.

Stretching & Sizing Linen

2010-07-19T12:36:00.000-07:00

I love making progress on the tasks. This weekend I stretched 3 canvases and this morning scrubbed the sizing onto them.

On the top is a closeup of the Best Pro stretcher bar, stretched and sized (note the clean corners!). The Best system is essentially an aluminum frame with wood for stapling and wrapping the fabric. It was easy to put together (except the pilot holes for the corner pieces aren't large enough for the screws they provide.) It's a little pricey but it's for a 26" x 36"commissioned painting that will be shipped to Arkansas. I've had a little trouble lately with warping and there's some humidity down there so this is my insurance.

After I stretch the linen so that it's as tight as a drum*, I scrub the size into the fabric with a large bristle brush. I use Gamblin's PVA for this and scrub it on front, back and on the sides.

Tomorrow I start applying the oil primer.

Notes on materials:
The oil priming brush that I'm using is currently on sale at Utrecht for about $10. It's a great brush, I plan to pick up another one. This is 144 linen, a medium smooth texture, also from Utrecht. I've not used it before so I hope I love it!

*I used heavy duty canvas pliers (don't buy the lightweight ones - they just don't work) for the stretching AND I've been using hand weights. You have to have strong arms and hands for larger paintings.

Burn Pile or Sale Bin?

2010-07-15T09:00:00.000-07:00

If you've been painting for any length of time you've made bad paintings. In fact, there are those who maintain that the better you are as a painter, the more bad paintings you'll produce simply because you'll produce more paintings overall.

I agree.

I also agree that as a painter I should paint everyday in order to get better. And I learn from my mistakes. And if I was a songwriter I'd tear up bad songs. And if I was a baker, I wouldn't sell burnt bread for a lower price.

So, that brings me to the growing pile of mediocrity in my basement. When I sort through paintings the bad ones are tossed on a pile in the basement so that I can tear off the canvas and re-use the wood bars. I don't paint over old paintings. I could say it's because it's not archival (generally true) but the truth is that I love a fresh, smooth start.

A couple of weeks ago I was giving someone a studio tour and she was appalled to hear that a painting leaning against the wall was destined to be ripped off it's stretcher bars and thrown away. She was even more shocked to hear about the growing pile in the basement. Because she was young and just out of college, and because the painting was OK and not embarrassing, I let her take it with her.

In the last couple of weeks I've been pondering the pile. It's getting bigger. I know some artists sell bad work at a low price to get rid of it and bring in a little cash. I've always been inclined to destroy the evidence.

What do you do with your unsuccessful paintings?

Update on those great brushes

2010-07-14T10:00:00.000-07:00

My favorite Rosemary Brushes all lined up

I've posted before - here - about the very exciting/super affordable brushes from Rosemary & Co. It's been several months and two orders and it's high time I provided a real review. Lately, nearly all my painting has been with 4 or 5 of the Rosemary and Co brushes.

Love
Mongoose Long Filbert, series 278, in size 8. For larger areas of painting and glazing with soft edges, this is my favorite. It's thick enough in the belly to hold up with thick paints. Is amazing for glazing. Soft, soft edges to this one. It's the top one in the photo and I'm ordering the size 12 next.

Ebony Short Flat in size 8. This is a great brush for laying in an underpainting and for glazing areas on small to medium paintings. Why so great? Because it's soft but holds it's own with the paint, doesn't collapse or splay and is thick enough to really handle well. You can scrub in areas with this, scumble, glaze, draw. The works. I'm ordering a bigger size for bigger glazing.

Ivory Filbert in size 6. This brush holds a sharp edge with oil paint and in my experience, never splays. I also have the filbert in size 4 and the short flat in a couple of sizes. All are good and really, really affordable.

2011 update: all of my Ivory brushes are leaving my studio. They splay with oil paints loaded with medium. Very annoying. But good news: Rosemary's Chunking bristle brushes are awesome.

Like
Mongoose Long Flat, series 279 in size 6. This one is simply lovely for stroking on a scumble or floating a glaze over paint layers. It doesn't hold up well with heavier paints but is good for glazing.

Red Sable Blend 1" Series 767 with beaver tail handle. I use this a lot but still don't love it. But when I'm glazing a field on a 48" wide painting, it's what I've got because it's my largest brush for glazing. At some point it will splay and the glaze will be a bit streaky but until I find a better, thicker wide brush for glazing I keep turning to this one.

