When an artist lives with a painting for awhile, the art will nearly always reveal its weaknesses. I recently announced I had finished a new painting, “Beach Enterprise”, and added it to my website, social media, email newsletter, etc. Afterward I left it sitting on the easel in my living room for about ten days […]
“Portage Island Cliff No. 13” was an exercise in color and shapes. I started with a medium gray sanded paper, just as I have with the last couple of paintings in this series. Overall, the gray neutralizes the color in the painting a bit, resulting in a softer, overcast look. shapes Using soft vine charcoal […]
I thought it might be fun to be able to view all the pastel paintings in the Portage Island Cliff Series that I’ve been working on since last year. I’ve made a page here on my website where you can do that. Click here to view all pastel paintings in the series. Sign up for […]
I love the time of day when dusk envelops the world under the heavy forest canopy, but away from the trees the sky is still bright evening. I tried to capture that feeling in this painting titled “Evening”. The edge of the meadow in the upper part of the Curry Preserve is a perfect place […]
In “Portage Island Cliff Series No. 12” I tried to loosen up my technique a little more. I like realism, but I also like a more impressionistic feeling. Today I focused especially on keeping the background and the face of the cliff less detailed. Instead I worked with the interaction of the sanded paper and […]
After a long winter hiatus, I really enjoyed getting back to the easel today. To get warmed up, I painted a new version of my Portage Island Cliff series. I’d been studying the cliff out the window all winter and wanted to see what I’d learned. I set “Portage Island Cliff Series No. 11” on […]
In “Portage Island Cliff 6×6 Series No. 10” I experimented again with a technique often used by Emily Carr. I wrote briefly about her in my previous blog entry. shadow outlines Carr often used a very dark, almost black, line to outline the shadow side of some of the shapes in her paintings. Other artists […]
It’s beginning to look like this Portage Island Cliff 6×6 series will only be about half done by the Labor Day Lummi Island Artists’ Studio Tour. I’ll have whatever is finished on display at my home, and I’ll complete the series before the mid-November Holiday Studio Tour. I hope you’ll stop by to see the […]
A popular theory in painting is that if the values are right, it almost doesn’t matter what colors you use. A viewer can still recognize the scene for what it is. I decided to experiment with that theory in this seventh painting in the Portage Island Cliff 6×6 series. complementary colors and values I used […]
I’ve been away from this 6×6 project for awhile, so today I approached the subject as if painting it for the first time. I noticed there were some warm reds and violets in the background trees that I hadn’t included before, I think adding them created more depth than on some of my previous paintings […]
August 28, 2019
July 4, 2019
August 21, 2018
August 17, 2018
July 11, 2017