Carole Baker's Journal

96 FANTASTIC PRINTS

2011-12-21T09:32:00.000-09:00

A few days ago I received a fantastic box of tiny prints.... 96 of them. They are Baren's 50th exchange prints. 100 print makers signed up and 96 of us made 101 prints each and mailed them to Gayle Wohlken at who collated the collection and sent one of each out to the 96 participants. They are ATC size which is 2 1/2" x 3 1/2".... all but 3 anyway. Here they are:

I've laid them out on my dining room table, sorted them out somewhat and, and enjoying showing them off to friend who stop by. I find something new every time I look at them.

Gayle did a fantastic job of collating these prints and surprised us all with this lovely little box. You can see Gayle's prints here: http://web.mac.com/g_wohlken/Site/Welcome.html

I sure don't know whats going on when I'm trying to link. I can't get them to work on my preview. Can somebody give me a hint. I give up.

If I don't get back here before Christmas, I wish you all a very happy holiday.

ANOTHER TRIP TO JUNEAU

2011-12-14T13:29:00.002-09:00

I've had to go to Juneau more times than usual this past year; it seems I always have 2 or 3 appointments of one kind of another every month. I was planning to go on the ferry last Monday but a bad storm kept the ferry from landing here so I flew in on Tuesday morning. Whenever I fly in winter, I'm somewhat amazed that I've survived the trip. Often my head will hit the top of the small plane in turbulence and visibility isn't always optimal. It is always beautiful though, especially when we fly through a valley over the Chilkats between Icy Strait and Lynn Canal. Here's a photo looking more or less southeast.

Besides the dentist, PT, and a couple of other appointments and shopping, I spent some fun time with my grand daughter, Alyssa. Every year there is an open house at the Alaska governors mansion and this year I was there when it happened, so Alyssa and I went. We waited in the line that went around three sides of the mansion and were served cookies and cider while we stood in the cold for almost an hour, seeing and chatting with passing friends and waiting for the next tray of cookies to come by. Inside, we shook hands with Gov. Parnell and his wife and ate more cookies and goodies and toured the downstairs of the mansion which was beautifully decorated and full of music.

It always takes me a day or two to recover from Juneau..... the shopping and walking on concrete wears me out. I had started a gouache painting before the trip and have worked on it some more since coming home but too much other stuff going on, so no new paintings to show. I have a few sketches that may or may not get to my other blog this week.

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A WINNER AND A PAINTING

2011-12-03T16:00:00.001-09:00

After getting some very kind comments and emails after my last post, I decided to do a drawing for the little painting on Monday night and the winner was Jyothi Sethu. She lives in India and her lovely art work is here.

I've been waiting to get something new before posting, and did finish a painting on Wednesday, but then couldn't find my cord to download my photos. Finally found it and here is my painting:


Lamplugh Glacier watercolor painting8x15"

This is from a photo I took last August when we took our boat up into Glacier Bay. We also took a kayak, and Van dropped my friend Judy and me off in front of Lamplugh Glacier and we went ashore to the beach in front of the glacier. I'm not sure if the water here is a tide pool of glacier melt. The glacier is receding, but at least part of it is tidewater when the tide is high. I really need to read up on them.... things are certainly changing up there. There were icebergs in Icy Strait where our beach is 35 years ago when we moved here, but we don' t see icebergs now until we are almost to the glaciers.

GOING FORWARD

2011-11-27T15:29:00.001-09:00

PEAR AND CUP watercolor and acrylic about 5x5"


TWO PEARS watercolor and acrylic about 5x5"

The above 2 paintings were originally one wide painting. I painted the pears and the cup about a year ago and pulled it out of my drawer last week, finished it, then cut it in half. The background is done with acrylic and a hand carved linoleum block. I put clear contact paper over the painting and cut the background off with a razor blade (carefully) and painted and stamped . This is a technique I learned from Anne Bagby. I also decorated a bunch of paper to use in collage or handmade books.

Either nobody came here in the last couple of weeks or if they did the didn't want my little gouache painting.... not one comment or email. I even gave an extra week for the offer of a gift of the little painting. I realize I don't get many people coming here, and I haven't been conversing much on other blogs lately, but still, its kind of embarrassing. I thought about offering it again, maybe putting the offer in the title, or maybe offering another painting, or even lie and say I had lots of emails and gave to so and so and go burn the painting, or maybe delete the whole post. I think I'll just go forward and forget the whole incident. No one will probably read this anyway so its forgotten.

Well, going forward. I've been setting up a website, finally. Maybe when I get that done, I'll stop putting anything here on this blog and go back to just the watercolor postcard one.

OMG! MY100TH POST

2011-11-16T09:01:00.001-09:00

ONYX RABBIT gouache painting 4"x4"

ANOTHER WINDOW VIEW gouache painting 4"x5

I didn't realize this was my 100th post here until I was ready to publish. It has taken me a long time to get here. I started my other blog in 2006 and have posted over 200 times..... never even noticed my 100th and 200th milestones there. I started this blog in 2008. Sometimes I've left one dormant while the posting on the other, lamenting why I have 2 blogs, but I always go back to the one left behind, just like I flip back and forth from one kind or subject of painting to another, always wanting to do it all.

I think its time to thank my followers and if anyone might like to own the Window View painting above, just comment on my blog or send me an email at: bogorchid at gmail dot com. I will do a drawing this weekend and mail to the winner.

And now to my orginal post: I've been doing a few small paintings in the last couple of weeks. Some attempts of something larger haven't gotten anywhere. I probably need to start using a larger brush for the larger ones. These are two that I like best. The bottom one was done with just ultramarine blue and raw sienna and white gouache.

I'll be putting at least one of my other small paintings on my other blog.

FALL VIEW

2011-10-14T10:00:00.001-08:00

gouache 6" x 9"

I started this before going to Juneau the beginning of October and when I came back and finished it, much of the leaves were gone on the cottonwoods and willow.

A COUPLE OF LITTLE PAINTINGS

2011-10-03T10:46:00.000-08:00

FAIRWEATHERS 4"x 9" gouache

I started this at the beach and finished it at home. This is part of the Fairweather range which we see when the weather is clear. I did this with a lot of underpainting. Its smaller than the watercolor I did in my sketchbook on site but took about 6 times as much time. I got Mount Fairweather (the one on the right larger than it appears here. It is the tallest, but is farther away.

JOHN'S BATH HOUSE 4" X 5 1/2" watercolor

John, a dear friend passed away last week in California and about 20 friends gather on Sunday at his cabin to remember him . I set on his deck and painted this, remembering other days enjoying his company while we painted together.

I've got some more things going in the studio, but today I'm taking the ferry to Juneau for a few days.

GETTING BACK IN THE GROOVE

2011-09-25T22:33:00.000-08:00

Well, here I am weeks since I last posted. Its been a busy month. My show in Juneau went well. I went on the ferry on the Wednesday before the first Friday (September 3) opening to hang the show..... Aimee went in to help me and I couldn't have done it without her. I had 39 pieces. It was such a relief to get them hung.

Although it was a rainy night, which is pretty much par for most days and nights for the last couple of months, there were quite a crowd there. Over the years, I've gotten to know a lot of people in Juneau and it was fun seeing some of them and meeting new folks.

A few days after the opening, I flew to Seattle for my one year check up..... happily still cancer free and I don't need to get checked out again for another year. What a relief! I"m so glad to have the uncertainty and check ups every 3 months over with.

With a clean bill of health and the stress of my show behind me, I was anxious to get home and back in the studio, but a came down with an awful cold and spent much of the first week home recovering. Finally got to studio last week and decided to do a little woodblock print. Its for the 50 Baren exchange which I couldn't resist signing up for.

This was a little gouache painting I did last month and used as a reference for the print.... also the view out my studio window.

Here is the print. I had to make 100 of them for the exchange. I mistakenly forgot to do a mirror image on my block and am still having a hard time getting use to it. It is only 2 1/2 by 3 1/2. It is mostly reduction. I had to do an extra block for the light green area on the right which I didn't get dark enough the first time.

As I mentioned before, its been a very rainy fall. But today started out quite gorgeous and I biked down to the beach after lunch to paint.

The sun disappeared and it got pretty cold before I got much done.

I did manage to draw and paint this in my sketch book. I started a larger gouache which I'll try to finish in the studio tomorrow.

JUNEAU IN JUNE

2011-08-11T21:46:00.000-08:00

watercolor 9 x 12

I'm still busy getting ready for my show next month and just framed this one which I did while in Juneau in June. Its the second one I painted of the same view.

IRELAND LANDSCAPE WORKSHOP

2011-07-23T15:04:00.001-08:00

I returned from a landscape paintng workshop in Ireland last week arranged and taught by Nina Weiss, and it was marvelous. Nina is an excellent teacher and she really put together a a great trip. We stayed in lovely inns, experienced beautiful and interesting landscapes and towns, ate delicious food, and listened to wonderful music. And best of all, I learned a new way to paint.

The first couple of days we did black and white drawings, thinking of line and form , experimenting with different compositions of a scene. I decided to use gouache in the workshop and Nina taught a method of using underpainting, building up the forms with different values and colors. Here are a couple of paintings I completed:


Garden in Clifden, gouache 9 x 5 1/2

View from Roundstone, gouache 6 x 9

I hadn't been working with gouache in about a year, and it was like starting over with the same difficulties that bugged me before, mostly the change in value as they dry on the paper. And in addition, I was having a hard time mixing greens, as Nina discouraged me from using Thalo. And the whole idea of underpainting was hard for me to grasp, but Nina led me through the process with patience and I really like some of the results.

Soon after coming home I set to work trying to finish a third painting I had started. The 2 above were done inside looking out windows. But I began this 3rd one in a field in the wind. After the easel blew over 3 times I worked in my lap. I was also distracted by a lot of sheep wandering and being herded around me. Working from my photo, I've come a long way in finishing it, but after scanning, I see a lot I need to still work on.

Since I'm having a show in Juneau first Friday in September, it dawned on me I'd better finish a couple of watercolor paintings I'd started before going to Ireland and start framing what I've done. I was tempted to finish one of the watercolors in gouache, but decided I might goof it up, and I need more work for my show. But I'm anxious to get back to the gouache.

I've spent several days, getting what new work I have matted and just this morning called in an order for frames to Daniel Smith. The guy said a little more than half way through my list (33 in all) that this is the biggest frame order he's ever taken. He said his brain was fried when finished.

I'm sure glad to get that out of the way. But the fun really begins when the frames come and I have to put them together. I wish I had more larger paintings but as far as framing, I'm glad they are small. I also wish I could afford a framer.

Its so good to be home. The weather has been warm. I forget how beautiful this place I live in is until I leave for a while.

STILL IN JUNEAU

2011-06-23T20:16:00.000-08:00

Only a few days left and I'll be on a plane to Ireland, so I want to get one more post in before I leave. I'm really not into blogging lately which is pretty obvious if anyone might actually ever come to read here. I don't quite know why. Its like a lot of creative things I do and then don't do. Some I come back to and some I don't. My paper journal has also been full of gaps the last year. This has happened before in the many years I written and sketched in my journals, but I always return, sometimes slowly, so maybe this is a beginning of a return.

I"m enjoying my stay in Juneau. The boat is comfortable, the cat good company, and I'm close to town and can walk to the grocery store and the swimming pool . I have Lee's car which gets me out the road easily and I have several friends here that I've spent enjoyable time with. I've had some doctor appointments (good 9 month check up) and have been getting some physical therapy for my aging body.

After much inertia, I finally got the oils out a couple of weeks ago and went outside. I guess things are getting better after 4 sessions in different places, a little easier for sure. I can't find my cord to load the camera to the computer, so I can't put them on here yet. Maybe the reason that I'm finally writing here is that I am feeling something positive is coming from the effort. And I am enjoying the process when I am actually doing them.

But I seem to have a barrier keeping me from taking my oils out by myself and working at an easel. I just can't make myself do it. I guess its being shy and feeling like the center of attention, and my work looks so bad. I don't have a problem going out with my stool and watercolors in my lap which I've done several times here in the last few weeks. I did take the oils once to one place by myself where I knew no people would be, but every little noise made me think of a bear eating me. So my plein aire oil painting has been with other people.

There is a group of painters that call themselves the plein rein painters here in Juneau who go out every Saturday and paint together and I joined them last Saturday, and have gone with my friend Michelle 3 other times.

The fact that my show will be in September hasn't seemed to have kicked in. I really should be working diligently on some pieces for the show all this month instead of struggling with the oils. Or I should say more diligently. I'm able to paint with watercolor on the boat that I'm staying on, using photos on my laptop, but I just forget how to paint for a while. Many hours here on the boat and outside have yielded nothing good. I have really been painting terribly, but this week I finally have one piece for the show and am working on another that I think will turn out well.

So, off to Ireland next week. I'll be working with gouache.... would like to do oils, but don't want to lug all the stuff I'd need there. I'll be back home in mid-July, and who knows, maybe anxious to get back to my blog. I'd better be ready to do a few more pieces for my show.

Can't leave without at least one picture. this I did a couple of months ago.

SUNSET watercolor 14x14 inches

I'M BACK

2011-06-05T21:43:00.000-08:00

I won't bore you with a bunch of excuses and reasons for my negligence here. I'll just get going again.

