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.