Return to Goat Island

 

Return to Goat Island 11x14 oil on panel

Most of my painting is inspired by something I see when outdoors, and frequently I am outdoors in the morning because the dog needs to be walked, meaning that I return again and again to the same places.  These are places within 15 minutes or so from home, places with trails, and sometimes places where dogs can be off leash, so I can throw sticks for Greta.  Maddax Woods is one of those places, situated along the Willamette River in West Linn.  This view across a narrow channel to Goat Island is one of my favorites, and I expect I will continue to paint it, because it changes with the seasons, with the weather conditions, with the time of day.  Monet used to paint the same subject over and over again, but I wouldn't compare myself to him here; he was working at an intellectual level, experimenting with the moods of various color schemes and their effect on the human eye or whatever.  I'm simply trying to capture what I see in my rudimentary way, and hoping I happen to learn something about painting along the way.

From a previous post, here is a plein air painting from the same spot, looking slightly more downriver.  The mood is very different.

And lastly, here is a photo taken with my new iPhone 12 mini, trying to learn the features that might help me get some better shots.  I used the nighttime setting with a 3 second exposure, view from my living room looking out across the lake in the dark:

It's an amazing improvement from my previous phone/camera, but I would say that the lights are over-emphasized and make the whole image seem a lot brighter than it was in real life, even with editing to try to tone it down.  Still, it's something to work with.

The Return to Hope

                                                            Goat Island in Autumn 14x11

It seems that everyone I know has been in a nervous waiting mode: waiting out the pandemic, waiting for Trump to finally be gone, waiting for the tensions to ease enough to find pleasure in creating again.  But the wait goes on and on.  The brief celebration we allowed ourselves when word of Biden's victory came out did not erase the tension of knowing that the divisions are still here, and may only get worse.

I've found it hard to settle enough to want to paint, and when I have tried, the attempts seem half-hearted.

Wrangel, Alaska 8x10

Fanno Creek, 10x8

I've tried some new techniques, but the results have not been as I hoped.  It may take some time to get back to the heart of painting, with inspiration and desire, which have been crowded out by concern for the world and those in it whom I love.  So far, we are surviving.

Leapfrog

 

Leapfrog by Geoff Lewis  oil on board 18x16

The painting above has long been one of my favorites, done by a friend of mine in Ashland, Oregon, Geoff Lewis.  Geoff began his career as a commercial artist and then transitioned into fine art, establishing a reputation for himself in the Bay Area before eventually moving north to little Ashland in the mid-seventies.  I met him in the coffee shop run by a mutual friend, where Geoff would hang out looking for someone with whom to play backgammon.  We spent quite a bit of time together from the late 70's to the early 80's, drinking and smoking and chatting.  Geoff told me a great deal about his artistic past, but when I knew him, he seemed to have lost his passion for creating new work, and would only paint when he had a show to put on.  He would then stage a number (at least five or six) of canvases in a semi-circle and go from one to the next, quickly building them up together.  But for the most part, he preferred hanging out, drinking and dancing, and acting in community theater.  

His style was in a tradtional, subdued manner and I remember him showing me a classic compositional structure he sometimes used when beginning a painting.  It involved drawing lines from each corner to the midpoint on the opposite side and then subdividing the space even further with more and more lines.  It seemed endlessly complicated and I wondered about the value of it back then.  His point was that if you put elements of the painting along those lines or at intersections, it would infuse the piece with a natural power.  (He was also into reading auras and invisible energy in people.)

I bought this piece from Geoff during one of his down periods, when he was selling off things in his home in order to make rent.  I also bought from him an original manuscript page from William Wordsworth, for $100.  I didn't have much money back then, either, but I often had enough to help out friends.  But I felt so wrong about taking such a precious artifact from him that I sold it back to him when he got back on his feet.  Unfortunately, he later sold it to someone else when he needed money again.

At any rate, I've long wondered about how he structured this painting above, since it seems to have some undefinable something that draws one to it.  So yesterday I made a quick sketch of it on a recycled board in order to investigate the layout, and the result is this:

I was stunned to discover how closely he held to the simple linear framework.  The two girls are fitted neatly into the diamond shape created by the four main compositional lines.  I'm not certain of the basis of the other two important lines, but the one following the leg and back of the girl in red seems to go from points 2/3 of the way along each edge from the upper left corner.  And the final line, indicated in his painting by the change in value in the background, intersects the knee, the hands and the foot, providing another feeling of unity and connection to the whole.