I'm in Juneau for most of this month, boat and cat sitting for my son who has gone south. I offered to do so some time ago thinking it would be a week or 2, not 4 weeks. For the first time in 30+ years, I will be away from home for most of the summer. At the end of June I will be taking off for Ireland for a workshop with Nina Weiss.

The last 3 months have flown by.... and I was doing a lot of flying, coming to Juneau for dental and medical appointments. My painting output has not been good these last few months. Here is at least one that I like:


watercolor, about 20x12 inches

LONG OVERDUE

2011-03-12T16:27:00.001-09:00

Oh my. I'm taking the afternoon to put something on my blog and now I see that I never published what I started at the end of February..... telling about my rather unproductive month. Here is some of what I wrote:

I spent about 2 weeks making some books for friends.... most of the time on the computer getting the pages to fit on the pages properly. They are gifts and so I don't want to put them here as I haven't sent them out yet. My hope to do a postcard everyday has not succeeded. But I have kept with my resolve to play my guitar and get more exercise a good bit better.

My progress with the oils hasn't been going very well.

about 8x8 inches water mixable oils

This is one of a few small oils that I've done, the only one worthy of putting here.

Bosc Pears 5x12 inches watercolor and gouache

And I found this in my photos, done sometime in December when I was trying to come up with something for a woodcut. The color is different in this photo... the background gouache in the painting is more purple. I think I like this blue better.

I'm in Juneau now for the usual things here: visiting my son and grand daughter, dentist, taxes, shopping, and will leave for Anchorage tomorrow for my 6 month check up.

We've had a lot of cold weather this winter and it continues on. Maybe after a few days in Anchorage, coming home to SE Alaska will feel like going to the tropics.

And now its almost the middle of March, home, but will be going back to Juneau in a couple of days.... and it was actually colder in SE Alaska than Anchorage when I came home. All my tests were good in Anchorage, which was a big relief and I had a very enjoyable visit with a fabulous and inspirational artist, Wanda Seamster . Our tax returns are filed and I had a good visit with family and friends in Juneau But my dentist appointment there for a check up and cleaning resulted in 2 crowns so I have to go back to finish up and also for another doctor appointment.
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After coming home I got out my old acrylic paints. I had gotten pretty discouraged with my last few attempts with the oils Several people have suggested I use acrylics instead of the water mixable oils if I want to avoid solvents. I did some fish on a couple of fish-roe boxes.... kind of funky looking... and discovered in the process that I definitely like the oils better. The acrylics were hard to blend.... dried too fast. I had something that makes them stay wet longer, but it had dried out..... has been years since I had tried acrylics. I seem to be scared to start another oil, so started a watercolor yesterday. It started out wrong and got to a point of failure where I couldn't fix it. Maybe tomorrow I'll get the nerve to start another oil painting. But for the rest of today, its here with the laptop.

WETLANDS

2011-02-10T10:30:00.000-09:00

We had a sunny day on Sunday and I got out and took some photos of what I've been working on. The internet was out on Monday, I finally uploaded 2 of the images on Tuesday and her it is Thursday. And of course all that I wrote on Tuesday isn't where I am now, so just a couple of paintings today.

Wetlands watercolor 13x20 inches


WETLANDS water mixable oils 10x10 inches

FIRST OIL PAINTING OF THE YEAR

2011-01-31T15:18:00.000-09:00

Here it is the end of January already, and I only have one finished painting to put here. And I am so behind with my computer stuff. I have lots of emails to answer, my postcard postings are behind though at least I've done 6 each week, and my 2 woodblocks are done and the exchange ones off in the mail. But new resolve for the next month to get more painting done. I started a new oil and a larger than usual watercolor last week. They are coming alone, but today I'm catching up on the internet. After a lot of trouble earlier in the month, it has been working well lately.

9 x 12 inches, water mixable oil

This is a stand of mountain hemlock that I've painted several times before, more often with late summer sun making them glow. I need to work on the lower right side. So often, I don't see the weak spots until I've put the photos here.

I seem to need a sunny day to get a decent image to put here, and we've had a few the last few days. Thankfully, I remembered to take this outside and take a picture yesterday, as it turned overcast again today and snow or rain is on its way.

SMALL STUDIES

2011-01-24T10:00:00.002-09:00

Last week, I finished another oil painting and spent hours on one of the older ones. Maybe it will be dry outside today so I can take some photos.

Since the beginning of the year, I've been again posting my little watercolors and gouache on my other blog. I'm pretty proud of myself for having a post for every day.... on Sundays I've given myself a day off and post an older image and I'm often a day or two late getting my posting on. These are usually from life and only one each day, but on Saturday, inspire by blog postings by both Nathan Fowkes and Sherrie York I did the 3 mountain ones on this page using images for reference from old slides that I had scanned , thinking more of finding a good composition than I usually do. I'm determined to keep doing more, trying different arrangements and view points.

Well, off to a new week. I seem to have something else to do almost everyday that keeps me from spending the whole day in the studio. On Monday mornings I do a couple of hours at the local second hand store and I'm already late.

PEAR WOODCUT

2011-01-15T00:28:00.001-09:00

PEAR woodcut 11 x 5 inches

Wow, I switched to the new Blogger editor (Maybe its not all that new, but I just found it) and can put a larger picture here. I did but changed it because it was too big for the window.

I finished my other print and am somewhat pleased with it. It took a lot longer than I expected. I used 4 blocks, 3 were reduction, and I think there were 17 passes. I ended up with an edition of 33 and a couple of artist proofs. 28 of them will be included in a Baren Forum exchange.

The printing stuff is put away and I'm anxious to get back to the oils tomorrow.

WOODCUTS CONTINUE

2011-01-11T17:08:00.003-09:00

I've been cutting and printing for over a week now. I finished printing the Year of the Rabbit yesterday. I used 2 blocks reductive. Had some problems with the trees, but like it otherwise.

Still working on the other print.... Its reduction with 4 blocks. I've done 10 impressions so far and have 7 more, I think. Loving and hating it.

BACK TO THE WOODCUTS

2011-01-04T08:24:00.008-09:00

Yesterday, I got back to the struggle with the woodcut exchange print. As I said before, coming up with a good image is a challenge. I spent much of yesterday going through old photographs, looking for something I could use on the specified 13 x 6 inch paper. I finally went back to some sketches I had done before Christmas of pears and whipped out this watercolor.

It is 12 x 5 inches, which will leave a half inch border. The scanner left an inch off the bottom which was dark brown.... I may leave it off the print too and I'm not sure about the background color behind the pear. There is also some of the image missing on the right; why, I don't know. There will be more shadow in the pear. The paint ran together because I was in a hurry and couldn't find my hair dryer.

I really wanted to do a landscape, but everything I came up with was really complicated. I'm feeling relief that I've finally got a design.

NEW YEARS EVE THOUGHTS

2010-12-31T12:30:00.000-09:00

These holiday weeks have been relatively quiet here. Seems half the town has gone south. We had friends for Christmas dinner and our grand daughter came out from Juneau yesterday for a visit. We will have friends over tonight for fun and games.

I had intended to get two woodblock prints done before the end of the year, but am a long way from it. They are both for Baren exchanges. I have cut 2 blocks for the year of the rabbit exchange and once I start printing will do some reduction in one or both of them which should go pretty easily. but I'm anguishing over my image for the other one. The size is what's giving me problems... 13x 6 inches. Though it can be any orientation, I'm trying to do it with the 13 inches vertical. I've gone back and forth between 2 images, but now looking at something completely different.

I put my water mixable oils away a couple of weeks ago with intentions of getting back to them after New Years, but will have at least another week with these blasted prints. I'm admitting to myself that my love for printmaking has taken a downward curve. I've only done one or two editions for each of the last few years, and these have been for exchanges. The exchanges have been fun and I have received some real treasures and once I get into the long process, I do enjoy making them, but more and more I realize I'd rather be doing something else. There was once a passion there, but now it is just something I do. In this season of renewal, as I reflect on my recent illness and approaching another decade, time is much on my mind and using it more satisfyingly, more meaningfully is my goal for the new year.

My show in September is a big priority in my time and I want to continue with the oil painting, . And speaking of satisfying, I really must get back in the habit of sketching and/or painting my little "postcards" everyday. And with the daily doing will probably come more frequent posts on my blogs.

Here is a painting I was working on earlier in the month:

Creek 10 x 10 inches water mixable oils on canvas panel

I still haven't figured out how to get a decent photograph. The rocks definitely need more work and my values are off, more so in the photo than in the real thing. I like this stage of the painting better than the stage its in now:

I had done an under painting with burnt sienna before this layer.

I'm looking forward to long quiet hours in the studio in the coming weeks.

Wishing all a blessed 2011!

OOPS and NEW PAINTINGS

2010-12-10T09:56:00.008-09:00

I am so inept at doing things on my blog. A few days ago I was adding some blogs to the list of ones I follow onto my blog and also deleting a couple that haven't had posts in months then clicked on the remove button and lost my whole list. What is so bad is that this is the second time I've done that. I got some back from the list of the ones I officially "follow".

But I'm making progress with the water mixable oils. I made a mahl stick that has helped a lot with details. It took me a while to figure out that it works quite well with just one end on the easel and the other end in my hand.

The School 9 x 12 inches water mixable oil on canvas

Beartrack Mountain 5x5 inches water mixable oil on canvus

I opened my little gallery today for the first time since my surgery in August. It feels good to be out here. I brought some of the oils out to get some feedback. Not very many people came by (the roads and paths are treacherous with ice), but the little one of the mountain that I just posted seems to be the favorite.

BACK IN THE STUDIO

2010-12-02T21:16:00.005-09:00

I just don't know where the time goes. The older I get, the faster time passes., it seems. I went to Anchorage almost 3 weeks ago, then back to SE and spent a week in Juneau... partly medical reasons (all OK for now), partly shopping and partly to visit my son and grand daughter.

I stayed a little longer in Juneau so I could come back home on the very first ferry to our fair city on the 23rd. The car deck was full and there was quite a party atmosphere aboard. Seemed half the town was out to meet us. There's a very informative article about the ferry and our little city here.

As usual when I travel, my sketchbook and paints went along, but I only did a few pen and ink sketches. Back home came the turkey and time with friends and now back to painting.

These 3 were done last month before my travels. I had another photographed that I thought was finished but seeing it here, deleted it and decided to work on it some more.

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Buddha in Homer 16 x 12 water mixable oil

Inner Lagoon 9 x 9 water mixable oil

Secret Beach 7 1/2 x 7 1/2 water mixable oils

VERY BELATED HAPPY NEW YEAR

2010-11-10T10:06:00.004-09:00

This is my ninth year of participating in a print exchange of Chinese New Years greetings on Baren Forum. Each year I have made a print, about 4x6 and mailed them out to about 50 others and they send one to me... or at least they are suppose to. Most do eventually. This year is the year of the tiger. I usually get mine out around the first of the year, but not this year. I had almost decided to wait and send them out with the next years print, but that could lead to even more procrastination. So last week, I took a few days and yesterday put them all in the mail.

The black is printed with linoleum which I had carved months ago. The bamboo was printed with one woodblock reductive, the ochre first and then the green. I cut another woodblock for the "2010" which originally included color for the tiger, but I liked her better white. And 2010 is actually the year of the white tiger so that it is. I use Japanese methods for printing.

I came to Juneau yesterday and flying to Anchorage today. Will be back home before Thanksgiving. Maybe I'll put some photos on before I get back.

THE PAINT IS DRYING

2010-11-08T22:32:00.002-09:00

Here are a couple of paintings that have dried enough to put in the scanner.

Almost to the Top 9 x 9 inches oil on gessoed watercolor paper

So often I don't see something wrong in a painting until I've put it on the screen. The left tree needs a lot of redoing and I think a little more lighter plants at the bottom would lead into the painting better. I'm sure liking being able to fix things, unlike with watercolor.

Wetland Path 8 1/2 x8 1/2 inches oil on Canson Canva-Paper

I read about doing an under-painting and tried it with this one. I used burnt sienna. I like the way the color shows through. I don't know if splattering is a common oil technique, but its what I would have done with watercolor and it seemed to work.

GRANITE COVE VIEW

2010-11-02T12:58:00.005-08:00

I've continued painting with the oils almost everyday and doing lots of reading and looking at the way other people do them and making progress. My years of painting with watercolor have certainly hastened the progress.

I've tried to photograph some but can't get anything but blurs or glare, so guess I'll have to wait for a sunshiny day, or at least one that isn't raining all day or get my tripod out to get a decent photo. This one has dried enough to put in the scanner, though there was a little white speck of paint to clean off the plate of glass when I finished. Any suggestions for photographing wet oil paints would be greatly appreciated.

GRANITE BEACH VIEW water mixable oils on watercolor paper 5.5x5.5 inches

This is from a photo I took on a kayak and camping trip last May.

WATER MIXABLE OILS

2010-10-23T14:56:00.004-08:00

I'm making one last effort to become an oil painter. I said that the last time I tried.... May of last year when I took a 3 day plein aire workshop in Juneau. After I got home, I didn't touch the paints again. The time before that was about 12 years ago... I did one painting which wasn't too bad. Someone even bought it. There were a couple of times before that, years and years ago. Each time, though, I probably never spent more than a week trying to work with them. Always back to watercolor with the easy clean up and no bad toxic odors.

