Lisa McShane Art

" River Bend ", ©2011 Lisa McShane, Oil on Linen, 20" x 30" 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. 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.

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

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. 

Klipchuk, Highway 20. Oil on Canvas. 16 x 20. I've started painting the Similkameen series and what better way to start than with a painting of the road between my home and the Loomis? Actually, this is the road home, heading west on Highway 20, just past Klipchuk. The fall colors were starting and a storm was coming in. It was soft and beautiful. This is my first post in more than a week. I've been delayed by politics. My husband is running for the Whatcom County Council (he was on for 8 years and loves it) and I've been helping out with mail pieces and TV and voter lists. Another kind of creative work but now that's drawing to a close.

Hills 1. Oil on Canvas. 16 x 30. This is the landscape near Dayton in the Palouse. I love the eroded hills. The foreground is a field of grass in late August - dry and golden. Those are the colors that define the west for me: the browns and purples of the hills and the many tones of yellow. This painting is one of my favorites of the Road to Asotin series.