As the World Burns

 

Kaya on the Washougal 12 x 14.5

It's been over a month without a post, and there has been little painting going on in my studio as I focus on other things this summer.  2020 has proven to be one bad hombre, and I cringe when I imagine how badly it could end if our democracy is truly threatened by the despot now mangling our federal government.  How can so many people let their emotions blind them to his many crimes and defects?  They seem to have an excuse to cover everything, but beneath it all seems to be a deep fear of a conspiracy against them.  Please, people, own up to your duty to perform your civic role in a civil way.

But for now we simply must wait out the fires that are raging all around.  The smoke is so thick where I live that I can't see the lake out my window.  It is punishing to go outside and breathe that air.  Perhaps the rain coming this week will tamp down the flames.  I wish the same could be said for the flames of anger and outrage that have consumed our country.

Along the Washougal

There Goes July

It's finally hot, stifling hot, but not bad at all in the shade.  Fortunately we live in a state filled with trees, and shade is seldom far away.  This quick sketch was made in the shade along the Willamette, in Maddox Woods park, where I go to throw sticks for the dog and walk in the sand, enjoying the play of light on the water.  This trip, I came across a dead sturgeon on the shore, about six feet long; it was prehistoric looking, the lower jaw much like a shark, though there weren't any scary teeth showing.

I also hauled out an old photo I took in the park at Chateau Chantilly, north of Paris.  It's been far too long since I have been there, and the feeling was a bit forced.  Maybe it's time to return, once we Americans are allowed back into Europe.

And after all the work I have done on landscapes lately, it was a pleasure to switch to a portrait for a little work in the sketchbook today.

In the Fields

Through the Fields 12x16 oil

There's something about the morning light glancing across the tops of ripe grains, those amber waves, those brilliant swaths of brightness.  It is dramatic and it sends the soul soaring.

Tender Meadows 8x10 oil

I feel the need to work on this motif, this idea of a ready harvest and the abundance around us in summer.  In the time of Covid, maybe there is a deeper yearning for wide open spaces like this, something that speaks to safety and refuge.

But in the end, how can I ever forget water, and the way light dances on the surface?  

Near the Row Club 16x20 oil

Summer Heat

Luscher Fields 16x20 oil

Walking the dog in the morning through these nearby fields, the old rancher buried in my past can't help but shake my head at the waste of hay in these fields that used to be a part of a large dairy farm, but are now a park for dogwalkers and bicyclists.  This should have been harvested a month ago, and now it's past prime.  At least the colors are rich and even uncommon.

A notebook sketch of a friend tuckered out from leading a group of students through Paris.

Afternoon Glow 11x14 oil

The Land of My Father

Summer Mountain Meadow 9.5x14 oil on board

If you drive up the winding (and indelicately-named) Dead Indian Road out of Ashland and up into the Cascades in the direction of the Klamath Basin...if you take the correct exit onto an unmarked logging road past Shale City (another mystery, the result of a failed attempt to mine oil shale by the settlers in the area, with no habitation whatsoever)...if you take the correct number of left turns followed by the correct number of right turns, you eventually end up at the end of the road.  Parking your car and walking a few minutes along an unmarked trail will lead you to a small but deep depression with a small body of water at the bottom called Lost Lake.  There are dozens of Lost Lakes around, and this one is not as well-known as many of the others, but it has always been a special place to me.  There are steep rock bluffs on which you can stand and look down onto the tops of towering fir trees.  At just the right time of year, Calypso orchids are blooming, tiny and heavily scented wildflowers that are somewhat rare.  And the scent of pine in summer's heat, the soft dead grasses and fields of wildflowers and the stillness of the place lend a mystical feel to it.  It is a place to look within oneself.