In the last couple of years, working with gouache, I've been finding watercolor less and less appealing. I really like being able to paint lights on dark, not having to save the whites. All summer, I had lots of intentions to go outside and try out the oils again, not wanting to use them inside, but just the idea of getting outside with all the gear and remembering the frustration outside in that workshop, I never got there. I saw a show in Juneau last summer with some work done with "water miscible oils" and read up on them, figured they would be good to try, and last month ordered a few tubes made by Winsor and Newton and started working with them a couple of weeks ago. And after starting to experiment with them, I ordered some more tubes. I'm loving them.

From what I heard and read, most oil painters say they aren't like real oil paints. But since I'm not at all experienced, I don't know the difference. Here are a couple of what I did the first week:

These are both small, about 5 inches high and painted on gessoed watercolor paper

It hasn't been easy. Controlling the long brushes at an easel instead of a flat table still feels awkward and it has been hard getting the colors right and painting on top of wet paint.... especially painting on top of wet paint. I ordered some fast drying medium and hope it helps. Also ordered some more brushes and some canvas panels. I think I'm hooked.

PEARS

2010-10-16T00:07:00.002-08:00

Last week I found this website of pear paintings, got inspired to paint another still life, and went to our little stores looking for pears and there weren't any in town. I asked a friend who was coming from Juneau to bring some out to me and spent the week painting them. Here are 2 I did in watercolor. In each there are 2 De'angelos and a Bartlett.

watercolor about 8x8 inches on Fabriano hot press

watercolor 11 x 8.5 inches on mystery paper

I placed the cloth hanging vertically behind the pears. I'm not sure it reads that way. I love this paper..... on a block that I got at a garage sale.... a German company (I think) with a long name starting with an S. I no longer have the cover of the block with the name on it.

CARROTS FROM THE GARDEN

2010-10-13T21:51:00.003-08:00

watercolor about 9 x 9 inches

I brought these in from the garden to have for dinner one night and they looked so pretty I started painting them. Different light coming through the window on different days made for some confusing shadows, I used some white paint in the highlights. By the time I finished panting them they were ready for the compost pile.

ACROSS FROM THE LAKE

2010-10-07T21:00:00.004-08:00

No rain today and would have gone outside and painted in the sun, but was waiting for someone to come by all day (he never showed up) and so painted from a photo that I took last week. Tried to do something a little larger than usual with gouache.... still pretty small.

gouache painting 8x8 inches

I feel like such a beginner with gouache, still having trouble with the values..... the mountains should have been lighter. I have begun using oil painting brushes and painting on an easel instead of with my watercolor rounds working flat, and it is beginning to feel a little easier but for the details. I had a lot of trouble with the foreground on this one, wiped it out a couple of times and still don't like it.

COLOR OUTSIDE MY WINDOW

2010-10-05T10:12:00.005-08:00

Its been over 6 weeks now since my surgery and I'm getting into the studio and starting to paint again. I'm having a hard time getting enthused about painting from photographs. I want to go out and paint, but the weather is just too yucky. I did go out for a walk with my paint kit yesterday, a relatively nice day, but I was just too cold to set up. I did these two from my studio window last week.

gouache about 5.5x5.5 inches I painted the sky with a wet wash

gouache about 7x7 inches

I

GETTING MY MOJO BACK

2010-09-23T14:24:00.007-08:00

This is about the longest I've gone without a posting in one or the other of my two blogs. First I apologize to those who have enjoyed looking here and now a bunch of excuses for my absence.

Not very many days have gone by that I haven't felt guilty and wished I had some piece of art that I felt good enough about to scan and write about. It has really been a long dry spell as far as producing any painting is concerned.... nothing much since last winter. Much of my energy this summer was on getting my gallery open and tending to it almost every afternoon..... that and the gardening, a trip to Juneau to visit with my son and grand daughter and two visits here from my grand daughter took about all the time and energy I had. I did do a lot of work on some botanical drawings (more about that later) and an occasional drawing in one of my sketch books. Now that I look back, there are a couple of things I probably should have posted. But my Internet connection was getting worse and worse all summer and I could only get on line at one spot in my house and I got new scanner to scan slides and when I got it working, my old scanner wouldn't work and the new scanner was in a different place and finally I sort of said to heck with it (thought still lamenting everyday that I really ought to make the effort to put something on my blog, though as I said before, there wasn't much to post.) Well, last month, after some trips to the local clinic, I ended up having surgery in Seattle.

Now I'm home and feeling better everyday, I'm definitely getting my Mojo back. For the first time ever this time of year that I can recall, we've had almost 2 weeks straight of sunny weather which has really helped my state of mind. It usually rains most of September. I've been getting out and walking and a few days ago started taking my paints and doing some little watercolors... 4 of them below. It felt so good to be out there in the sun painting again.

each is 4x6inches watercolor on paper

Today, the weather changed and I'm inside and there is no longer an excuse for not getting back to my blog. Now I have broadband (still pretty slow but that is what its called) and I got my old scanner to work, and now I can get on line all over the house. I get happy just thinking about it!

My show at the Juneau Arts and Humanities has been rescheduled to a year from now (September of 2011) and I have reluctantly turned down the job to do the botanical drawings for the Park Service, as the drawings are needed by February and it would be impossible at this point to do most of them from live specimens.

I'm thinking seriously about reviving my other blog, Watercolor Postcards and am almost ready to promise myself to paint a postcard everyday. And now that the rains have started, I'll be getting some work done in the studio.

MID SUMMER

2010-07-16T22:18:00.000-08:00

I'd better get with a posting here before the summer is over. The internet is still slow as molasses and new scanner is giving me difficulty.

Since I last posted, my granddaughter, Alyssa, came to visit, the 4th of July happened and I've continued to open my gallery every day but Sunday.... well all but one Monday when Alyssa and I went to the beach and picked wild strawberries, picnicked and sketched. Van has been home a bit, but left a couple of days ago to fish cohos until the August closure.

Its been raining a lot.... making up for the dry warm May and early June. The slugs are out in droves.... I spoon up dozens everyday and still my poor cabbages are full of holes. My lettuce and arugula are in a galvanized tub and so far the slimy things haven't ventured in.

Brown bears have come to town. Black bears are common here, but only rarely a brown. One was killed last week, sparking a State Trooper investigation as to who shot it. Another one was seen today and there is fresh scat near my house. I don't worry much about the black bears, but the brown ones are a different matter.

I haven't been very productive painting. It seems I'm just getting ready to get started with something and its 2 p.m. and time to open the gallery. Some days no one comes and other days I'm talking to people most of the afternoon. I've put a table out there and have been able to do some sketching.

A few weeks ago, I got a small Guerilla paint box that I had ordered last month. It goes on a tripod, but so far haven't had a chance with decent weather to go outside with it. I have done a couple of little paintings inside using it painting from photographs. This is one of them:

Lupines at the Beach 5x7 gouache painting

It is a whole different experience painting on an easel.... something I find awkward. I paint all my watercolors and until now, my gouache with the painting on a table, and being left handed and always an overhand writer, I tend to paint overhanded too, especially in the details and want to rest my wrist on the painting. I've made a mahl stick to try next time and trying to paint more with my hand under. After over 60 years of trying I still can't write that way, but hope springs eternal.

I've started a larger painting of this same scene in watercolor. I'll probably pull out the gouache when I get into the flowers.

Its way past time to make a block print for the Year of the Tiger exchange at Baren. I have the design figured out and might have time to start carving my block tomorrow.... I can probably work on it in the gallery.

I'll be going to Juneau next week, but promising myself and whomever else might care that I will start blogging more often... and painting more often too.

ANOTHER GOUACHE PAINTING AND FRUSTRATING INTERNET CONNECTION

2010-06-25T08:02:00.000-08:00

Any time I try painting something larger than about 6 inches wide or high with gouache, I end up with having to wipe out a lot and struggling with the sky. I can usually get a large area of flat color, though I'm still having trouble predicting what its going to look like dry, but I really have trouble when there is some gradation...as in the painting posted last week.

gouache painting on black gessoed 300# Arches, about 51/2 x 6 inches

This one came a little easier than the last one being smaller. In fact I was surprised how quickly I did it. Its from a photo I took last winter at the beach. I love the way the grasses and willow glowed from the light of the setting sun.

I did another one from a photo from that same afternoon and was going to link to it here but after waiting for the archives to load for a half hour, we'll forget that. I guess its from just too many people using the system here in the summer that makes it so much slower than in the winter. Some times I can't even get connected. I could have gotten a good start on a painting in the time I've spent with this entry and am asking myself why I do this.

LATER: Well, it dawned on me after publishing this that I could just go to older posts and find the painting I was looking for, so I did and couldn't find it. So then, in the depths of my brain, I remembered my other blog and looked and found it there. The stuff on the side of my blog still isn't coming up. Maybe its blogger.

VIEW FROM THE HYDRO ROAD

2010-06-18T15:28:00.000-08:00

As usual, the summer is flying by.... just a few days until solstice and the days will start getting shorter. We finally had some rain but most days are sunny. I've been opening my gallery every day and having a few people come by. I've moved a table out here and have been drawing and painting between visitors. The internet comes slower out here, but I've got lots of time.

Today was the dedication of the hydro-electric plant here that has been in the works for many years and came on line last year. Until the hydro, we relied on oil powered generators for electricity. For the first few years we lived here, there wasn't even that and we used propane lamps and only used our little generator for washing clothes.... those were the days.

Anyway, most of the town folk walked or got a ride up the hill and were treated with burgers and hotdogs and listened to speeches and got a tour of the facilities and best of all got to look at the falls and the view of Icy Strait from about 600 feet.

Here's a painting I painted last week from a photo I took from up there last year.

View From the Hydro Road gouache painting 6 1/2 x 10 1/2

This doesn't look like I'd envisioned but after getting away from it, I kind of think its OK.

STRANGE WEATHER

2010-06-10T09:47:00.000-08:00

The warm sunny weather continues. What little rain we've had has been at night and not very much. We did have a thunder storm one day (but not much rain with it) which was quite unusual for this time of year.... most years go by without any thunder being heard around here. It is an El Nino year, but despite what our former governor and other yahoos say our globe is warming. Oops, getting political so I'll go to other matters.

This summer is quite different than most.... Van has gone to Sitka to fish every one of the last 30+ Junes since we've lived here, but this year he has fished nearer to home and has actually been home some. And the weather is keeping me outside more than usual..... I've been waiting for a cool raining day to do several things (like keeping up with this blog) and those days just aren't happening. Today is cloudier than usual so here I am.

I opened my gallery last week, and this year I am opening 6 days a week for 3 hours rather than being just on call or sporadic. I've spent a lot of time matting my new paintings and getting things ready and very little painting.... but my work is cut out for me for the next year.

I had applied for a one person show at the Juneau Arts and Humanities Council last April and expected to hear something at the beginning of May and had about decided I wasn't accepted but at the end of the month I got a letter accepting my proposal and am scheduled for a show next April. I'm going to have to put a lot more time into painting than I have been these last few years and am happy to have some goal.

And I might be taking on an other project doing some botanical illustration with pen and ink. Its not quite a sure thing yet, but I'd really like to do them.

Well, I need to put a picture on here.

YELLOW IRIS watercolor 14 x 7 1/2

I painted this several years ago..... it never really finished it to my liking, and at some point I had outlined everything with a red Nexus pen. Yesterday I cropped it and fit it into a mat that I had cut wrong for another painting and it seems to work now and its hanging in the gallery.

AN AWESOME TRIP

2010-05-28T09:44:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday, my friend Kim and I caught a ride with my husband Van to Cross Sound where he was going to fish for a 3 day King opening. We took our kayaks and got off the boat at Elfin Cove and paddled over to Granite Beach on George Island and camped for 3 nights.

On Sunday our friend Jane boated over from her home, a very special place that you can read about here, and spent the afternoon with us.

Here's sweet Jane.

On Monday we paddled around another island (Three Hill) which took most of the day. Fantastic weather.... sun and not much wind, and the tides were right. Here's Kim thinking about going through the arch. She didn't.

We stopped at a couple of beaches and explored and had lunch.

Here we are at the far end of the island watching nesting cormorants on the cliffs. Weird sounds coming from them.

A 20 minute walk from where we camped took us to this cannon which was part of a military installation protecting the northern entrance to the inside passage during WWII. There were also some remnants of buildings.

And here is an overlook from one of the trails. For years I've passed by these islands in our boat and never saw them from the inside... quite a different experience.

Many pleasant hours were spent on the beach. A humpback whale was in the cove much of the time.

Oh yes, I also did a few sketches.

And now I'm home getting the garden planted and my little gallery ready to open and a zillion other things on my list. And we're having a heat wave. I'm sure we must be breaking records with the weather this year. It has hardly rained at all since I came back home a month ago.

A PAINTING DONE IN MARCH

2010-05-20T16:37:00.000-08:00

Juneau in February 7x10 inches

Here is a painting I did in March while in Florida,from a photo I had taken when we passed through Juneau on our way South. The big house with the green roof is the governor's mansion.

I'm still not back to work in the studio. About all I've done are some little flower studies which I'll get scanned and on here next time, maybe. Staying busy with the garden and getting the gallery ready to open next month. And tomorrow, I'm going paddling and camping for a few days.

