Two Heads

It’s always fun to paint heads, especially my own. These 2 studies were done a couple of days apart.

Both are oil on linen panel 8″ square

( I shaved off my beard between them. ) I’m a fan of Ann Gale’s work and I feel like the one on the right is derivative of her work. Having said that makes it ok,  right?

I think worrying about being derivative is unproductive (to a point). You just have to keep painting, knowing that you’re going to make bad work and derivative work and trust that something true and honest will evolve.

Work in progress

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8″ x 10″ oil on panel

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Again this is Kelly Point Park.  There is a bridge that goes across the river bank to a barge which is tied to the dolphins I’ve been fascinated with. The study above and the one before are two sections of this same small bridge.

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18″ x 26″oil on linen

The second painting is larger than I’ve worked in quite a while. I’m still worrying it. – slowly.

I’ve found myself looking at the work of Ilya Repin and William Merrit Chase, as I work on this. They both commonly included figures in their landscapes. I think, for me, the dolphins fill that role.

Studio Bookcase

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This is one of a few pieces I’ve been working on lately.

14″ x 11″ oil on linen panel

I’m trying to paint every day. Sometimes I get stuck on a painting so I pull out another small panel and do a study to keep the brush moving. This is a sketch of a small wooden figure by Portland artist Tom Cramer.

8″ x 6″ oil on panel

This figure is from the 1980′s. Tom’s work has evolved into really intricate painted relief carvings. You can see photos of some of his work on his website but you really have to see them in person to appreciate them fully. Tom and I were featured together on a Portland Cable access TV show, called “Where’s the Art? back around 1987. At the time, Tom was known for these figurines and also for the cars and especially the Vespa scooters he painted. One of the scooters was shown on the show.

After the show, Tom and I traded pieces and that’s how I acquired this little sculpture.

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Still Life with sweet potato

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8″ x 10″ oil on canvas

.I’m afraid this plant died while I dawdled over this painting.

My wife has always been an advocate of alternative medicine and we have lots of these brown medicine bottles around the house. They’ve come to have more meaning to me over the years.

I don’t know what the sweet potato is about.

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Barges off Hayden Island

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6″ x 8″ oil on panel

This is the view from Kelley Point Park, looking across the Columbia River toward Washington. It was a cold foggy morning and there was a layer of mist rising off the river that I was trying to capture, with, I think,  limited success.

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Office chair two

11″ x 14″  oil on linen panel

I had a difficult time deciding how to do the shadow.  Here are a few previous states. Each time I took a photo and changed the painting, I liked the previous state better. All the images can be enlarged by clicking on them.

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Thanksgiving Pumpkin

9″ x 12″ oil on linen

I’ve been lazy about photography, lately. I apologize for the glare and push pin shadows.

It feels a bit cliched to talk about things I’m thankful for, at this time of year but I’m going to do it anyway. I’ve written on this blog before that for the last 13 years, my wife has been living with cancer. Three years ago the cancer returned and metastasized. The fact that Les is still with me and, all things considered,  doing quite well is the single thing I’m most thankful for.  Knowing that I may lose her has drawn us very close, especially over the last 3 years and I would say that these have been our best years together.

Thanks also to those who have read and left comments on the blog this year. I’ve not been a very consistent blogger and I appreciate that you took the time to visit and leave the occasional encouraging remark.

office chair progress

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11″ x 14″ oil on panel

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Studio Pictures

I always like to see  pictures of other people’s studios so I thought I’d post a couple of mine.

I have been working, for years in a space in the back of our garage. The space was narrow, dark and cold. We expanded it into a really great office/studio space.

In the old space, if I needed a light I nailed a scrap of wood to the ceiling and clipped a light to it. There’s abundant natural light in the new space and track lights as well, In fact it’s challenging to learn how to manage all this light.

These 2 pictures were taken from opposite corners of the room.