Tolerate
Mongoose Long Flat, series 279 in size 12. Yes, this is a big mongoose brush but at that width and length, it's a bit whispy. I think if it were thicker in the belly or if I'd gotten the short flat I'd like this better. I use it for some glazing but it can't handle thick paint and splays out right away with a liquin glaze. But yet I use it from time to time.

Getting Rid Of
Shiraz Flat. For oils it splays. Like a big fat floppy comb. I plan to give this to a friend who paints with acrylics because it just doesn't hold up with oils.

Note: the catalog is still free! Click here to order it. The photos are life size so you know what you're getting.

PS: the brush on the bottom is another favorite black sable brush by Da Vinci. It's a great size - 14. About the same size as the Rosemary Ebony Short Flat in 8, right next to it.

Edison, Smith and Vallee and Todd Horton

2010-07-13T09:00:00.000-07:00

Todd Horton painting on the front porch of the Smith & Vallee Gallery in Edison

Todd Horton is an artist in Bow who paints wonderful paintings of animals and landscapes. I covet his enigmatic paintings of owls, deer and fox. Friday afternoon I stopped by the Smith and Valley Gallery with my friend Kristin to see the current show and Todd was there manning the place. He was working on a painting for an upcoming group show, 'Birds', and as he was painting, a chickadee was flying around. Perfect.

Smith & Vallee Gallery is one of my favorites in this region. They bring in strong artists for exceptional shows in a beautiful, light-filled space. What's not to love about that?

Open gallery night in Edison is the first Saturday of the month and it's always fun. There are two galleries, two amazing bakeries, several restaurants and one great saloon with a lot of motorcycles in front. For gallery night the small town fills with an eclectic assortment of art lovers from Seattle, Skagit County and Bellingham. There's nothing quite like it. A window booth at the Longhorn Saloon between the two galleries provides some of the best people watching I know. And I'm a semi-pro at people watching.

La Conner, Loriann and the Skagit Light

2010-07-11T21:32:00.000-07:00

Loriann Signorelli and me in La Conner

There's something about the light in Skagit County. Over the past year or so I've paid close attention to the quality of light wherever I am and it seems different in Skagit County. I don't live far away - just to the north - but for some reason Skagit County seems bathed in a more golden atmosphere as if it sits under a dome of light. Whatcom County, where I live, is noticeably bluer and crisper.

This is me (on the left) with artist Loriann Signori. You can see her blog with her wonderful pastel and oil paintings here. She's in Skagit County this week at a workshop and we met up for a bite to eat and a lot of water in La Conner. It was a treat to spend time with her and get to know her a bit. I read her blog everyday: Loriann has been painting at dawn every day for three years now. That's a wonderful accomplishment and such a good artistic discipline.

I'd been in Edison for lunch and galleries with my friend Kristin. She had been up at dawn to paint on Whidbey Island and after our late afternoon dinner, I think she went out again.

Not me. It was my birthday and I was on my way home for mussels, salmon, breadfarm bread and a lovely glass of wine.

Dusk Falls

2010-07-09T10:29:00.000-07:00

Dusk Falls on Rattlesnake and Red. Oil on Canvas. 22" x 44"

This is an area of eastern Washington just south of where I grew up. As you're viewing it, the Yakima River is at your feet, the Horse Heaven Hills at your back. The Columbia River is both to the south and to the north.

This is the region of Washington where the great red wine grapes are grown. In some areas the lower slopes have orchards but here it's the shrub steppe. Those are the things I'm thinking about when painting landscapes.

You can see an earlier study of this on my blog here.

It's been a week since I've posted. I've been hard at work painting and priming. It takes me about 4 to 6 weeks to finish a painting and about 4 to 6 weeks ago I had troubles with my new computer that took up my time. Hence a slight slowdown!

Edits and the Joy of Jpegs

2010-07-01T12:07:00.000-07:00

Spring Comes to the Valley. 22 x 30. Oil on Canvas.

I posted this painting on my blog a few weeks ago, here. After looking at it in it's little scale I decided the lines on the right were slipping downwards, pulling it off the edge. Since then I've reworked it just slightly. Some of the color is a bit more saturated and the hills on the right are either level or move diagonally towards the center.

Small things sometimes, these edits, but now I'm feel that it's finished. I like this one.