ARTIST BLOCK

2010-05-13T21:22:00.001-08:00

I've been home for almost 2 weeks and still not into the swing of things, certainly not in the studio. I'm busy with other things like gardening and spring cleaning, but do have time to spend in the studio. However, the most I manage to do are a few little "postcards" and a very bad start of a larger piece from a photo. Oh yes, and lots of looking for things, sorting through my stuff, rearranging the room. The muse just isn't around. Very little I've ever done seems very good to me and there's nothing I want to paint. It's a perennial thing that happens about this time of year, especially after I've just come back from a trip..

I just read Robert Genn's latest letter which is on artist blocks. He says one should identify ones species of artist block, listing the main ones:

".... fear of failure after previous success, fear of success due to a sense of unworthiness, lack of potential venue, jaded attitude, crisis of confidence, evidence of persistent poor quality, lackadaisical motivation and common everyday shortage of ideas."

I seem to suffer from most of these at some time or other ... right now it's probably just lackadaisical motivation... and I just don't have the will to overcome this inertia. He advises one to get out the paint first thing in the morning and go to work. Maybe I'll try that tomorrow. But first, I've got to sort out another drawer.

I guess I'd better put a couple of my poor efforts from the last couple of weeks:

gouache on arches 140 gessoed with black 5x5"

This was looking out the window..... hardly any color in the willow when I first painted it, then yesterday I splattered on the new leaves..... should have left it alone.

ink on Yupo 4x6"

I did this after going through my paper and finding some Yupo paper, and trying out some non-waterproof ink in my pen.

SOME TRAVEL JOURNAL PAGES

2010-05-05T23:17:00.000-08:00

Back home last week and back to my blog! We left Florida a month ago.... heading west then north. Here are some pages from my journal.

I did this while still in Florida, at my brother's in Lake Wales. We left Van's rowboat there.

After stopping to visit cousins and aunt in north Florida, we headed towards San Antonio to visit my other brother. East Texas was beautiful and I wish I'd had time to paint the fields of wild flowers. This one little blue bonnet was all I had time for.

The back yard of friends we visited in Las Cruces NM

The Grand Canyon was amazing.

Another back yard,

More days on the road, stops in Twin Falls, ID; Zillah, WA, and Bellingham, visiting friends and relatives. Some sketching in the car, but pretty shaky lines.

Finally to Prince Rupert, BC where we got on the ferry heading for Juneau.

Across from the ferry terminal in Wrangell.

We got to Juneau on the 26th. Van flew home and got the boat and came back to Juneau where we did our spring shopping. Wonderful trip, but sure am glad to be home.

JOURNEY DAYBOOK ADVENTURE

2010-03-26T09:49:00.000-08:00

It's been really busy around here. Our son and grand-daughter were here for 10 days. We did a lot of driving, Disney World, visiting family, perusing antique and junk stores (a family addiction), enjoying the warm weather and water when it was near, swimming a couple of times, and just enjoying each others company.

Last year here in Cedar Key, I attended a class on keeping an illustrated journal with local artist Margaret Herrick. .... no, actually the class was at Fanning Springs and I wrote about it here. Last Friday, I joined her and several other journal keepers on their monthly Journey Daybook adventure at Rainbow Springs State Park.

This is my journal page from the day.... the heron is a photo from a brochure, and the dragon fly is the stamp that they put on your hand when you pay your admission.

Journey, contemplation, being present, and working alone are the process of Journey Daybook.
The Journey Daybook site is here and Margaret's beautiful work is here. Both sites are very inspiring and well worth a look.

TRAVELS CONTINUE

2010-03-18T03:07:00.000-08:00

So busy! We spent a pleasant 10 days in Cedar Key.... have done a lot of walking, not much time on the water as the wind has blown a lot, made a trip to the Suwanee River Refuge on Van's birthday on the 7th, and I've done a bit of painting.

I scanned some of my sketches then Photoshop E crashed and I only had one saved and here it is:

watercolor about 5 x 5"

This is along the road into town. I sat on an old dock below the bridge in very hot sun to draw it and partly paint it. It rained the next couple of days and I finished from a photo.

Last Sunday, we went back to Central Florida to my brother's in Lake Wales. Lee and Alyssa were suppose to get to Orlando on Saturday night, but the plane they were on had mechanical problems in Ketchikan and they missed their connection in Seattle, spent the night there and flew to LA on Sunday for a 12 hour wait and finally got to Orlando at 5:30 Monday morning. After a day of mostly rest, Lee, Alyssa, and I went to Disney's Magic Kingdom on Tuesday. I was lots of fun, and Alyssa loved it. Me to except for getting on the Thunder Mountain Railroad. We will go again to Disney next week before Lee and Alyssa leave.

Yesterday, we drove to Palmetto and are visiting more relatives. Undecided at this point whether to spend another day here or drive on up to Cedar Key today.

BACK IN CEDAR KEY

2010-03-08T07:46:00.000-09:00

Quite remiss I've been with my blog. We are in Cedar Key again We're renting my cousin Martha's pretty cottage which is across the street from where we stayed last year.

Here's a little painting I did of it last year.

We've been busy since I last posted.... 2 days in Juneau and flew all day on Feb. 26 arriving in Orlando. We stayed with my brother in Lake Wales for a few days, bought a car and came here on the 3rd. I have to come to the library to get on line and it seems more pressing things are taking my time here than my blog. I have done a little bit of painting in my journal and will get something else on here soon. But now I'm going to walk back to the house before it gets too hot and go out in my new kayak this afternoon.

POPPIES FROM THE PAST

2010-02-23T21:39:00.000-09:00

Busy, busy, getting ready to leave home for two months and haven't done any painting for about a week. We'll be flying to Juneau tomorrow if the weather lets us, and flying to Orlando on Friday. I'm planning to paint and blog when we get settled in Cedar Key, maybe even before we're settled.

I can't seem to find a scan I'm sure I did of a little gouache painting last week before I cleaned up the studio, so found this that I did in 2006 of poppies and peas from my garden.

Still life with Yellow Chair watercolor and gouache 24 x 18

As with most of my still life paintings, I painted the flowers first from life, sometimes with no idea of what else would be in the painting. I finished it several months later, adding the gouache background last. Looking at this now, the green pitcher seems to be floating, not grounded.... I never noticed that before.

HAPPY FISH

2010-02-17T23:01:00.000-09:00

I don't think I mentioned when I posted my Valentine candies that they were many years old and in a box of "little things to paint someday." Also in the box were some little gold fish.

gouache painting about 6x6"

This little bowl seemed just the right thing to put in the same painting.

HEARTS IN THE WRONG PLACE

2010-02-16T21:18:00.000-09:00

After doing the little Valentine card in watercolor, I decided to try painting the candies with gouache. I've used gouache in the past in still life paintings but always just in the flat backgrounds. I look around for something to put with the candies and came up with a little Chinese cloisonne dish.

gouache painting 5.5x5"

It really doesn't go at all with these little hearts. Chinese fortune cookies would have been more appropriate. I decided that copying the words from the candies would add insult to injury.... don't know if the LOVE will stay there.

I do like the looks though of the little dish..... much more vibrant than I'd ever be able to paint it with watercolor. I used gold watercolor on the table.

HAPPY ST. VALENTINE'S DAY

2010-02-13T20:05:00.001-09:00

watercolor 3.3x4.7"

I moved the gouache paints out of the way for a while on Thursday and painted this for a valentine card for my grand daughter. Wishing you all a happy St. Valentine's Day full of love.

SOME MORE TREES AND BLUE SKY

2010-02-11T22:05:00.000-09:00

gouache 3x5" on black gessoed watercolor paper

I did this value study last month of a stand of trees near the beach west of the Salmon River.... from a photo I took on a rare sunny day last winter.... Sitka Spruce, Coastal Pine and Cottonwood.

gouache 6x10" on gray gessoed watercolor paper

and just finished this from the same photo. I had a heck of a time with the sky... had to wipe it out 3 times because it was too dark in value, the last time after most of the trees were painted. I tried, unsuccessfully, to get some lighter value towards the horizon.

THE F/V APEX AT MIRROR COVE

2010-02-10T23:54:00.000-09:00

These gouache paintings are taking a lot longer to paint than watercolors of the same size. I guess if I keep on doing them I'll start letting go of some of the detail. I probably should just try painting faster.... use larger brushes. I'd loosen up, but wouldn't like the results.

gouache 4x6"

This small piece took hours and it isn't even very detailed. I think this would have gone faster if I'd painted on a black ground instead of gray. Its our salmon troller, The F/V Apex, anchored in Mirror Harbor on West Chichikof Island.

OFF THE PARK ROAD

2010-02-03T21:31:00.000-09:00

Here I am again questioning my sanity for having two blogs, since I can barely do justice to one. I've been working most days in the studio for the past month on gouache, and posting some of what I've done, since they are small, on my other blog Watercolor Postcards. Since some people might actually look for something here, here is a little one I did yesterday.

gouache 4x4"

COMING OUT OF HIBERNATION

2010-01-23T19:20:00.000-09:00

With the days getting longer (we are having about 8 hours of daylight now) and a couple of days where the sun actually appeared, I'm coming out of hibernation. I seem finally to be over my cold and went for a long walk on the beach yesterday and took my gouache paints with me. It felt great in the sun though it was still below freezing. I ended up painting for about an hour from the car and watching the sun go down at 4.... the little gouache I did might or might not show up on my other blog where the small ones go.

I've been continuing with the monochromatic gouache paintings.

gouache 6x9" on CP Arches

This one is a little larger than the others. Its from a photo I took last week from my kitchen window during our big snow fall. I started with a transparent wash over all which remained uncovered in the sky. I'm loving not having to save my whites. I might splatter some white paint for snow flakes.... or not.

MOUNTAIN HEMLOCK WATERCOLOR AGAIN

2010-01-08T22:38:00.000-09:00

After painting the hemlocks in gouache, I went back to the one I did in watercolor and worked on it some more. The first state is here.

watercolor 9 1/2 x 7

And here it is with more work. I had cropped some on the left side of the first version, but left it in on this one. I used glazes of watercolor and a little bit of gouache. Looks lots better to me.

I've been doing some value studies of the trees out my window for the Wet Canvas challenge that I discussed on the previous post. Here's one I did yesterday.

gouache 5 x 5

GOUACHE PAINTING

2010-01-06T18:42:00.000-09:00

I decided to try to paint the mountain hemlock again... in gouache instead of watercolor. One of my goals for the new year is to work on some other media. It took me most of Monday to find everything and get set up to paint. My first start was on a light gray piece of mat board... after a few hours it got to looking pretty bad so I quit. That night I looked on line and found some really good gouache painting on Maggie Latham's blog, Everything Gouache , and her challenge on Wet Canvas..... Painting Trees in the Landscape ....... a bit of serendipity.

I had joined Wet Canvas when I was still on dial-up and it would have taken most of a day to do anything, but now with my 2G, its doable....most of the time. There is lots and lots there... I've spent a whole bunch of time already reading past challenges and following links to more gouache paintings. I need to figure out how to post scans and photos, but I have joined in. I started in with Maggie's instructions this afternoon to do small monochromatic studies of trees..... out the studio window of the trees I've painted so many times.... very overcast all day and light snow.

Back to the mountain hemlock painting. Yesterday, I started over on a piece of mat board that I painted with black gesso.

Gouache on matboard with black gesso 5 1/2 x 61/2

I worked on it some more today and am liking it a whole lot better than the watercolor. In fact except for a couple of things, I'm pretty happy with it and jazzed about getting in the studio tomorrow to use the gouache again.

HAPPY NEW DECADE AND A NEW PAINTING

2010-01-02T20:19:00.000-09:00

Overwhelmed in December as usual and now ready to get to work. Here's a painting that I started before Christmas and finished a few days ago.

9 1/2 x 6 watercolor

These are mountain hemlocks near where I live at about 3000 ft elevation where I've backpacked to and camped in the past.... a grueling trek that I don't think I have the strength for anymore, though when I look at the photos from there and look at the mountain from here, I think maybe one more time.

5x6 watercolor

After finishing the painting, I remembered this sketch done on location in 96 and found it. It has a vitality that the one I just did and spent hours on doesn't have.... don't know why though. I guess I'd better try again with this sketch as reference along with the photo I used.

VIEW FROM MARY'S COVE

2009-12-24T10:33:00.000-09:00

This is the 3rd attempt at painting this view.... I did a sketch while camping in the little cove in Glacier Bay about 10 years ago and later from photos taken in early morning light.... there was smoke from forest fires in Canada at the time. This one, done last week, is only about 6 by 6 inches.... I'd like to do a larger one. I don't know who Mary was and its not an official name, but that is what at least some people call it..... between Ptarmigan Creek and Lamplugh Glacier.... my friends and I hiked to above the face of Lamplugh from here.

SCANNER DOESN'T WORK

2009-12-18T16:33:00.000-09:00

I have at least one new painting, but can't get my scanner to work. After all morning trying to figure whats wrong, I've given up. This happened before and I got it going again, but can't remember what I did. The scanner won't connect with photoshop elements.

Anyway, thought I ought to put something here, so here's a photo of some books I've made recently.

MOOSE PAINTING

2009-12-13T16:33:00.000-09:00

watercolor 9" x 12"

Is this Alaskana or what? I've been intending to do a large painting of this boggy meadow for years... a place we pass on the way to Bartlett Cove. I want to paint a panoramic view, but did this to see if I could get things right from the references I have. The trees on the left side bother me.... always something.

I've never seen a moose out there, but always look when I pass by. This moose is from a photo of one in my yard.