Office Chair

The work on my studio is complete and I’ve been trying to get back to where I was before.  I had a glimpse of something I wanted to work toward, while working with Jordan Wolfson in August and I’m trying to find my way back to that.

Here are some recent studies.

14″ x 18″ charcoal and watercolor

14″ x 18″ mixed media

11″ x 14″ oil on  panel

Pumpkin

I’ve had to move back out of the studio to allow the electrician, insulation installers and, next week, sheetrockers and painter, do their work. I did get a few more small studies done before moving out.

Here’s a little pumpkin for the Halloween season

6″ x 8″ oil on panel

 

 

more tomatoes

Both of my daughters draw well. When they  were in elementary school, they did some ceramics one summer. We still have many of the pieces they made. They are among my favorite things.

The little clay box in this still life was made by my older daughter.

8″ x 10″ oil on panel

It’s a little odd getting used to painting in natural light, having always done still life painting under lights. I’m painting these recent studies without lights and, although it’s been cloudy, I do notice shifts in light throughout the day. It may take a little while to find the ideal way to set these up.

As with plein air painting, I sometimes struggle to see my panel, in natural light. Maybe there’s something wrong with my eyes. Many painters frown on using photos but sometimes I find it helpful to photograph my still life setups. Often it’s easier for me to see values, I’m struggling with, in a photo than than by looking directly at the objects.

The electrician comes today to wire the studio and hopefully I’ll have sheetrock on Monday!

view of veg garden from studio door, looking east.

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Tomato

My studio is undergoing an expansion that I’m very excited about. I’ve been working in the back of my garage with only one small window. It was kind of cool in a monastic cell kind of way but I’m really looking forward to having a larger lighter space.

I’m still a couple of weeks (at least) from completion but I couldn’t wait to start using it.

We had a great crop of tomatoes this year.

6″ x 6″ oil on panel

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Sauvie Island Plein Air

I managed to get out to Sauvie Island once more before the rains started and joined Bev Kindley and Gretha Linwood for a few hours. The day started out very grey but cleared just as I got my first painting blocked in.  I came home with 2 quick studies.

6″ x 8″ oil on panel

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8″ x 10″ oil on panel

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And now for something completely different …

It’s been a long time since my last post and, in fact a long time since I touched a paint brush. I’m having my studio space expanded now and therefore have no where to paint for a few weeks but I hope to start back painting on a regular basis very soon.

In August I attended a week long workshop on Orcas Island with Jordan Wolfson and a small band of other painters. This workshop was different from others I’ve participated in. Although it was billed as a plein aire painting workshop and we did indeed paint plein aire, we didn’t focus just on capturing form and color as it appears in life. We did start out, as most workshops I’ve done, trying our best to paint what we saw but, as the week progressed, Jordan introduced exercises that encouraged us to be more interpretive of the landscape.

I didn’t really do anything close to a finished piece but several starts of an hour or two.

Most of the paintings are 8″ x 10″ and all are oil on linen panels. Click on them for a larger view.

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On the third day of the workshop, we did an exercise in which we did a sort of wire frame of the scene.

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Next we did a sort of combination of the first two days work by painting from observation but introducing lines and marks that searched out how the scene was constructed. I found myself thinking about painting, not just the objects in front of me but the air between me and them as well.

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On the last day, Jordan encouraged us to be really expressive and experiment with any kind of mark making we could think of.

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I’ve admired Jordan’s work for a long time and I was interested in working with him because of his ability to work across a spectrum of realistic to fairly abstract imagery without leaving representation completely. I’ve been trying to move myself in that direction and I enjoyed spending a week with Jordan and other serious painters who were also interested in exploring similar ideas.

This work is very different from what I’ve done in recent years and I enjoyed stepping beyond my comfort zone. I’m looking forward to getting my studio in order and seeing where this leads me.

For more pictures of the workshop and information about Jordan, check out Jordan Wolfson Workshops on Facebook.

Return to Kelley Point Park

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I returned to Kelley Point Park last week for some Plein Air painting but could not get near the vantage point I drew from before because the River is running so high. In fact, there was hardly any beach area at all.