But if you instead drive up the south fork of Little Butte Creek Rd, leaving Medford in the other direction, going past White City and then Eagle Point, on past the little Lakecreek General Store, up miles of gravel road until you reach what was once my grandparents' ranch, and if you stand in front of the ranch house and crane your neck way back and look up to the top of the steep mountain that blocks the midday sun in winter and makes the little valley colder than you would expect, you see the peak where my grandmother told us my father would climb when he was a teen, and how with his friends he would hang a pair of underwear from a dead snag for a flag of conquest, and then they would cool off by swimming in this same little Lost Lake.  It was a special spot for him and his buddies, and it became special to me and a few of my friends some 40 years later.

Cascade Tangle 9.5x14 oil on board

And above is another special place - on the Salmon River trail near Mount Hood.  The water is so clear and brisk and it plays delightfully with the sunlight.  You could sit at this spot and contemplate for hours and when you were done you would be the better for it.

Memories of the Mediterranean

The Beach Path at Cap d'Ail 24x36

The above is a work in progress that may take some time yet to complete, because it is filled with the sort of detail that I don't normally use in painting, architectural and particularly the people in the scene which need fleshing out: I am placing myself (seated on the bench) and three other friends, at our present ages, in this scene where we shared good times in the distant past, because in a real sense we still inhabit that place: it is sun-warmed and carefree and full of possibility in a way that only youth can truly embrace, and yet we still hold onto that feeling even in our advancing years.  Just a short walk into the foreground brings one to the border of Monaco, and the homes along this coast and the people living there were all quite posh.

And then I have two studies from my dog walks, along Oswego Creek as the season turns lush and soft.

A Quiet Dark Water 12x16

A Silty Creek 11x14

Green

Emerald Pool 8x8

Along the Channel 8x10

Green is power, nature's fuse, the color of more forces and guises than are countable, a messenger announcing itself, paradoxically, as the hue of both renewal and reproduction or infirmity and illness.  It is at once the preternaturally ambiguous color of life and death, the vernal sign of vitality, and the livid tinge of corruption... 

As the color of Venus and Mercury, devoted lovers, green is peace, vegetation, gladness and rebirth.  It is associated with the number five and is the fairy color, the primal wash, the heraldic tint of envy, of nausea and of hope, of solid gems and eerie mists, of sea cabbage, eelgrass, salt thatch, subaqueous plants, algae, and sea lettuce bearding the rocky shore.  "Green derives from blue and surpasses it," says an old Chinese proverb, referring to the student who, learning from a teacher, grows to surpass him.  Did you know that "greenth" is a legitimate word, although rare, meaning verdure?  To "green" is even a verb, in Scotland, meaning to yearn.  So many hues and shades and tints of green exist in the natural world, so multifarious are its guises, it is impossible ever to fully know them....

From Alexander Theroux in Secondary Colors

Goat Island

Goat Island - 22x28 oil on canvas

This island on the Willamette in West Linn has fascinated me for years, especially when the Great Blue Herons are nesting in these trees; sometimes there are dozens for them flying around at once, quite a sight.

This next is a work in progress of a long-time friend, John, from a time in the distant past when we rafted rivers in southern Oregon, particularly the Rogue and the Illinois.

When We Were Young - 18x14 oil on canvas

Reworking a Sketch

Phantom Bluff, Covid Spring 16x20

Wanting to explore further the painting in the last post, I decided to take a little more time on it.  This one is closer to my original vision and seems to express the delightful clarity of color on the lake that morning.  The next step may be to try this one in an even larger scale, perhaps 32 x 40.

Another recent painting, a little less fully realized.  Somehow I am missing the softness of the moment that I was after.  Some glazing might help, or it may be too late to softly blend where needed.

Finding Normal

Although I know my mind needs solace now, and that painting might provide that fresh breath of air so needed (sucking through an N-95 mask in the grocery store), for me, at least, I need to begin with a mind that has stilled itself, and mine is still racing and on high alert.  I am in information-seeking mode.  I am edgy, uncomfortable in this new normal.  But I did force myself to visit my studio yesterday and pound out a small painting, a mad slap and dash to try to capture the clarity of the light and color as I witness the convergence of spring sunshine and skies suddenly cleared of pollution.  I can't emphasize how sloppily paint was put to canvas, as if I had held my breath and must hurry before I pass out.  This is not the way to paint.  I need to find a way to ease into it, to feel that I have all the time in the world, like a long and lazy summer day without a worry in the world.  How long before that feeling will return?