MY LAST EVER COMMISSIONED PAINTING

2009-12-10T09:59:00.000-09:00

Here it is at last. I started this in July and it was a struggle to draw and paint every last inch of it. Its 15 1/2 x 22 inches. All I've got to say is I'm glad its done and I'll never ever agree to a commissioned painting again.... at least not of a building, a least not this large, at least not with ducks..... not of a boat either. I think I've said this before.

PICTURES FROM MY TRAVELS

2009-11-28T15:54:00.001-09:00

My trip started out in Juneau where besides "town stuff" I visited my son and grand daughter for 3 days. I left just before the first real snow of the season.

On Monday, Nov. 9, I flew to Yakima Washington where my friend Louise picked me up and took me to her home near Zillah. I took this picture a couple of years ago while visiting. Her house is below the big white one on the left just above her reddish orchard of organic bosc pears.

She had had a house party the weekend before with lots of food left over. We ate well. Always lots of pears. Here is beautiful Louise in her beautiful kitchen.

Off to Seattle for a couple of days and stayed with Nadine and visited with Lani, and Emily. I met Aimee at the Best of the NW Arts and Crafts show and walked miles and again ate very well.

On Sunday morning, the 14th, off on the Coastal Starlight train to California. I arrived in Davis the next morning and had an enjoyable day with my cousin Gillian. We spent a couple of hours in the UC Davis Botanical Garden, a Native American art and crafts show on campus and an afternoon at thrift and junk stores..... found a little treasure.

A few images from the Garden:

These were beautiful.... reminding both Jill and me of O'keefe's paintings of them.

We could see many of these night herons in the trees. There are lots of them and other birds that have become a problem, upsetting the ecological system.

I was quite impressed with the mosaics on three sides of this restroom in the garden.

Here is a close-up of one of the walls.

I met Aimee at the train station in Davis on Monday morning (she had left on Sunday) and we rode the rest of the way to Berkeley where we stayed with Aimee's old UCBerkeley college friend Charley.

Charley makes some really good wine and we helped him with bottling. We also helped him drink some.

The Berkeley hills are beautiful. Walking and looking at gorgeous house and gardens was a delight. My last day there ( Sunday) we went to the UC Berkeley Botanical Gardens and it is now my favorite garden.

This is "Charley's tree" He brought the seeds (or maybe it was the actual tree) back from New Zealand years ago.

On Sunday afternoon we drove over to San Francisco and walked around the Golden Gate Park and enjoyed the art and an organ concert at the Legion of Honor Art Museum. We had previously gone to the city on BART and walked for miles.... ate well there too, both times . Also visited and went shopping with relocated Alaskan and blogger friend Aurora in Berkeley, and to 2 other concerts.

.... a view from our last walk in San Francisco.

I flew all the way home on Monday..... was a little doubtful getting out of Juneau, but the visibility got good enough about the time I got there.

So here I am home.... I am about use to the cold again. I didn't go outside until we went to friends for Thanksgiving dinner. It's blowing and raining now, pretty dark at 4 AM.

ON VACATION

2009-11-11T09:43:00.000-09:00

I'm in Washington now visiting friends and will go to California this weekend. Thought I oughta put something here so here goes. I'll be posting on my other blog before getting home just before Thanksgiving.

This is the belladonna amaryllis that I posted a few weeks ago.... I did a wash on the bottom to ground it and I think it works a little better.

I started this painting some time ago and had about given it up (the second attempt).... a year ago,at least. I added the ink lines and a lot more painting. The photo I worked with was taken on an overcast day, but I've seen these trees when the setting sun was hitting them and they glowed and that is what I was trying to capture. Don't know if I did and the composition isn't right.... there should be more sky and trees at the top to balance out the foreground. I could crop some of the foreground, but thats the part of the painting I like the best. Guess I'd better do it again.

DSFDF COLLAGE

2009-10-30T22:04:00.000-08:00

I hadn't done one of the Different Strokes from Different Folks challenges for quite some time and had been thinking about doing the latest one ever since it was offered; but with the woodblock due and paintings to finished, and numerous other things, all I did was just think about it.... every few days I'd go over to the site and see what had been done... and think about it some more. I knew when I first saw the photo that I'd like to do a painting with some collage in it. Thinking the deadline was Thursday night, I pulled out the collage stuff on Wednesday and started cutting and pasting and kept it up all day. I ended up covering what painting I'd done completely with collage. Luckily I looked at the site that evening and saw that I was wrong about the deadline.... it was Wednesday, not Thursday night that it was due...I rushed to the studio and scanned what I'd done and cropped to just part of it which is here. Maybe I'll work on it some more... how I love cutting and pasting. But I'm back to less fun things now. I cut mats all day today and tomorrow will do some framing. Much to do in the next week before I take off for a two week trip to Washington and California.

NASTURTIUM PRINT

2009-10-25T16:15:00.000-08:00

I finished the nasturtium print for the Baren Exchange 42 last Sunday. Here is a bit of some of the process:

I decided to do something a little different..... use linoleum for the key block.I had never printed with lino using the Japanese method (pigment, water, and paste) and was planning to do the key block with oil base.... but happily found that the watercolor and methyl cellulose that I'm used in this worked fine.

And I also was surprised and pleased that I could do somewhat fine lines using the linoleum. I have never been able to get much detail with wood. And it was so easy to cut and my arthritis didn't flair up at all, though by the time I'd cut all the wood blocks I had a pretty painful blister on my middle finger.

Most of my prints in the last few years have been reduction. This is a small print and I'd at first thought I'd might do some reduction, but like the idea of doing more prints later. I might do some reduction later in a final edition.

After trying different ways of registration, I find the following gives me the best results:

I cut my key block and then cut my kentos in all of my blocks before transferring my key block to the additional blocks.

This poor picture shows me rolling oil base ink onto my linoleum key block. I will print onto a piece of tracing paper.

Here is my piece of tracing paper on the lino block after I have rubbed the back with my baren.
You should print a new piece of tracing paper for each color block.... If you use the same one the ink will build up and make the lines print on the block wider than they are.... I found this out and it caused problems on one of the blocks.

On the bottom I have placed the printed tracing paper face down on to the block into the kento marks that I'd already cut. The kentos aren't very evident in this picture. I will rub the back and it will off set (transfer) from the paper onto the wood. I had already offset the key block image on the other side of the block (on the top of this picture). You can see the kentos better in the top one.

I was taught to transfer the kento along with the image from the key block and cut along with each color block. But when I did that, I seemed to always be off on the registration.... its easier to get the paper in the kento correctly than to cut a kento correctly. After I cut each block, I clean the oil image off with paint thinner. (I had of course cleaned the key block and roller off after printing the tracing papers.) Some of the oily ink image stays on the color blocks (you can see some in the following pictures of the blocks) but doesn't affect the print.

I didn't take pictures of the prints in each stage, but here are the blocks.

No need to say what color they printed. The yellow and the aqua combined to make green. The while speck is something on the scanner.

I cut a seventh block with just the bloom on the bottom and the bottom of the larger bottle.

TA-DA......

Here is the final print.... at least what I hoped for. Thanks to my too thick lines when I reused the tracing paper when I transferred my image I had some mistakes in the background block .... I've corrected it here some with a brush and watercolor.

Since my finger was in no shape to cut anymore, I decided to leave out the yellow background for this edition.
It wasn't just the yellow background block that wasn't right....the stem just below the yellow flower is the most obvious which I thought I'd fixed but made worse and didn't realize until I was done.

I used a product that I'm sold on..... DAP PLASTIC WOOD CELLULOSE FIBRE FILLER. I corrected several little mistakes and will fix the background block. I don't know if it will adhere to the linoleum, but will try it as there are a few slips there too.

Now the printing things are put away and I'm back in painting mode.

BELLADONA AMARYLLISES AND A BIG CABBAGE

2009-10-09T21:25:00.000-08:00

I have 2 big pots of belladonna amaryllises which bloom often and are often the only thing blooming around here. I painted the flowers last year and did the jar and background this week. I'm thinking I'd better put a shadow or maybe paint on a table to ground the jar and flowers... or maybe not.

Me and my 25 pound cabbage. I made sauerkraut out of most of it.

NASTURTIUMS

2009-10-05T20:52:00.000-08:00

So far, this and my other blog have been just current work. Well, today I am starting showing some things from the past. I just haven't been productive enough to keep this blog active.... just not much enthused to get much work done. My little postcards are about all I've managed to do all summer. Well, hopefully my looking and thinking about these older things will get me going in the right direction again.... at least in some direction.

But first I do have something new to show. I finished this painting today. The flowers were painted from life a couple of weeks ago. It took me a while to decide how to do the back ground. I had first painted the gray with gouache, but decided it needed something more, so added the design today. This is the way I approach most of my floral still lifes.... paint the flowers then decide what to put around them.

And the name of this post is Nasturtiums, so I've found a few old paintings of them.

This was a small study I did of the same flowers and jars.... if you follow my Watercolor Postcard blog, you would have seen it there.

This is the oldest of the paintings here..... it was probably done about 15 years ago. The color is way off in the photo and its blurred. The black is gouache, painted after the flowers.

This was painted from life in the Gustavus Inn green house in 1996.

This has a gouache background too.
This one is small, though the image here seems big compared to the others. In all of these but the second one, the flowers are pretty much life size, so you can kind of guess at the size of the paintings.

The top of this one was cropped in the photo.

I don't know what to say about this one.

And lastly, this one which is my favorite.

Looking at these, I'm remembering that most of them were done about this time of year...... when nasturtiums were the only flowers left in the garden and usually a somewhat productive time.

RHUBARB

2009-08-29T22:38:00.000-08:00

At last after a couple of months, I finished this,

and this. They were both done from the same photograph.

SUMMER FUN

2009-08-22T22:01:00.000-08:00

If I wait until I've got some paintings to show here, its going to be more than the month its already been since I last posted. I've got some things in the works, and have been somewhat faithful with my watercolor postcards . And I've also made a few books. But all in all a very unproductive summer.... but for the garden which I must take some pictures of and show soon.

Here are a few photos of time with friends.

This beautiful quilt was made by a group of local women and is being raffled to raise money for our local clinic. They make one every year and they just keep getting better and better.

It was unveiled at a party at the Gustavus Inn on one of the beautiful days in June. Most of these ladies worked on it.... not me though.

Another party in July at the inn to celebrate my and Nadine's birthday... which are on the same day, I'm a year older. Here is the cake that JoAnn made. It was a lovely garden party on another beautiful day.

About a week later, another birthday party, this one on Kate's birthday, on Kate and Fritz's boat, the Great Sea.

We spent a perfect day watching humpback whales, enjoying friendships, and walking on Pleasant Island.Here's everyone but me.

Kate and her cake.

On August 8, yet another birthday party, Carolyn's 60th, a surprise party at my house. Carolyn on the left with Annie.

Cakes tart and pie. Yumm.

Just one more photo:

New PostThis little guy has been hanging around a lot with his mom. When I took this picture, he was eating my flowers and mom was on the other side of the path to the car and I was ready to go somewhere. They pretty much ignore me when I try to shoo them away. So far they haven't jumped the fence to the vegetable garden.

A WOODCUT AND HOT SUMMER

2009-07-22T22:34:00.000-08:00

I've been waiting to at least have one piece of art work before posting here. It finally happened last week.... I finished the woodblock I started over a month ago.

The paper is 10 x 15 inches. Its a reduction print with 6 states printed one on top of the other, using Japanese technique...... I gotta take a better photo and will tomorrow when the light is better.....
this is better, a scan with some of the border cropped.
I used Lenox paper from Daniel Smith, an inexpensive alternative for Japanese paper. The paper is kept damp throughout the printing process and I put it in the freezer for 3 weeks to keep it from molding while my grand daughter visited. I once had a stack of about 50 prints develope mold half through a reduction print..... I gave up printing for a few years after that.

44 of the prints were keepers and 31 will go to a Baren exchange. The theme of the exchange is "My Window" and my print is "Window View."

I had a wonderful visit from my grand daughter, Alyssa, for 3 weeks. I had a miserable cold, but we managed to have lots of fun. I took oodles of pictures of her, but this one my friend JoAnn took and I love it.

Fun with her new friend, Desire, on the 4th of July,

More fun on the 4th... the all girl Hootchy-Cootchy band... Ellie, Jessie, Susan and Kate.

Yet more fun on the 4th....

Until a few days ago, we've hardly had any rain this summer.... It most surely has broken records for lack of rain and high temperature. We spent a few afternoons at the beach and the gravel pits.
We took an evening walk along the Goode River where elves and fairies have been seen. We didn't see any but we did see a fairy village and a porcipine.

Here's Alyssa with her Grandpa rowing out to the Apex (our fishing boat on the far right).... Van was home for a few days and we went out and caught a few humpies one morning.

So that's it for now. I'm hoping a surge of inspiration is on its way and I will be getting lots of work to show here soon.

RETURN

2009-06-18T07:40:00.000-08:00

This won't be a recap of the last 2 months, just a few art related things. I got off track art wise after getting home from Florida.... just too many distractions. I even stopped doing my daily postcards. We had an unbelievably beautiful spring, very few rainy days. The great weather has continued into summer. It might be over now..... it rained this morning but the sun came out for a while this afternoon.

Van has been out fishing since mid-May. Last fall and before he left, he doubled the size of my little gallery. I did some painting inside and have gotten things out there.... was afraid I wouldn't have enough to fill it up, but I have.

