Out In The Air

Upper Clackamas River

With the changing of the seasons, I feel a need to hurry outdoors even more, paint from life while there is still enough warmth and comfort left to me.  I do not expect to be out standing in the snow and rain, shivering while rushing through a quick plein air painting.  It seems there may only be a few weeks left, so sometimes I do a very quick sketch like the one below, from the Yamhill area:

And while we can, LOPAS is still sticking to our weekly plan; last Friday's outing was to Bryant Woods.  We didn't realize it, but while we sat there painting in the meadow, a coyote was watching us with interest, until Jean got up to look at Randall's work and the coyote ran off.

The Tualatin River

Our plein air outing on the Tualatin this morning was pleasant and beautiful, but I just didn't feel I had it in me today, and so I am posting a painting I did this past week from the same spot.  Even this one feels like the start of something as yet unfinished, but I am not inclined to linger on it, since I have other things to get to.

This notebook sketch of Ezra Pound was interesting to me because of the tipped back angle of his head, and the almost haughty look it gave him.  He was an interesting figure in American poetry; some great poets who followed him felt he introduced the modernity that was to follow, but his reputation was marred by his adherence to Fascism leading up to World War II.

And this above is one of my work-out sketches, dashed off in brief moments between sets of lifting weights.  It is small (5x7) done with a largish brush, but I was satisfied that it captured a bit of character.

Beauty on the River

Friday is always plein air day, and today Randall and I were the only ones to show up, so we selected this spot with a small roof over our heads overlooking the Tualatin River at Field's Bridge Park in West Linn. What a gorgeous spot!  It is baffling that I had never been down to the river at this particular spot, especially given that I had lived for seven years just a half mile upstream.  Granted, this park has been developed since I moved from there ten years ago, but still....  This place is a plein air painter's dream.  There are so many different motifs, and plenty of light and relative privacy.  Below is the painting from today, sitting on this overlook.  I wished it could have been developed further, but frankly I was so pleased with just sitting there and soaking in the beauty, the color of the water, and the good conversation, that I didn't worry too much about the painting.  We will be back, certainly.

And from last week, another plein air piece of a lawn and cottonwoods.  I didn't think much of this one when I finished it on site, but when I got home, it grew on me a little and despite the glaring flaws that I won't go back and change, I am happy with the overall feeling of it as a painting.  It is simple, but it conveys a bit of what I felt there, and it deserves to be developed in another painting, using this as reference.

And finally, another art blog to share:  Terry Miura writes a wonderful and informative blog that has been a real help to me in learning things I might not otherwise consider.  He paints landscape, cityscape and figurative pieces with a fresh looseness that is instructive to tight beginning painters like me.  He is generous with his expertise and takes time to explain the intricacies of his process.  I have long hoped that he will one day take the time to compile his past posts into a book, and I think it would be a successful one if he ever did, but I understand how time consuming that would be and it would take away from his painting time, so for now I just go back through his blog to explore ideas that are helpful to me.  Below is a sample of his landscape work.

Art Blogs Two

For whatever reason, I have been unable to convince myself to pick up a brush for the past couple of weeks.  I set aside time, I think about it, and then I find excuses for not doing it.  This hasn't been a problem for me, strangely, and I know it is a danger for a self-motivated person in pursuit of an artistic goal, but now I find myself in these familiar doldrums.  I tell myself that it is because the past month has been filled with emotional challenges on so many fronts, (and I am glad that August is behind me) and that might be all there is to it, really.  But a part of me fears that if I lose some of the drive that has kept me going in the difficult learning stage of painting, how will I manage to face the inevitable discouragement and failure?  So I fret, and ignore, and wait for another day.

In order to force myself back into the routine, I started a portrait, below, and working with only white, black, yellow ochre and vermillion, I got a reasonable likeness, but not a finished piece.  I stopped to let the paint dry enough not to lift color back out as I was trying to add glazing over it, but when I came back to it.....  Let's just say her expression of unhappiness compares to my own feelings lately.

One thing I have no trouble doing is joining in on our Friday morning plein air outings; the camaraderie alone is worth the time, and I find I can paint easily enough because I'm not after a finished painting, just the effort of observation and attempt.  It seems like it has to be good for one's mental health, at the very least.  In the photo below Randall and Jean paint the gardens at Luscher Farms last week.

But this post is about Art blogs, so I will mention another of my favorites.  James Gurney is well known in artistic circles, and he may be the hardest working of anyone I am aware of in the field.  He writes helpful and friendly posts nearly every day, he has a large following, he writes books on painting, he illustrates for scientific magazines (dinosaurs) and he creates videos of his painting process.  He paints on location often and fills notebook after notebook with watercolor, gouache and casein.  I check in on Gurney Journey nearly every day, and I am never disappointed with the offerings I find there.

Another art blog that I follow frequently is Painter's Process by Randall Tipton.  He is the fellow in the cap in the photo above.  I first came across his beautiful work years ago, and I remember feeling awe and mystery.  I tried imagining who this man might be, but his work was so unlike that of other painters, so hauntingly beautiful and true, exotic and mysterious.  I was just starting out on my journey into painting and I couldn't imagine ever being able to paint like that.  But I noticed an announcement on his blog that he was having an open studio one fall, I stopped by, and Randall was friendly and welcoming and gracious and we have become friends.  I've watched him paint on numerous occasions, and I still can't imagine being able to paint like him, because it is still a mystery to me how he arrives at his finished piece.  

A third art blog I follow is Art and Artists, by Poul Webb.  Nothing like the other two, this is a compendium of work of various artists.  Poul selects an artist who interests him and then posts painting after painting, giving you an in depth visit to the body of work.  It is a way to see painters I have never heard of before, but it is also a way to see work by famous artists whose work I thought I knew well.  The past postings are a good resource for study.