Pandemus Immanis

A Walk in the Woods 11x14

The whole of mankind is now facing the unknown together, and peril is increasing everywhere.  This comes across as hysteria to some, but you only have to look to other countries to see what is inevitable for us.  Many of us refuse to believe it, deny the changes coming, but more importantly, deny the changes we should be making right now.  This stubborn insistence on clinging to the familiar is going to force us to go through more pain and desperation than we really need to, but I suppose that as divided as Americans have become, we have no choice but to enter the shitstorm and then maybe we can reevaluate our prejudices and realize that we have to fight this war together.  Alternatively, we might end up fighting each other, and Putin wins after all.  At any rate, this is the scariest time we have seen in our lives, and our future will be quite different from what we have been used to, but it does not have to be worse than the past.  We can choose to make positive changes to the way we live and relate to each other.  We can choose to become We The People again.

Bryant Frosty Meadow 14x11

As difficult as it is to regain the calm and focus needed to paint, I know that I will return to the easel in the coming weeks, and it will become a harbor for sanity and health.  My scheduled exhibition (my first!) was cancelled.  Just when I had worked up enough confidence to believe in what I am producing....

Be safe out there, help your friends, and stick to those protocols.

A Quiet Place

Bryant Wood 16x12 oil

While the world seems to be going to hell in a hand basket, and there seems to be little one can do to stave off the negative and the alarming, I decide that the least I can do for myself is to make personal assessments and change my routines, refocus on mindfulness, read something from which to learn, and exercise the body to try to keep healthy and fit.  Painting needs to be a part of that process as well, and though it's hard to find the hour or two in the middle of a busy day, I try to find a quiet place in my mind where it is just me and the canvas, the multitude of decisions and small problems to solve, and a momentary joy.  

As a part of my new regimen, I watch series from The Great Courses (recordings of lectures by selected professors on a myriad of topics) available on cable now (for an extra $5/month).  Currently I am watching Mind-Body, a scientific study of Consciousness.  It captures my attention while the minutes slip by on the treadmill, the two-bird practice.  At any rate, a recent episode covered the visual cortex, and how we see.  It is fascinating to consider what happens to the image of the world as it comes through our eyeballs and bounces around the brain, how we see color (no color in our peripheral vision!) and why we have blindspots, how the brain fills in all those shortcomings in our vision.  I don't know how this will apply to painting, but it would seem to make sense that better understanding of how we see can help us paint in a way that conveys emotion more readily.

Sprung!

Into the Fog 12x12

Though it is still cold out, a few sunny days have turned our spirits around, and some of us got out for the first plein air painting of the season today:

photo by Burt Jarvis

Meanwhile, down by the river some very ambitious beavers were working on a large cottonwood and the park maintenance crew decided it was safer to remove the tree now before they toppled it.  Along came some OSU graduate and decided to add his or her own touch.  Go Beavers!

Creating a Portrait Sketch

One of my favorite practices, especially if I am out of the habit of painting and am having trouble getting going again, is to paint quick portrait sketches in my notebook.  These are not precious, they are not meant to be shared or sold, and so I can avoid the intimidation that sometimes keeps me from diving in.  I work from photo reference - anything with an interesting face and strong features and good light/shadow.  Normally these are old black and white photos.  I use a limited pallet of white, black, red and ochre, keeping things as simple as possible.

After a quick pencil sketch to get the features in the proper arrangement, I lay in the darks, below:

Then I block in the rest of the face roughly:

A quick background color to fill the page:

All of the above work takes about 15 minutes, and is done with the same brush,  a number 8 filbert.  I've been trying to get away from using Liquid, because it seems to make my brushwork too blotchy, and lately I have been trying to do the bulk of the painting with no medium at all.

Finally, I switch to a smaller filbert, a 3 or 4, and work the details, blend in color, etc.

Bertrand Russell

Another sketch, of Vincent Cassel:

Sketches

Sky/River Sketch 11x14

Notebook Sketch 11x8

Morning Run

Morning Run 11x14

The new year is off to a quick start, and though it has been hard to find time for the studio, I did manage to eke out a small one that evokes the mood I am in as we begin 2020, a little dark and tentative, not knowing where we are headed in this important year that will have long-lasting consequences for the future of our country and for our planet.  Trying to provoke a war with Iran doesn't seem like the best first step, however.