This is the way it looked before...

and this is it now. It was quite a job to raise that roof. I've been opened a few days.... its just a matter of putting a sign up out on the main road when its open and taking in down when its closed. Not getting many people in though. The inns and B&Bs are way down in guest this year.

I mounted some of my watercolor postcards to show at the school last winter and put them up.... these were all done in 2006. These are not for sale but sometimes I will give one away. Maybe someday I will sell them, but now I think of them as sketches in my journals.

These are some of my woodblock prints.

The weekend before last, I went to Juneau and attended a 3-day plein air painting workshop with the Plein Rein Painters taught by Fairbanks artist David Mollett. This is David doing a demonstration with acrylics.

I had tried oils a couple of times years ago and decided that was what I'd work in. The weather was sunny and scenery beautiful. My first days attempt was an oily mess that I wiped out at the end of the day. The second day I used less paint and learned a lot.... didn't finish it and might work on it some more.

I went smaller the 3rd day. Just the mechanics of the painting with oils was a challenge.... like where to put the brushes. The first 2 days I worked in the shade. This was done in the sun and it dried much faster which helped a lot, but I had trouble with the values. It was frustrating but I enjoyed it and want to continue with oils but haven't since I've been home... so much to do, so little time.

I'm now working on a woodblock print. the only prints I've done in the last few years have been for exchanges.... I'd probably do more if they sold well. This one is for a Baren Exchange..... I was way down on the waiting list but moved up recently. I've had a image in mind for months, but after getting started, decided on something quite different.

I'm hoping to get it finished in a few days. My grand daughter, Alyssa will be coming out from Juneau for a while.... maybe I can get some painting done while she is here, but maybe not.

TAKING A BREAK

2009-04-21T12:33:00.000-08:00

We have left Cedar Key and will be home in Alaska by the end of the month. I'll get back to posting then.

MORE FUN IN THE SUN

2009-04-09T16:24:00.000-08:00

Too busy to paint much, but taking lots of photos. I'll put what few little paintings I've done on the other blog as soon as I get photos of them.... Its much easier to scan them, but I don't have the scanner here. Anyway, Here are some of the photos.

I visited my cousin Madelon and Aunt Lou in Palmetto again with my cousin Jill from California. We made another trip on the water.... here are Madelon and Jill in the canoe. I was in a kayak. We went up Frog Creek, out of Boca Ceia Bay. It was a maze of mangroves which thankfully someone had marked the way with orange tape.

Back in Cedar Key, Van took Jill for a ride.

Last Saturday, Van and I rowed to Atsena Otie Key, only about a 35 minute row from our place on the bayou. It was a beautiful day.

There was a community and pencil factory there in the 1800's. We walked on a trail that ended at this grave yard.... most of the graves were from the end of that century.

We found this eel at the edge of the surf. We pushed him back in the water, but it came right back. We watched another passer by do the same and it came back. Guess thats the nature of the beast.
On Wednesday, we drove to Manatee Springs, about 45 minutes from here. There were 6 manatees there. The water is always 72 degrees and they like to come and warm up from the Suwanee River.

This boardwalk goes down to the Suwanee. We found out while there, that the Suwanee will be flooding next week. It was already rising. From what someone said, this boardwalk will be underwater.
Walking on one of the trails, we saw some deer.

SOME PHOTOGRAPHS

2009-03-29T12:42:00.000-08:00

I spent an hour or more this morning writing on this blog then lost it all. So this evening, trying again. At least the photos are still here. I haven't been doing much painting, so this post will just be photos. I will put my small paintings on my other blogs here..... soon.

Since my last posting, we had a visit from a dear Alaskan friend, Maureen Moore for a couple of days. The next day, we drove south to St. Petersburg and visited my nephew and his family, then down to Palmetto to see my cousin Madelon and her family and celebrate my Aunt Lou's 91st birthday. Madelon and I spent an afternoon kayaking near the Sunshine State Skyway. On the way back to Cedar Key last Tuesday, we visited another cousin, Sandra, and her husband Frank in Tarpon Springs. Frank took Van for a boat ride and to the marina where he works and Van was happy. We enjoyed a delicious meal in one of the Greek restaurants there.

Van put the final finish on the rowboat just before we went south and we finally launched her in the canal on the high tide on Wednesday. Van is happy again. We rowed around the bayou that day. He will raise the oar locks so he can row more comfortably.

Here he is rowing forward. I sit in the back. Wind came up at the end of the week, finally the first real rain (badly needed) and a thunder storm Saturday night. The wind is finally down today. We took a short trip out of the bayou yesterday. Van got a fishing rod and a liscense and some lures and went fishing today but didn't get anything. He's not quite sure what kind of fish he is fishing for.

We are still enjoying all the birds. This osprey didn't like us coming so close to his nest as we rowed by. There are lots around, some in trees. I was reading about one of the outer islands, Seahorse Key where 600 cottonmouth snakes live. They thrive, scientist say, mostly from scavaging the fish scraps that the birds drop.... birds thrive there too, and are not bothered by the snakes because they get so much from what the birds drop. Read about it here.

My Alaska friends might enjoy seeing these guys..... in the parking lot at Lowes in Lake Wales.

On Friday, I made a delightful trip with Peggy Hendricks to Gainesville and Melrose. Melrose is on Melrose Bay and Melrose Lake and has some beautiful homes. Seems most had fences and some interesting gates...another sandhill. We stopped and painted until it rained.

Another gate in Melrose

I have been amazed by this wisteria plant. It was a stick plant when we got here a month ago.

I will be going back to Palmetto with another cousin, Jill from California, tomorrow. We will be getting together with Madelon again and yet another cousin. Will try to get back here soon after.

WE'RE IN CEDAR KEY

2009-03-14T07:44:00.000-08:00

This will be a short post just to let you know that I haven't given up on this blog. I just haven't been inclined to come to the library and post. I did do a post on my other blog a short while back and hopefully will have time today.... click here to view.

Van and I came to Florida on February 21 and after a short visit with my brother in Lake Wales we took up residence for a couple of months in Cedar Key. Below is a picture of where we are living.... the upstairs apartment. There's a couch. Come visit. The sporty yellow car is our rental.

We are on a canal with a view over a bayou of the sun setting each evening. The canal goes dry on a low tide, but we have a constant array of birds coming and going.

Cedar Key is a small town, somewhat remote and quiet. We like it. Here are some ibises along side of the road. We take a long walk every day..... this was on the way to the cemetery where there is a board walk to a little beach on another bayou.

This is Van's project. We found the fiberglass hull on Craig's list and Van is finishing it. We borrowed tools from my brother and have been having a hard time finding lumber and other stuff. Will have to make another trip down the road to Crystal River soon to get some more things to finish it.

I have been busy painting almost every day. I'll have something to put here soon, or not. I might just put them on the other blog. I'm wondering the sanity of having 2 blogs

ONE NEW PAINTING

2009-02-16T21:31:00.000-09:00

This isn't all that new.... I did it over two weeks ago and haven't painted anything but my daily postcards since.... I did make an attempt but I won't get into that. This is from a photo taken on the dock road looking north. This photo of the painting looks better than the painting..... the actual painting is darker in value..... too many glazes. And there was a bit more sky before I splattered on the snow and put a big glob that I couldn't fix and had to crop it a bit.

Van and I will be leaving on Thursday on our way to Florida and for the last week we've been busy getting things ready so we can be away for 2 months. Besides trying to figure what we're going to take and getting the tax stuff done, we've been putting all the liquids and food in one room where we'll put a light bulb heater so the things won't freeze and have been taking the house plants to friends houses..... the hoya has been in a high window for year and Van had to bring a tall ladder in to get it down today. We'll drain the pipes before we go.

This is fun thing I did a few months ago and took photos of today. The plywood form was cut out by a friend, Jim Healey along with a bunch more. He decorated several and gave some others away including this one to me. I collaged it with various papers.

This is a close up of the collage.

Good bye for now. I'll post again when we get settled in Florida.

YEAR OF THE OX WOODCUT

2009-02-07T12:45:00.000-09:00

For the last several years I have participated in a print exchange of Chinese Zodiac New Years animals, sponsored by the Baren Forum. The gallery for last year, the Year of the Rat is here. 2009 is the Year of the Ox and I just finished my contribution for the year.... a little late as the year began on January 26th. I will send out 53 prints to 53 other printmakers and they (most of them anyway) will send one that they make to me.

My image is a composite of several pictures in books and strongly influenced by a cow in a print by one of my favorite woodblock artists, John Platt. I referred to a black and white reproduction in a book I own which I used in planning my image. When I looked for an image on line to refer you to, I found this on the Woodblock.com site.... I'm not sure copyright allows me to show it here. I was thrilled to find the book by Platt (I had seen it listed before and thought it was the same book that I have which is more just a catalog.) and plan to read it through soon. David Bull has put together an amazing amount of information on woodblock printing on the Woodblock.com site, in particular the Japanese method and is also responsible for starting and maintaining the Baren Forum which sponsors the exchange.

Anyway, back to my print. A lot went wrong, as usual when I make a print. I love the process, but haven't made a print for almost a year and like playing a musical instrument or painting, it takes lots of practice to be even half way good. I print using Japanese technique. I printed it reductive using one piece of locally milled yellow cedar, carving out parts of the wood after each color printed.... this probably won't make much sense at all unless you know what reduction printing is... go here if you're really interested for an explanation on the last print I made. My husband had planed the wood with a friends planer and we both sanded it. Evidently not enough. I should have stopped after doing the first impression and started over, but continued, and didn't do as many impression (different colors or values) as I had planned to. There was a area across the middle of the block which was lower than the rest making getting an even print impossible. My old bamboo sheath covered baren did a better job than my ball baring one but not enough to get an even print. I couldn't get a good bokashi either.... gave up trying. The worst thing I think is that there isn't enough contrast between the oxen's hooves and the light colored grass .... and he seems to be levetating. Oh well, it was fun to make it and even more fun to get the one's made by the other participants.

Here is one of the better of the 70 or so that I printed. Its about 4 by 6 inches.

AN ART AWARD

2009-02-07T11:53:00.000-09:00

Thanks to James Parker, I've been awarded this art award and am suppose to list 7 things I love. I appreciate this and thank James. Since I'm very far behind in my blogging duties, I'm going to be very brief here.

l. My family
2. My friends
3. My home
4. Art
5. Music
6. Beauty
7. Life

And now I'm suppose to send this on to 7 other bloggers which is causing me some slight distress.... I know I've seen lists of loved things on some other blogs I read, and wonder if those bloggers might not want to feel obliged to take the time again. And I haven't corresponded with very many bloggers and wouldn't feel comfortable sending on to folks that don't know me from Adam. So, I'm going to just make a list of some blogs I really like and honor them that way,.... and hope I don't have 7 years of bad luck.

http://lindablondheimartnotes.blogspot.com/
http://makingamark.blogspot.com/
http://pharmwife.blogspot.com/
http://ninajohansson.blogspot.com/
http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/
http://rozwoundup.typepad.com/roz_wound_up/
http://foxyartstudio.blogspot.com/

SAN FRANCISCO VICTORIAN

2009-02-01T17:10:00.000-09:00

This is my interpretation of the latest DSFDF challenge put on by Karin Jurick. You can see the photo and all the other renditions of it here. I love the Victorian houses in San Francisco, but this photo just didn't do much for me. I decided to change the colors on the house and give some contrast in the sky and windows. I did it smaller than the other DSFDF paintings I've done and figured just a couple of hours would do it, but I spent more like 6 hours. If I'd known it was going to take that long, I'd have been more careful on my drawing. I'm not very happy with it, probably more the drawing than anything. I have been printing out a print to paint from as I can't get the internet on the computer in my studio. After painting it, I see a lot of things in the photo I wasn't seeing correctly.

The fact that the photo didn't inspire me made me do a different painting than I would if it was something I chose to paint from one of my photos or in plein air. When I paint from one of my photos, there is that memory of the feeling I had when I took the picture, a wish to depict what I saw at that time. Without that personal connection with the image, I am definitely painting differently, changing things, actually putting more thought into the outcome. My husband said that people will probably wonder why I'm painting such things.... his kind way of telling me he's wondering why. At that point, I was wondering why too, but now know that besides the fact that I like a challenge, it is a great learning experience. It is like an assignment in a class. I've tried not to peek at the paintings done before mine but when I have, it has made me try harder to do my best. Later, looking at all the others, I've learned so much. Putting mine out there for people to see is a new thing too. Though I've put my work on my blog before, I've never gotten much traffic. Getting positive comments has been a real plus.

THREE NEW PAINTINGS

2009-01-25T19:28:00.000-09:00

A view from the hydro road,

a view from somewhere around Berry Island near Sitka,

and a view from Shelikof Beach. Mount Edgecumbe is on the left, the top covered with clouds. Mt Edgecumbe is in the previous painting too.

JEFFERSON MEMORIAL FOR DSFDF

2009-01-16T21:50:00.000-09:00

This is my painting for the latest challenge for Karin Janik's Different Strokes from Different
Folks blog.... a timely subject for the happening in Washington now. It's quite different than anything I've ever done and I'm really rather happy with it. A night or two before the photo for the challenge came up, I was taken with the lovely lights from the windows of our house one snowy night and as always when something moves me, I was wondering how I could capture it with paint. The photo seemed a good way to try my first night scene painting. I tried first to do it with gouache with no success (I made a mess of the sky) and then started over with watercolor. I used some gouache in spots towards the end.... splattering the stars and brightening up the lights.

