Dark paintings are so difficult to photograph. Sorry for the glare.

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.

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.

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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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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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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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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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.

11″ x 14″ oil on panel

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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.