Please see my website at http://billsharppaintings.com
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I haven’t been posting much lately for various reasons, one of which is that I was hoping to move my blog to a new website I’ve been trying to get going but I’ve had a difficult time finding someone to help me with it. I’m not familiar with web development. It doesn’t seem like it should be this hard to get a web site up.
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I went out painting with a friend last week and came across a small herd of cows lounging in the sun. They were the same type of cows that I often see in Roos Schuring’s paintings. She’s a fantastic painter in Holland. I wrote about her back in Aug 2012.
So I decided to see if I could paint these cows ala Roos Schuring.
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Thinking back to our family trip to Ireland in 1996. Good times.
I delivered the paintings for my first solo show in many years to Brian Marki Fine Art yesterday. I have one more piece I’d like to finish for the show, if Brian doesn’t mind hanging a wet painting.
The image above is the piece I’d like to finish for the show, in it’s current state. It still seems a little chaotic but that is true to my current experience. I don’t usually put a lot of thought into titles. They’re mainly just for me to keep them straight in my mind but, given recent events, this piece has begun to occur for me as a view into my life. I need to reconstruct a new life out of what appears to me now as the wreckage of my old life and this painting expresses that for me. It may not be pretty but it holds promise.
I have to say that, in spite of the fact that I’m not often referred to as a real “up” kind of person, I have been surprised at my ability to find positive meaning in my wife’s death.
For one thing, it was such a privilege and relief to be able to see Leslie on to a peaceful and meaningful death. It was the perfect completion of our relationship. Four years ago, when Leslie’s cancer became metastatic, the primary purpose of my life became to see to it that Les was taken care of and had a good death and I lived to fulfill that promise. So many women have to go through this alone. I am grateful that Les was loved and cherished and nurtured and adored to her last minutes. Well beyond her last minutes, in truth.
I have also been overwhelmed with love and support from friends and family. My relationships have been enriched by Les’ passing. I have made new friends who have made profound contributions to my life.
Leslie continues to nurture me even in death. I was rooting through the freezer and found a treasure. Two containers of Les’ wonderful beef stew.
My stomach and heart are both full of love. I miss Leslie’s physical presence but I feel her with me all the time. I’m a very fortunate man.
A friend and I drove out to Ranier, OR to paint at the defunct Trojan Nuclear Plant (now a park) but there was not much there we were interested in painting so we drove on into the nearby town of Ranier, which is right on the Columbia river. These 2 paintings were done from a parking lot in the town.
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I went with a friend to paint at the Portland Train station – Union Station. It was supposed to rain so I proposed we meet there and paint from under the cover of the overpass across the street from the station. It worked out pretty well. It rained hard and I only got a little wet (from a drain in the overpass) This is the resulting painting.
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The hunting season is over on Sauvie Island, and I headed over to paint last weekend. Unfortunately, when I was half way there, I realized I had forgotten to pack any panels to paint on. This is the second time I’ve done this. I suppose age is catching up with me. Rather than turn back, I continued on knowing that I had my watercolor paintbox and sketchbooks along.
I went to a part of the island where I haven’t painted for several years and found a nice spot along the Multnomah Channel ( a narrow side channel of the Wilamette River, and started the piece above as several sailboats and fishing boats came and went. While I waited for the colors to dry on this one, I started the one below, of the same subject.
I moved on down the road and did one more from a spot I painted a few years ago. It’s a view of the famous volcano, Mt St Helens, across the cow patures.
I was hoping for some cows but they didn’t show up until later
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The weather has been especially wonderful in Oregon this spring. Although I’m tied to my home office during the work week, I’ve stolen enough time to do a few little studies outside. These two were painted from the deck of my office.
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I spent 12 days in Kauai with my family. It was great to get away and spend time together in beautiful Kaua’i. The cones of my eyes are now so used to bright sun and saturated colors that everything looks one color now that I’m home in the grey Pacific NW.
I slipped away to do a little bit of sketching but I really wasn’t prepared for the intensity of the sun when I wasn’t in the shade.
This was done in Hanalei, near the north end of the island. It’s a surfer beach, I forget the name of this particular one.
I never figured out the name of this mountain in Anahola on the east shore. I found a nice shady spot at the dead end of the road to do this one.
There was a large vacant spot, between resort condos, on the beach near Kapaa on the east shore. The beach was quiet and I was pretty much on my own here. If you didn’t look back to shore, it was easy to imagine being on a deserted island. This is the view in the opposite direction.
When I turned around toward the ocean, this is was the view:
REMINDER. The opening reception for
OIL, WATER and INK: Artistic Interpretations of the Built Environment
with paintings by Shawn Demarest, prints by Beth Kerschen and paintings and sketchbooks by me is tonight,
Feb 7th from 5:30 til 8:30
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AIA Center for Architecture. 403 NW 11th Ave Portland. (NW 11th and Flanders).
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I’m still finding beauty in these unusual forms.
This past weekend was the first weekend of the 2012 Portland Open Studios tour. I worked on this study of the studio corner while a slow but steady stream of folks perused my recent oil paintings and sketchbooks.
Thanks everyone who came by or checked my website. I’m looking forward to the second weekend of the tour.
I visited the construction site of the new Portland Milwaukie bridge, which will be for light rail, cyclists and pedestrians.
Here’s a link to details about the bridge http://trimet.org/pm/construction/bridge.htm
They have very cool time lapse videos of the entire construction process at this link http://trimet.org/pm/construction/bridgecams.htm#
I love (/hate) plein air painting but consider myself a bit of a hack at it. I have lots of excuses and I wanted to use many of them over the last 5 days, as I tried to paint some good paintings in Hood River. This is the first time I’ve participated in a plein air competition and I really enjoyed painting with a group of extremely skilled plein air painters.
This is one of my entries, painted at the beautiful Sakura Ridge Farm and Lodge, above Hood River. Please don’t judge the place by this painting. The views of Mt Hood and the valley and the lodge were amazing.
Click HERE for more photos of the paint out at Sakura Ridge.
The opening reception is this coming Friday, Sept 7th at the Columbia Gallery of Art in Hood River from 4 til 9. If you’re in the area and want to see some extraordinary plein air paintings, please stop by. The show runs through the month of September.
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I’m not sure exactly what year this is – late 60s early 70s Coupe Deville. This place needed some classin’ up and the Caddie fits the bill, don’t you think? It’s appropriately parked next to what I believe was once a gasoline pump.
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Local painter, Eduardo Fernandez, was kind enough to share a great painting site with me recently. We spent a beautiful Oregon summer day painting this amazing urban decay. A perfect day.
I hope to get a few more paintings out of this site.
This is one I never posted from last year’s plein air workshop on Orcas Island, with Jordan Wolfson.
8″ x 10″ oil on linen panel
I’m looking forward to spending another week painting with Jordan next week.
We’ve lived in our house for almost 30 years. When we moved in it was a quiet semi-rural road. Our property and the two on either side of us are large lots and have not changed much, over the years but further up the road, new developments have been built which has made the surrounding area more suburban, the road busier and that semi-rural feel has faded.
The road we live on has become more hazardous to walk on, as traffic has increased. There are no sidewalks and very little in the way of shoulder. So, the new project installing sidewalks on one side of the road is welcome, however, it is another step in the suburbanization of the neighborhood. They removed all the trees along that side and the road will feel wider and harder.
I’ve always loved this comic by Robert Crumb. I think it expresses my feelings well.
On Saturday, I set up my easel in the front yard and sketched one of the construction vehicles parked along the road.
Track Hoe 11 1/2″ x 11″ oil on linen scrap
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9″ x 12″ oil on linen panel
I spent several hours with these cattle last Saturday. The last time I was here the entire field was flooded and there were a couple of guys in the middle of it with waders and fishing poles.
12″ x 9″ oil on linen
I forgot to look closely but I believe this is an Oregon Ash.
Bill Sharp - paintings blog 