SOME NEW PAINTINGS

2009-01-11T17:01:00.000-09:00

I didn't really make a New Years resolution to blog more this year, but so far, I have made the effort to do so.... mostly on my other blog, Watercolor Postcards. So far, I've done a little painting every day this year and have posted them regularly. I've also been unusually busy in the studio most days. Though this blogging thing is quite time consuming, my art and blogging seem to feed on each other. Today, Sunday is my usual day for keeping up on my paper work and I haven't been in the studio today, and perhaps this will be my day for catching up here too.

I scanned a few paintings I did in the last month.

This, as are most all of my landscapes done in the studio, is from a photograph. This was a view from a friends house about 10 years ago. I'd like to go back and do the view on location, and think I'll ask the new owners of the home if I can. Its certainly hard to paint outside this time of year and even with digital photos on the computer screen, I can't see all I want to. Maybe that's a good thing, in some cases, but I had trouble with the nuances in value in the mountains on this one.

This was painted from a photo taken in 06. I did a painting on location of these 2 islands from a different place on the beach and it is here.

And then I did this one of the same 2 islands from yet a different view point. The photo of this was one of my favorite from the trip and has been my screen saver for most of the last 2 years. The photo shows a lot of water and beach in the foreground. I worked for days trying to get it right in the painting, but finally wiped out the water and painted over it with gouache. Maybe I'll try again another year..... or maybe with gouache.

Here's a photo of an old outhouse, taken a couple of weeks ago. Its in the file, all sized to put here, so here it is. It was before the heavy snow we've had since Christmas.... 6 feet or more with an accumulation of over 3 feet. The cold weather finally broke last night and rain started today. What a mess. My photos of the heavy snow are on my other computer which I can't access the internet with.

I

PAINTING AGAIN andHAPPY NEW YEAR

2009-01-01T23:05:00.000-09:00

The output from my studio has been pretty low in the last few months, but I got a jump start when I found a blog called Different Stokes From Different Folks. A fantastic artist, Karin Jurik posts a photograph and invites anyone who wants to, to paint it and send to her and she posts on the blog. The blog is here.

I came to the challenges late, joining the 13th week and painted this pair of shoes. I did it on a gessoed topo-map with gouache.

The next challenge was to send in a photo of myself and Karin sent me back a photo of someone else and the person in that photo painted me. Here is the painting I did:

It was a humbling experience. I hadn't done a portrait in ages and had forgotten how hard they are to do. Karin said not to try so much for a likeness, but it was hard not to try, and I really stuggled with several starts. The pretty girl in the red dress (she is prettier in the photo) is Simone Ritter and she lives in New Brunswick. Her painting of me is on the blog and she did a very nice job.

There were a few scans here from the last couple of months that I will post.
I did the 2 of fuschia soon after coming home from my trip, back in October. Both are of the same branch of flowers.

I painted this one after a careful pencil drawing.

and this one without drawing first. I kind of surprised myself.

This is Aimee's row boat, from photographs I took in the Beardsleys a couple of summers ago.

Happy New Year to my friends who might stop by. I promise to post more often this year and invite you to post a comment.

THE TRIP TO ENGLAND

2008-12-18T21:55:00.000-09:00

I'm returning to blogging today, as now I have a more reliable internet provider at home.... AT&T wireless, only 2G here, but with an aerial and amplifier/booster, it is faster than my dial up which sometimes I couldn't get at all..... never it seemed when I wanted to upload some pictures. I have never been able to comment on other blogs from home and hopefully will be able to with this set up.

I sized these pictures a month or more ago of my trip to England and Italy for 3 weeks in September and October. It was a wonderful trip, with two friends, Jane and Kris. We flew to London and took trains to St. Ives in Cornwall and spent a week hiking the coastal trail to Penzance. We had made reservations before along the way in Bed and Breakfasts, and arranged with them to transport out packs from place to place. We were very lucky to have good weather for most of the trip.

We hiked in Devon the second week on the Jurassic Coast, starting in Exmouth and ending up in Lyme Regis in Dorset. More lovely weather until the last day of hiking where a storm put us on a bus. Then back to London where we spent a few days and Kris and I went to Florence and Pisa for a few days.

I had big plans to paint along the way, but didn't do much. I took over 600 photos though.

A view from our room in the Regent Hotel in St. Ives

Along the trail, our first day of hiking

From the Tinner Pub in Zennor

We saw lots of cows. This one near Pandeen is a banded Galloway, if I remember right. Thanks to all the cows for the delicious clotted cream.

There were lots of old mining structures and shafts in the area....coal and tin

An ancient stone circle somewhere past Porthcurno. We often ended up inland from the coastal trail.... sometimes due to weather, sometimes we took the wrong turn. There are paths all over the place.

A beach somewhere near Porthcurno

A train took us to Exeter in Devon where we visited the cathedral. Then a night in Exmouth.

The pebbles on the beach at Budleigh Salterton were just marvelous. I wanted to take buckets home, but only took one small one.

On the path to Otterton Mill

Branscombe was a gorgeous village, the longest village in England and full of beautiful cottages.
the bakery in Branscombe
We stayed here, the Great Seaside B and B lovely inside and out.

Between Budleigh Salterton and Sidmouth

Some days were windy.....
other days not.

Marilyn on the left and Rick on the left joined us (Kris, me and Jane in the middle) for a couple of days of walking in Devon . Here we are after our walk from Budleigh Salterton to Seaton. Note me with a pint instead of a half pint. Maybe had something to do with the lack of painting I did. Loved the ale.

Walking from Branscombe to Beer in Devon.

The morning of what was to be our last day of walking in Devon through the Undercliffs from Seaton to Lyme Regis. We took the bus.

In Lyme Regis, the ammonite motif was everywhere.

Three nights in London. A whole day at Kew Gardens in sunshine. Besides all the plant houses and gardens there was a fabulous display of botanical art at the Shirley Sherwood gallery.

Here I am in Florence, after the Ufizzi.

SOME PICTURES BEFORE I LEAVE FOR ENGLAND

2008-09-22T13:14:00.000-08:00

I'm leaving in the morning for a trip to England so better get these pictures posted now or never. I loaded them some time ago, wrote something to put with them, but can't find it (I usually write in my word processor, cause my connection at home is so friggin slow and load at the library where it is faster.)

This is Lee's new boat. He got it in Sitka and now is living aboard it in Juneau.

I painted this a couple or 3 years ago and never was happy with it.

I fixed it with some acrylic painting and stamping and am now happy with it.

My cousin Jill who I hadn't seen in 30 years came to visit from California. We had a fun time... here she is in one of our paddles.

And this is a sideways photo of the bank and reflection of the Salmon River. Very cool!

A couple of my cabbages and some carrots in my garden.

And these last 3 pictures are flowers in my sun-room, which has been a bright spot in a cool and rainy summer.

A MID-SUMMER TRIP

2008-07-21T20:25:00.000-08:00

I returned Saturday from a trip to Sitka and a trip to Kruzof Island with 3 friends where we climbed the dormant volcano, Mt. Edgecumbe. We stayed in a Forest Service cabin for 3 nights on the beach at the base of the trail. Yesterday, I painted it in gouache from a photo I took last year, earlier in the summer than now and from the opposite side we climbed.

There was a lot less snow than is in my painting, though I only got a short glimpse of the mountain from afar as I arrived at Sitka on the ferry on Sunday. I didn't get much of a view of it from the top either, though we climbed to the summit of the crater.

Most of the hike to the top was very easy through muskeg with good views of Sitka Sound as we gradually gained altitude. Lots of wild flowers to photograph and enjoy, and even a few blueberries to eat. The clouds were low on the mountain. We kept hoping that they would blow off. Here you can see some snow beneath the cloud.

These are my friends and fellow hikers: Aimee, Sue and Judy

The distance to the top was 7 miles. The last mile was hard, first with these steep stone steps,

and then just above the tree-line the last .6 miles torturous, in scree and what seemed straight up in the wet cloud and was hard to get a foot hold. There were 32 posts to mark the trail, which was a good thing.

Here's Aimee, first on the top. Cold and windy; we didn't stay long. Behind her the crater, full of snow, I presume.

The rain was heavier on the way down the scree. I thought about sliding on the snow chute beside us, but was afraid I'd not be able to stop when I wanted to. It took us 11 hours for the round trip. We weren't really planning to go the whole way when we left, as we know we probably wouldn't see anything, but the first part was so easy and we were so close.

The next day was partly sunny.... should have waited. Our muscles too sore to go again. We did yoga on the beach, sketched (I did this with my gouache, but somewhat thinned out like watercolor), and walked on the beach picking up pumice and driftwood.

Did some walking on the beach. Brought home a bag of drift wood and pumice and other rocks. Here I am in camouflage

Aimee made this on the beach with driftwood. It may still be there for others to enjoy unless the tide took it away.

ANOTHER GOUACHE PAINTING AND LEAVING TOWN

2008-07-12T23:24:00.000-08:00

This cool, wet summer continues. I don't seem to have accomplished much in the way of art in the last week or so. I've worked quite a bit on a gouache painting that just isn't going anywhere. And then I did this small one (about 6" x 6") from a photo I took up bay in front of McBride Glaicer late last summer. I had a lot of trouble with the ice.... would have looked so much better done with transparent watercolor. I'm still liking learning how to use these, but wish the weather would cooperate so I could go paint outside.

Here are some other things I've been working on. I started these last year.... or maybe it was the year before. Anyway, they are going to be little accordion books. They are all painted with watercolor.

The weather was pretty nice on the 4th. Harrison Ford, who was staying in one of the lodges, came to the parade and festivities.

I've been keeping up with the garden better this year than last, finally got my kayak in the water last Monday in terrible weather, but it was good to get out.

I'll be going out of town tomorrow and will be gone for a week. I've been packing for 2 days and I'm still not ready.

SUNSET AND FLOWERS

2008-07-04T21:16:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday evening, I rode my bike down to the
beach and enjoyed an hour of walking in the beautiful light.

There was a rainbow when I got there.

This isn't a very good composition, but I loved the way the light came through and made the lupines glow.

The sun went down at 10 pm, still north of the Fairweathers.

One last look back as I biked home.

The next morning, I stopped at the lupine field which I had painted last week to go see these rare white ones that someone had told me about.

GOUACHE PAINTINGS

2008-07-01T19:42:00.000-08:00

I am quite excited about painting in a new media..... gouache, pronounced "ga- wash". Actually its not new to me as I've used it for years in the back grounds in my watercolor still-life paintings. But now I am using it much as one would use oil or acrylic. paints in a more "painterly" way. I've ventured into other media off and on but always go back to watercolor. Probably because they are so easy to clean up after, don't take up much space, and don't use noxious chemicals. For the same reasons, I gravitated towards the waterbase moku hanga woodblock printing after some years doing etchings and a some relief with oil base ink.

Gouache is sometimes referred to as opaque watercolor. Watercolor is transparent; the whites in a watercolor is the paper showing through, and colors are lightened by diluting the paint with water. With gouache, the colors are lightened by adding white paint. I've got a long way to go on the learning curve as its quite different than painting in watercolor. I'm having a lot of trouble with values. Some of the paints seem to dry lighter and some dry darker. And the same pigments that give a hue in watercolor don't seem to do the same when mixed with white paint. I'm especially having trouble with greens.... maybe thats has something to do with the fact that greens are mostly what I've been working on and there are so many different hues and values out there.

Before trying to paint anything, I did some pages of mixtures of each of my paints with white. I learned a lot by doing these and started doing some testing with mixtures of different pigments, but didn't get too far. I decided to just start painting. Here are the first I've done. The first 3 are fairly small, about 4 or 5 inches high.

This is the view out my studio window done on gray matboard. I thought I wouldn't have to get so picky and tight with detail to get the trees looking like trees. I did a lot of working over. What is so great about an opaque media compared to transparent watercolor is that you can paint light colors over dark.

I went out and took a picture of this mountain and painted it on a piece of watercolor paper, a gray toned one, though the gray doesn't show through. I was happier with my greens and trees in this one.

This is a field of lupine that everyone is commenting on this year. I still felt the need to put a lot of work into the spruce trees to get them to look like spruce trees. I made some changes after this scan.... one thing the white spots in the middle tree.

I must be doing something right, because I sold all three of these pieces to people who stopped into the gallery over the weekend. Encouraging!

I was planning to go camping this weekend, but it seemed too much trouble to get everything ready for just one overnight and I really wanted to stay home and keep painting and work in the garden, so I did.

I worked on this piece on Sunday and yesterday with a few corrections this morning. I did the gouache on top of one of the "beautiful papers" that I did in Anne Bagby's class in April which was done with acrylic on watercolor paper. Anne had said to bring different papers to try and several of the pieces are on heavier papers, not too good for collage and this seemed like a good thing to do with it. The top layer of the acrylic is an acrylic glaze media and the gouache will completely wash off with water which made corrections easier. I don't know if that is a bad thing. There is a bit of tooth in the surface and it's not flaky so it should be OK.

Today I cleaned up the studio and did a couple of little collages. I almost signed up for another print exchange, but I think the painting is going to hold my interest for the rest of the summer.

