á la longueur du lac

á la longueur du lac. 8x24 oil

One of the rewards of making paintings is that I find myself looking more, observing light and color in a way that I had not done before.  Sure, I saw the sunset, admired beauty, even noticed nuance, but I don't think I really paid as much attention to the way the sky changes in color as you lift your gaze from the horizon to the zenith, deepening, becoming more blue, more ultramarine blue, slipping along the color wheel.  I often find myself sitting contentedly for long stretches of time as my eyes drift from one thing to another: like the dull, cool greens of the inner cedar branches, and then the warmer, yellower tones at the edges in the sun.  Subtle things, and things we see every day without giving much thought.  It is so easy to take the world for granted.  We will live forever, and there is always another day to feel grateful for it all, or at least we might choose to live that way until it is too late and our time on this earth runs out.  So I am pleased that trying to paint allows me to slow down enough to observe more, and to be grateful for those little things of beauty.

In the case of the above painting, I was struck by how the sky in the west was so lemony yellow, but as the eye tracks eastward it shifts subtly greener, and then into a deeper blue.  These same changes are reflected on the lake, and I often notice that it isn't just the beauty of a scene I admire, the warm glow of light, the blue of the lake against the green backdrop, but it is the subtle changes along a distance, how the morning light to the east sings one note while the still sleepy light to the west sings in harmony, and each are beautiful in their own right, but together they are something more, something that feels like an understanding, and an acceptance and a need for the balance.

And then again, it's nice to have a faithful companion who is always willing to enjoy the beauty with me:

Below the Powerhouse 11x14

Oswego Creek 12x12

Unfamiliar Faces

The above is a recent notebook sketch, from a photo gathered somewhere on the internet a long while ago and saved in my computer; I have no idea who this is, but I do love his eyes.  I get asked why I don't paint people I know, and I sometimes do, but frequently I just want a face to begin with, a reference from which I accept the challenge of quickly finding a likeness, a way of exercising my paint-mixing and application.  Often I paint these portraits between sets on the weights in my little exercise room.  It is a balancing act, because if I get caught up in the painting and spend too much time on it, I lose the benefit of the workout, but if I speed too quickly through the motions of painting, I end up with a mess.  Sometimes a mess is okay, as in the one below, where I was interested in the effects of aging.

It's obvious that I took less time and care with this one, but that is not always the point.  Time, as seemingly endless as all the sands in the world, seems to slip through our fingers just as easily, and I find that I can guard it jealously and also waste it like a brute.  Time leaves its mark on us all, steals from us, gives us everything we have, and yet we simply cannot ever understand it fully: does it form a loop, is it an endless line, can we ever travel back and forth on it?  We seem destined to remain ever ignorant, left with a sense of loss at the end.

Here is One Art, a poem by Elizabeth Bishop:

The art of losing isn’t hard to master; 
so many things seem filled with the intent 
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster 
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. 
The art of losing isn’t hard to master. 

Then practice losing farther, losing faster: 
places, and names, and where it was you meant 
to travel. None of these will bring disaster. 

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or 
next-to-last, of three loved houses went. 
The art of losing isn’t hard to master. 

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, 
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent. 
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster. 

—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture 
I love) I shan’t have lied. It’s evident 
the art of losing’s not too hard to master 
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

On A Dark Pond 12x16 oil

And finally, a recent plein air from along the banks of the Tualatin River.

Trees, trees and trees

It's been a good summer so far for getting outdoors to paint, and I've been out at least once a week for the past couple of months.  I'm fortunate to have a couple of painting buddies who also want to get out, and while I haven't managed any brilliant painting, I've had a great deal of fun doing it, which is really the point.  Having fun painting encourages me to keep painting.  Voila!  That's all the reason I need!

Randall Tipton focused on his watercolor

Several recent plein air attempts: