Lisa McShane Art

Winter Highway at Alger. Oil on Canvas. 18" x 22". This is a stretch of highway in the Chuckanuts, near my home. To me this area between Blanchard and Lake Samish is one of the loveliest parts of I-5. It always thrills me to drive through there, especially when the fog swirls through the hills by the lake.

December Pears. Oil on Gessobord. 5" x 7". Bosc pears have the more toned down look of winter about them. I struggle with painting these subtle fruits, never certain about how best to paint the foreground/background to make them shine. I do love how pears are rarely upright - they often lean towards each other on the windowsill.

Winter Highways at Snoqualmie. Oil on Canvas. 18 x 22. This is the first of several paintings of the highway in winter. Where I live winter means rain, wet pavement, raking light, fog and sometimes snow. This is of Snoqualmie Pass in the rain.

From Loomis. Oil on Canvas. 18" x 36". This is the view from the town of Loomis in northcentral Washington. The Loomis has been a part of my life for decades. My husband spent part of his time near here at geology field camp just days after our wedding. Yes, days. The snack in the geology van was our wedding cake. Years later we went on a road trip to the area and spent days exploring Palmer Lake, Molson, Chesaw and the fascinating grave site of Ranald MacDonald . Then in 1998 I took a job with Conservation Northwest just as they were gearing up their fundraising efforts to put 25,000 acres of high elevation old growth forest , slated for clearcuts, into public ownership. This area is key lynx habitat. Today they're working to keep the legacy of ranching in place in the area. As a small part of that, the beef my family eats is grass fed from these ranches. That's the long road to the information about this painting: this is the view from Loomis towards the south. Bea...

Loup Loup Highway. Oil on Canvas. 16 x 20. This is part of the Similkameen series, again the road heading west. It's odd, but I'm painting these in reverse order. I read catalogs that way too. From the back to the front. As if it's unraveling. I love this stretch of road and can remember clearly each trip across this and through the pass. Partly because I love the name: Loup Loup. What can be better than Loup Loup?

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.

The Window in the Red Building. Oil on Canvas. 16" x 20". This is the painting I started in August during Bellingham's Plein Air Paint Out . I finished it up in my studio this week. Years ago I'd worked in the building across the alley selling kitchen cabinets. When times were slow I'd gaze out the window and look at the window. Whoever lived there had plants - really an entire garden - on the windowsill and fire escape and I loved the look of it. The green plants against the red brick with the white curtain. I never saw anyone there but it was well tended. I would sketch the building and think what a great painting it would make. I worked on it for hours yesterday and then this morning Sharon Kingston , an exceptional local artist, came over and helped me out with a critique. I tightened things up in a couple of areas and it's done and ready for the show! The show? November 6th, Blue Horse Gallery, downtown Bellingham, 6 p.m. See you there!

Red Pears 4. Oil on Gessobord. 6 x 6. I tracked down more red pears. They have such a great color.

The Peppers. Oil on Gessobord. 5" x 7". I confess, I had doubts. When my husband first planted the pepper plant I scoffed. Actually I pulled it out because he put it in my front windowbox. He then planted it in the garden by the beans. And the plant grew! And the peppers grew! And in our record-breaking hot, hot summer it ripened. Now I'm a believer. So this painting is for Dan.

4 Black Mission Figs. Oil on Gessobord. 5 x 7. I have an entire box of figs for painting! Figs and red pears are currently my favorite still life subject.

3 Black Mission Figs. Oil on Gessobord . 5" x 7". Fig season continues in my kitchen. These join colanders of tomatoes and baskets of pears on the counter. I've been interested in the shifting colors of figs as they ripen. These are much bluer than previous paintings simply because the figs are bluer. Less black, no undertone of red.

Open Valley 101. Oil on Canvas. 14 x 28. This painting was fun to paint. First: I love roads and road trips. Second: I like painting fog. Third: the fields and hills are interesting. Fourth: I've been painting the small paintings in one sitting and it was nice to get back to layering. Fifth: it has lots of browns and ochres and was able to use some of the delightfully gritty Williamsburg oils. That's all I've got. I do love the central coast of California.