I stopped my writing at about 9 when I saw that the sun was out and rode my bike down to the beach. It was well worth the trip. there was a rainbow and the sun set at just about 10 and it was a beauty. I took a bunch of pictures and will put some on the next time I post.

Spring into Summer

2008-06-26T19:58:00.000-08:00

Is the year really almost half over? Well, a little bit of what I've been up to. The garden is planted. This has been the coolest spring that I can remember and we had a freeze on the 9th. I harvested a good crop of spinach and arugula under my a-frame before the slugs got too much of them and I have big pots of lettuce on the porch, safe from the pests. I've set out the cabbages and broccoli and the seeds that I planted are coming up, though slowly with the colder weather and also not much rain. But it is raining now so maybe things will look like summer soon. The wild flowers are late and my favorite little lady slipper at the beach got nipped in the freeze. The lupines though are spectacular right now.

My grand daughter, Alyssa, visited for a week the end of last month which was too much fun. Made a couple of fun trips with friends to Excursion Inlet. Haven't gotten my kayak in the water yet but plan a little camping trip to P. Island this weekend. I'm hoping the wild flowers in the meadows will be late there too.

Van has been fishing Kings in Sitka beginning last month and is threatening not to fish Cohos this year with the price of diesel approaching $5.00 a gallon. If he quits it will be the first time since we've been married he's been home for any length of time in July. I keep telling him he should retire or at least slow down.

I coordinated a print exchange for Baren which took quite a bit of time in May. For the exchange, 30 printmakers plus more on a wait list signed up online in January to make 31 prints and send to me. The 31st print is for archiving. Some dropped out and people on the wait list came on; some didn't get their prints in on when promised which was rather frustrating. I collated them and sent everyone back 30 different prints. It was a relief to finally get the prints mailed out the beginning of this month. I enjoyed the project and made a little colophon booklet for it using Apple Works, a fun learning experience. The prints can be seen here. I did a post on the print I made for the exchange earlier this year.

I opened my little gallery weekend before last. Its a little cabin that Van and Lee built when Lee was in high-school. It was behind our house, but got moved to the end of our road just before our house. I used it for a gallery for several years in the 90's then closed it when the coop gallery started. Now that the coop no longer exists, I decided to open again this year. For now its just open by appointment. I have several new watercolor paintings, plus lots of older ones, some handmade books, my woodcuts and even an old etching or 2. For the first time I'm showing some of my little collages. Its all my stuff but for the bird flags that Aimee made. Here are some pictures:

I didn't say it was very large. Those are some of Aimee's flags hanging on the left but you can't see them very good in the photo.

I painted the floor in a tile design after coming back from a trip to Mexico. It looks more like linoleum though.

I forgot how I sized my pictures before. I guess that is why they are different sizes.

This is one of my newer paintings, done from photos I took on a kayak camping trip last summer. I think I'll do a woodcut from it.

A view from the hydro road. Might have already posted this one. I really like the sky in it. I have some more paintings I've done in the last couple of months, but I loaded the photos on the other computer.

As mid-year approaches, it time for some new resolutions and one is to start blogging more. I've been working in a new media which I will elaborate on next time.

FLORIDA VACATION PART 2, ART FEST AND BACK HOME

2008-04-21T20:52:00.000-08:00

I've been back home for a few of weeks now. I'd better get this posting done before I forget where I was. We continued our travels in Florida to Cedar Key, a beautiful place on the west coast of Florida where we spent a delightful couple of days with Martha and John, enjoying the fine weather and scenery, tasted the local seafood, met some wonderful artists, even went painting with a plein aire group. Van and I are very seriously considering spending a couple of months there next winter.

The area is estuary and doesn't have the white beaches of much of the coast, which probably is why it isn't overflowing with tourists and buildings. This is the view near Martha and John's house. I painted this view, but I like the photo better.

We spent a couple of more days with my brother in Lake Wales, and some time with my niece and nephew and their families. I visited Bok tower which is one of the loveliest places in central Florida and on the highest point on the peninsula.

We left Florida from Orlando on April 1, Van went on home and I sent to the fabulous art retreat called Art Fest which takes place for 4 day at Fort Warden in Pt. Townsend Washington. I took 3 days of workshops,

I did 2 days with Anne Bagby who taught classes in decorating paper. We cut blocks to print with and also used her blocks, stencils and other things to print layers to make beautiful paper. Below are sections of some of the papers I made. I cut the block the was used to prints the top layer of white.

I also took a class with Lynne Perella. where I did a large painting with acrylics and collage and then made in into a book. I am still working on it and will show at some later date..... maybe.

A big part of Art Fest is trading.I did an exchange of 4x4 inch pages for 2 fat books. I painted and collaged the pages (116 in all) in December and January and mailed them to a coordinator who put them altogether into 2 books with 50+ pages in each and I got them at Art Fest. Most of the other participants were there too. Below are the fronts of 2 of my pages. Half were done with the same images (copies of some of my paintings) pasted on with other paper. the backs were decorated too. There was also a lot of trading of handmade things. I made ATCs similar to my 4x4s.

After a couple of days in Seattle, I returned to Alaska in a blizzard. Van met me in Juneau with our boat and we did a couple of days shopping and returned home. Another blizzard dropped about 8 inches on us. It was bad for Juneau which lost its hydroelectricity when an avalanche knocked out the lines.

This is the view in front of our house on April 16. We have since had some sunny weather and there are a few signs of spring. Have been busy in the studio since coming home which should make for another posting soon.

MY FLORIDA VACATION- PART 1

2008-03-31T17:21:00.000-08:00

Van and I flew to Florida 2 weeks ago and before we leave on the 5 am shuttle to Orlando airport tomorrow, I'm going to put a few pictures here. We've been visiting my brother in Lake Wales, but made a couple of trips over to the Gulf coast. In Palmetto, we canoed in Boca Ceia Bay with my cousin Madelon in her kayak. I have happy memories of canoeing in these same waters with Madelon when we were kids and it was fun to return.

This is Van in the back of the canoe and Madelon behind in her kayak. We were heading through the mangroves to the Manatee River but when we got there, the wind was blowing and we had to go back. We saw lots of birds... a roseate spoonbill and ibises amongst others.

After a stop in Osprey to visit Bill Locher, an old Alaskan friend, we went to my Uncle Jean's beach house on Little Gasparilla Island for a few days. There I spent many hours walking on the beautiful beach and picking up shells and did a few little sketches. Here are some of them.

The main reason we came to Florida this year was to attend my Aunt Lou's 90th birthday. We celebrated with her in Palmetto on her actual birthday on the 18th and again on the 26th with a hugh party with lots of friends and family. It was good to see cousins I hadn't seen in years and meet new ones I'd never seen.

This is me with Aunt Lou. Isn't she pretty!

The day after the big birthday party, cousins Madelon, Martha, and Mike and Van and I headed down to Crystal River where we kayaked for an afternoon. I grew up in Florida but never saw a manatee until this trip. We paddled along side of this guy for quite a while.

I'll end this post with a sunset, this one from Little Gasparilla. I have more pictures and places to tell about and will put on another post soon. On to Seattle tomorrow.

REDUCTION WOODBLOCK PRINT

2008-02-29T17:10:00.000-09:00

This post is about a print I made for a Baren Forum exchange. The requirements for the print is that it be 10 by 10 inches and there is no theme or subject specified.

I did this little watercolor in 2006 which I thought would make a pretty good composition by adding some sky or beach, but decided to have only 3 sets of piling. I went down to the beach and took some photos.

It was a cold day in February and the tide was out farther than when I painted the picture.

I use the Japanese method of printing and learned using Japanese papers. They are made for this kind of printmaking and but the ones that work well are quite expensive. I have tried several much less costly domestic papers and had had good results with Daniel Smith drawing and printing paper until they stopped making it. I decided to do a reduction print using Daniel Smith Lenox paper. I had used it on my Year of the Rat print and it worked pretty well.

I first cut the paper and prepared it for printing by soaking half of the sheets in a tub of water for about 10 minutes and laying each with a dry sheet of the same in between. An alternative method is to lightly brush water over each sheet. I put the pile between dampened blotters on a thin piece of plywood covered with a plastic bag and put another piece of bag-covered plywood on top and put the "sandwich" in a large plastic bag. I need 31 prints for the exchange and would like a few to try to sell or give away and as with all my editions there are lots that are quite awful and I save for collage or proof on the backs. I was able to get 6 10x10 prints out of each of 8 22x30 inch sheets. One of the sheets was an old sheet of "Lenox 100". I also did about 10 proofing prints on shin-torinoko.

The next morning, I pressed the pieces of paper with my etching press, going over each sheet 4 times with roller. This is to stretch the paper so it will not stretch when it is printed. The paper was the right dampness and I began printing. I print with tube watercolor paint, powdered pigments mixed on the block with methyl cellulose and in the final impression, I used sumi ink.. I print with a ball-baring baren.

This is a reduction print using just one block of wood. There were 6 different states for the block and I printed 8 impressions. After each color, I carved off that section of the block and then printed the next.

This picture shows the block as used for my first two impressions. There are 2 kento marks on the bottom (one on the left corner) for registration. I place my paper in to these slots, drop it onto the carved block and rub the back of the paper with a ball baring baren. First I printed a solid light gray. The sheet at the top of the photo shows it. I printed the whole stack before going to the next step. Secondly, I printed the gradation (bokashi) of blue for the sky.

I then carved away all the sky and water area and then printed the beach. I did a second impression on the beach, another bokashi trying for a pebbled look by not pressing so hard with my baren.

This is the block after I had printed the beach. I had started carving out the beach area.
I printed the image upside down. I've turned the blocks over for these photos.

Here the print is after the mountains were printed.

Then I carved out the mountains and printed the trees.

This is one of the prints done on the "Lenox 100". It appeared to be the same as the Daniel Smith Lenox but didn't print as well.... was pebbly, even where I didn't want it to be.

After the trees were printed, I carved them away and left the dock and the reflections and printed my 7th impression.

And now the reflections are carved away

And here is the final print.

A BELATED BEST WISHES FOR THE YEAR OF THE RAT

2008-02-11T15:30:00.000-09:00

For the 6th year, I have made a woodblock print for a print exchange sponsored by Barenforum.org. The print each year depicts the Chinese Zodiac animal. You can read about the exchange here.

This year's animal is the rat. My intention was to make the rat look like he is cutting a block of wood to make a woodblock print. That is why the year is backwards. I figured printmakers would get it, but already, two of the printmaker recipients have asked if I intended to make the year backwards. Oh well. For any printmaker who is might be interested in how I print. I print with watercolor using Hanga (Japanese) technique. This print was done reductive, with one piece of wood.

The Chinese New Year started on Feb. 8. I flew to Juneau on that morning, returned on Friday. My main reason for going was a doctor visit. As always when I go there, I do much more. The trip to Juneau takes about a half hour. We sometimes follow the coast line, but this time we went through the pass over the Chilkats. Here are some pictures I took.

Over the Chilkats

White caps in Lynn Canal

Approaching Juneau

The week before last, I discovered a new way to paint. Though I much prefer to paint from life, most of my larger landscapes are from photos. I took so many good photos last summer, with intention to paint a few. I was going to print out a photo to work on painting but my ink was out, so decided to try painting from my lap top. OMG! Can't believe I never had tried this before.

This was from a photo taken last August when four women friends and I spent 3 fabulous days kayaking and camping.

The weather was bitter cold last week.... Juneau was horrid with Taku winds. Quite a lot of snow, but today it is raining.

2008-01-29T16:58:00.001-09:00

January 29, 2008

Finally after a couple of hours I've gotten some photos on my post. I had put some on the other blog, I think, but guess I didn't remember how I did it. My images there were mostly scans. The problem for me was resizing the photos so they wouldn't take so long to load, and I didn't know how large they should be. I think I've finally figured out what will work for me to get them from iPhotos to blogger the right size, and without Picasa or Flickr.

So.... here is a picture of where I live, taken last week. The indentation in the forground is where a moose had made a bed. Since this was taken, we've had a few more inches of snow. The weather has been quite cold, around 0 in the morning for the last few days and clear.

Here's a picture of a quilt I made for my grand daughter for Christmas. It was long in the making. I used scraps I'd been collecting for years. I machine quilted it.

And here's a closer view. There are 2 different blocks in the pattern. One is a 16 patch, and I made a baby quilt our of my extras of them.

MY NEW BLOG

2008-01-25T15:33:00.000-09:00

Welcome to my new blog. I'm at the library now where I will be most of the times when I post, since my phone connection at home usually times out before I can even sign in. Well, as I tried to explain on my watercolor postcards blog, I am starting this as a place to present a broader range of my art work and life. I may go back to and maybe back and forth if the spirit moves me, but for now this is where I will be.

Today, I finished a painting that I started over a month ago. I'll take a picture of it and put it here next time. Also this week, I've collaged a dozen or so ATCs. Artist Trading Cards are little
2 1/2 x 3 1/2 inch works of art which are traded by artist. I don't have any scans of these but they are sort of on the line of this collage which is about 6 x 4 inches.

This one has remnants of an old watercolor painting, and various artist and found paper. I usually have something more recognizable within the images.

Since I don't have any new scans to put here, I'll was going to put a couple of photos on. But after trying to get my iphotos small enough to load, I gave up. That is something I can figure out at home. I have so much to learn.

It has snowed all day today, but only 4 or 5 inches accumulated. Getting dark, its 4:30.