Lisa McShane Art

Road from Jump Off Joe. ©2014, Lisa McShane. Oil on Linen. 18" x 36" I'm delivering a commissioned painting today. It's of a road through wheat fields on a ridge in Eastern Washington. It's funny to me to be painting this road - this is where a large group of us went sledding in high school. I think we were supposed to be in class but there was snow. This is also where my husband used to run with his friends in high school, high above Kennewick with great views in every direction. He's got a great blog on geology here . Artists - you don't even want to know how many readers he has (yes, people love geology!) Click here for information on hiking in the area. The post I like to describes the ridge as "one of only 18 peaks total in Washington state to be isolated from a taller mountain by a radius of 25 miles of more." It's not that it's tall, it's just on its own out there.

Towards Bow. ©2013 Lisa McShane. Oil on Canvas. 30"x30". Winter in the northwest. This is the view to the west in Skagit. I don't know why, but the sky under the clouds is often yellow (when we can catch a glimpse.)

'Mountains at Dusk'. ©2012 L McShane. Oil on Linen. I have most of my frames made for me by Steve Whalen at Mountains Edge Frames . They all look great but every once in awhile, there's a remarkable match between an image and the frame. I don't usually order my frames with a gold edge. In fact, this is the first one I deliberately ordered that way. But I did, and it's perfect. Just FYI, in case you're thinking about framing.

"Spring in the Foothills". ©2012 Lisa McShane. Oil on Linen. 16" x 20" I've been painting outside when the weather is clear lately. In particular, an area to the east called the South Fork Valley. Usually I paint the view to the east because I'm keenly interested in capturing the mountains in changing light. But sometimes when I need shade there are overhanging trees with a view to the south: Anderson Mountain. Lately the grass has been crazy green with patches of mustard flowers. Until last week it's been a little cool and the snow patches were hanging on.

Lake at Night. ©2012 Lisa McShane. Oil on Linen. 9" x 12". There's a cold and lovely mountain lake near me that I drive by often. There is very little public access to the shore so the glimpses I see are at 60 mph on Interstate 5. But this is what I see when I pass at night: a few lights reflected in the deep blue water.

Mountains at Dusk. ©2012 Lisa McShane. Oil on Linen Panel. 15"x27". I've been sketching and painting in a beautiful valley just to the east of me for the past few months. This is the view. A friend has a property where I can draw and paint for hours. No-one stops by to ask what I'm doing or to tell me the great news that their niece paints watercolors. (Not that there's anything wrong with that!) I love the quiet. There are ponds, rugged hills, a river and views of the North Cascades. Unlike much of the country, our winter has been cold and wet. The mountains have had a lot of snow and with the rain, we haven't seen them much. But every once in awhile they come into view, deep with snow.

Palouse Road. ©2012 Lisa McShane. Oil on Linen. 36" x 50". 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.

Valley in Winter. ©2012. Lisa McShane. 18" x 22". Oil on Linen. 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.

Blanchard in the Clouds. ©2011 Lisa McShane. Oil on Linen Panel. 15" x 15". 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.

" 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.

Blanchard Dusk. ©2011 Lisa McShane. Oil on Canvas. 30" x 40". 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.

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

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.

Evening at Padden. Oil on Linen Panel. 9 x 12. This is Lake Padden, where I often walk my dog. It's about 2.7 miles around the lake so a perfect size. I started this painting while I was in Texas and is one of several that captures what it is I love about this lake.

Red Mountain at Dusk. 9" x 12". Oil on Linen Panel. Some of the world's best wine grapes are grown on the lower slopes of Red Mountain. To the left is Rattlesnake Mountain. I've always called it Rattlesnake Ridge because it's such a long ridge, but my husband assures me it's a mountain.

Horse Heaven Fog. 12" x 16". Oil on Linen Panel. SOLD. This is the landscape of my heart: the eroded scabland of eastern Washington. It's not just that all my great grandparents settled the area, it's not just that I've been seeing this all my life, but rather, I have a deep passion for the enduring but subtle beauty of the eroded hills, the scabland, the shrub-steppe, the wheat fields, the sweeping skies, the great rivers. There was a time when it seemed stark and dull to me but that time is long past. Now it takes my breath away. I'm completely challenged by my desire to take these brown hills and show others the deep beauty. Over the next few months you'll see painting after painting of this land as I continue to push hard to capture what I see.

Walla Walla Fields. 9" x 12". Oil on Linen Panel. I finished 4 paintings today which is great as I had 16 I've been working on including 2 large ones. The studio logistics were growing more challenging. Every shelf and every nail has a painting drying on it. This is a simple one: spring fields in eastern Washington. My eye is always, always caught by these simple arrangements of fields, furrows, trees and mountains. To me they're breathtaking but at the same time I find them exceptionally hard to paint. I so badly want to convey the beauty that I see. Organizing those elements and using light so they convey the sense of visual excitement that I see in my mind's eye is my current challenge.

Yesterday was a big day in my studio: not only did I return from my workshop w/ Deborah Paris, but my paintings, brushes, paintings and frames arrived home from their travels too! Most notably, my canoe painting - above - arrived home framed in a gorgeous hand made frame from Mountains Edge Frames! Check them out here . This one is perfect for my painting. It's a dark, strong and simple presentation. I love it - thank you Steve! And my apologies for my blog post title: this is what we've said for decades when we return from a trip. I can't help myself.

Canoe 2. Oil on Linen. 30" x 22". After weeks of glazing, Canoe 2 is now complete. As you may be able to tell in a glance looking at this jpeg, the final photo isn't complete. Something this large and this glazed is really, really hard to photograph. I'll try again tomorrow morning. This is of a canoe on Lake Padden at dusk in the late winter. When the painting began the trees are bare. I was just at Lake Padden. It was 70 degrees and everything was leafed out. I miss the winter light already. As I wrote about here , here and here , Canoe 2 was inspired by a number of canoe paintings by Peter Doig and by my evening walks at Lake Padden.