8″ x 10″ oil on panel

The painting above was done mostly plein air at the park. Even though it’s almost July, we’ve had very few sunny days here and this was no exception. This park is a bit depressing anyway and the lack of sun had me feeling pretty low, as I painted this.

9″ x 20″ oil on mounted linen

The second and third paintings were done from studies I’ve been working from, some done on site a couple of years ago.

9″ x 15″ oil on mounted linen

I still feel like I’m struggling to decide on a direction style-wise, torn between pushing the work farther toward or away from my observations.

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More studies

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10″ x 12″ oil on linen panel

This painting above is the same one from my last post, but taken a bit further.

6″ x 6″ oil on linen panel

These others are efforts to leave the reference behind a bit and lose myself in what it is I’m drawn to in the scene. They seem a bit self conscious to me, like I’m pushing them for no good reason. Like I’m faking it. Of course, I am faking it, at this point.

6″ x 5.5″ watercolor, ink and water soluble crayon on paper

Kelly Point Park oil studies

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5″ x 10″ oil on linen panel

10″ x 12″ oil on linen panel

I’ve always liked the sketches I did at this park back in 2009 and posted  HERE and HERE and have intended to get back here to paint more.

According Wikipedia, the site of this park, at the confluence of the Wilamette River and Columbia Slough, was named for New Englander Hall Jackson Kelley, who tried, unsuccessfully, to establish a city at the site in 1834.  The surrounding area is pretty industrial, with a Port of Portland Marine Terminal right next door.

Fighting Cancer with the Champion Juicer

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8″ x 12″ oil on panel

This juicer was, at one time, a big part of our lives. My wife, who has been battling cancer for over 10 years now, has followed the recommendations of Dr Nicholas Gonzalez, which includes the daily intake of massive amounts of freshly juiced carrots. We used to buy big bags of carrots to keep in the garage and one of my jobs was to wash bunches of carrots everyday and prepare them for the 3 daily juicing sessions. Leslie turned a beautiful shade of orange and stayed that way for many years.

As Les developed a reaction to part of the therapy, the juicing fell away. I love fresh vegetable juice but it’s a lot of work to make it three times a day.

I like the the old timey look of the machine. It was sitting out on the counter in the sun and, since Les was away for a week, I set up my pochade in the kitchen and made this painting.

Weber Grill

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8″ x 8″ oil on panel

I spent the last week sitting on my deck painting my Weber grill.  It was just really fun to paint and since it’s still raining on and off most every day, I can duck into the house quickly when it gets wet.

6″ x 6″ oil on panel

I don’t eat meat so I have to get some use our of this thing.

8″ x 8″ oil on panel

Hoping for dry painting weather soon.

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Figure study with dogma

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10″ x 8″ oil on panel

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dog·ma/ˈdôgmə/

Noun: A principle or set of principles laid down by an authority as incontrovertibly true.

I’ve been thinking about dogma, lately. Probably as a result of 12 years of Catholic education, I have a low tolerance for it, and it’s a pet peeve of mine when it creeps into discussions regarding art.  I usually try to steer clear of discussions that make my dogma alarm go off but sometimes I don’t catch myself and I’m usually sorry.

I was thinking about this study as a kind of personification of dogma but I can’t decide what to put on the end of that scepter-like thing.

Birthday

Another installment in the ongoing self documentation project

8″ x 6″ oil on board

Crack Press

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11″ x 14″ oil on panel

 

 

In the comments section, the owner of Crack Press, Pete McCracken, left a nice message and let me know that he’s still in business at a new location. Check his comment, below, for a link to his site.

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Deserted Parking Lot at Night

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8" x 10" Oil on Panel

This tree stands alone in a parking lot in NW Portland and looks somewhat surreal in the artificial light from surrounding signs. The old Montgomery Ward building, now Montgomery Park, behind the tree is a NW Portland landmark.

