BACK IN THE STUDIO

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.