Tuesday, October 9, 2018

Changing of the Season






11 x 14 oil

The days are cooler, the river is low now, but that won't last with the coming rains, and it's less appealing to get out to paint, so I find myself in the studio dabbling on this and that.  I was drawn to the very abstract nature of this above, which is much more true to life than it leads one to believe.


12 x 12 oil

I love the look of stone under water, and I liked the raking light across Oswego Creek, but this one didn't seem headed toward resolution so I left it as a sketch of a possibility.


Sometimes Nature is so magnificently lush that a photo does what a painting cannot do.  This is along the Columbia River in the Gorge.

I have also been working at portraits lately, again.  For me it is continually a struggle of focusing on finding a likeness and realizing I'm not really making a good painting.  I guess that's why I still consider it practice, a part of the long road of self-education I face.  On the plus side, it is getting easier to quickly get at a likeness, no matter which method I use to begin, so it gives me courage to continue.  One day I hope I will slow down and pay more attention to the painting process itself.


Copy of a John Singer Sargent


Jack Kerouac

Yesterday I joined Instagram for the first time (I am really reluctant to sign into all these services that mine me for personal information) and I realize that what other painters use Instagram for is what I have been doing with this blog.  It may or may not prove to be more useful to me, but at least I am able to follow some great images from others that I would otherwise miss.

2 comments:

nuuki said...

Oh that first painting in this post... takes my breath away. It's beautiful... very beautiful, the image is the truth.

Mitch said...

Nuuki!!! Thanks for the comment. Nature takes my breath away nearly every day, and not just from climbing stairs. I struggle to try to catch a bit of that beauty, but you have always had that knack.