This was painted on a masonite panel prepared with Gamblin Oil ground that I sanded lightly before beginning the painting. It’s a very slippery surface to paint on and the sanding only helped a little.

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Rescue Remedy

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6″ x 4″ oil on paper

I painted this little study as a birthday gift for a friend. (I won’t mention her name because she doesn’t like having her name associated with an image on the internet.)

Rescue Remedy is a Bach Flower Remedy . It’s  “aimed at treating stress, anxiety, and panic attacks, especially in emergencies” (Wikipedia). It’s not clear to me whether it really works or not but I like the concept.

The rose hip in the bottle is also something that has historically been used for healing and preventative medicine. This one is from a Rugosa rose in our garden, which produces magnificent, cherry sized hips.

Happy Birthday, Friend.

Red Chrysanthemums

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8″ x 8″ oil on panel

Another grouping of similar objects as the last piece.  I was thinking of a compositional device I’ve seen in Renaissance era paintings where a figure is looking directly at the viewer leading the viewers eye into the picture. In this case it is the bottle lying on it’s side with the opening pointed directly at the viewer.

Here’s an example in Sandro Botticelli’s ‘Adoration of the Magi’. He paints a self portrait into the composition, at bottom right, looking directly at the viewer. (detail below)

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Blue Bowl and Bottles

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8″ x 8″ oil on panel

We’re having a very wet November so I’ve been painting comfortably in the studio.

I’m struggling again with the support I paint on. I tried a new ground. It’s the first time I’ve actually prepared a lot of panels but the ground really sucks up the paint leaving dull spots and it even seems like some of the ground mixes with the first layer of paint. I’ve been trying to add other stuff on top of it to seal it with mixed success.

I’ve tried Gamblin’s oil ground, which I find unpleasant to work with and it dries out in the can. I find that I’m moving away from Gamblin products in general. I used to use Galkyd lite but I’ve never finished a bottle before it dried out in the container. I mostly use Utrecht paint now and mix my own medium.

I’ve also tried putting a layer of lead white over this ground I’ve been using and that makes it much nicer to paint on but I left brush strokes in the lead paint layer and they seem to making it almost impossible to get a good photo of the finished piece because of glare from the brush strokes.

I may end up going back to straight acrylic gesso.

The painting above was done on the ground I don’t like and you can see that the background is weird with parts of it sunk in. I even oiled it in with medium before taking the photo and it’s still sunken.

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Urban Landscapes

 

 

8″ x 14″ oil on panel

6″ x 10″ oil on canvas panel

Two new oil paintings. I’ve been posting more work on my sketching blog recently, you can see that work here.

These two paintings started out as sketches.  The top one is from a favorite sketching area of mine, North Portland near the Widmer Brewery, looking toward the Union Pacific Rail yard.

The lower painting is the view from the new OHSU campus on the South Waterfront. At the time of the sketch, Cirque du Soleil was encamped along the river for their summer show. Downtown Portland is in the background. I was interested in this scene because the bright tents of the circus stood out from the mostly grey scene.

After a mostly beautiful October, the rains have returned here in Portland so I should have a lot more opportunity to paint clouds over the coming months.

 

Rose Frantzen

This is a lengthy but brilliant talk by Rose Frantzen at her show at the National Portrait Gallery about how she conceived and executed the project of painting portraits of the people who live in her town. Great insights into her process and painting. She talks about everything from how the ideas came together for the project to grant writing, technique and the personal experience of carrying out the project.

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Clair’s Rose

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8″ x 6″ oil on panel

It’s been a while since I last painted a still life. I think this is the last rose of the year. We tried to buy a rose for each member of the family, when we were into gardening. This rose is named ‘Clair Matin’ and was planted for our younger daughter, Clair.

I’m not patient (or thoughtful) enough to spend time composing a still life setup. I look for an arrangement that happened naturally around the house. These objects happened to be on a table in the studio, the rose, paint brushes, a couple of prepared panels and the channel lock plyers.

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