3 Different Pears. 6 x 8. Oil on Linen Panel. Well, I've been finding and painting more pears this week. In this painting are two bosc pears and an almost-ripe bartlett. I struggled with this one a bit. Not really sure yet what I think of it except that I cannot love every painting equally. But this one answers a dear friend's question of whether or not I would support integration of pears. Apparently yes.

Three Figs. Oil on Linen Panel. 5" x 7". This one is dark, and the difference between the blue and purple of the fig and the olive green of the background is subtle and hard to see on a computer monitor. But I do love this painting! Funny how we have favorites. Part of it is that I love how figs look. What beautiful fruits! I live at the far north zone for growing a fig tree but I'm planting one next spring. I have the spot picked out. When an arctic blast is predicted, I'll have to cover it, but I'll happily do that to grow these gems. This one is Black Mission, and they came to me from California. I picked out a little basket at the Food Coop, carefully selecting the one that had the most green on the figs. Painted them that day and by the next day, they had lost their luster. I'll bake them for dessert tonight. Another reason I love this painting is that I love to paint on linen panels. I'm switching to all linen panels soon. These are by Art Board and...

Highway 101, Fog. Oil on Gessobord. 12" x 16". I've started painting several landscapes based on the trip we took up Highway 101 in California this August. The drive was all too quick (we were accompanied by two 17-year old boys) but it was beautiful. We saw dozens of elephant seals (crazy!) and miles of gorgeous coastline. The fog moved in and out during the drive and sometimes we couldn't see far at all. For miles we were behind 4 motorcycles and the passenger on the one in front of us was holding a video camera above her head the entire time, filming the trip. Her stamina was impressive.

4 Figs. Oil on Linen Board. 5 x 7. Sunday evening we had dinner with friends on Lummi Island. We'd gathered together the makings of a feast. First we drove down Chuckanut Drive to Taylor Shellfish and bought Shigoku oysters and mussels. On the way back to Bellingham we stopped by a shop and bought Breadfarm bread, a lemon, figs and creme fraiche. It was a beautiful drive to the Lummi ferry and the water was rough enough to make it interesting. Once there we had a meal of mussels in a saffron champagne broth, raw oysters, sole meuniere with fresh vegetables, and for dessert, blackberries and roasted figs with creme fraiche, a drizzle of true balsamic and a glass of Sauternes. These figs are leftover from that dinner. It was amazing.

101, Fog. Oil on Linen Board. 6 x 8. $110- Last August we spent 3 days driving the roads in California. One day on I-5 from Oakland to LA was a clear, blue day. I spent much of the time watching a fire to the west, near Santa Cruz. From where I sat, in a large rental car, the shifting shape of the smoke rising behind the golden hills, outlined with blue sky, was beautiful to see. We drove back north from LA along 101. The windy road, the fog blowing in and out, the subtle shades of the vegetation - this is what I'll be painting for the next several weeks. Since working on the Plateau in Winter series fog has become one of my favorite things to paint.

3 August Tomatoes. Oil on Gessoboard. 5 x 7. $90. We have a lot of tomatoes in our garden this year. Or at least, a lot for a garden in Bellingham Washington. I have a bowl of plum tomatoes that I'm planning to roast w/ olive oil in the oven to save for winter. And note to my future self: two plants of sungold cherry tomatoes should be more than enough next year. Five plants is just too many!

Hills 4. Oil on Canvas. 12 x 20. This is a recent painting from the Road to Asotin series. I remain interested in the sunset light at harvest in the Palouse and the patterns in the wheat fields. School starts next week for my son and once things are settled I'm planning a trip to Walla Walla and Dayton to paint and another trip to the Similkameen Valley in north central Washington to paint. It will be a busy fall!

After Pissarro: Yakima River, Prosser. 18 x 24. Oil on Canvas. $570- This is the larger painting - the study was posted yesterday. This is an area along the Yakima River south of Rattlesnake Mountain near Prosser, Washington. Beautiful area, I've always loved it. It's an agricultural area but still retains some of the shrub-steppe landscape at the edges of the farms.