The Shady Side of the Island

 

The Shady Side of the Island, 16x20 oil on canvas

In the blistering inferno that may regrettably be our new normal in the Pacific Northwest, I seek refuge in cooler ideas.  What can be more soothing in the heat than the deep shade of these towering trees on Goat Island?  

Early Summer

 It seems that climate change has gifted Oregon with an early summer, though I think most Oregonians are reveling in this sunny treat with a sense of foreboding, because the less it rains now, the more likely we will have another long summer of wildfires and smoke.  Still, who can resist the beauty of a fecund land exploding in lush splendor.

This below is a small painting done as a study for a possible larger piece.  It is the old boat ramp at Maddax Woods in West Linn, the rails defunct now, but a remnant of a time when larger boats were built at this site and launched into the channel this side of Goat Island.  (The channel was once called Clackamas Rapids for some reason, but there are no sign of rapids here now.)

A study of a small copse of birch trees off Rosemont Road.  The painting is somewhat bittersweet, not in and of itself, but because it exposed a failing in me that I had not recognized: I recently heard someone use the word copse pronouncing it like the TV show "Cops".  I had encountered the word often in reading, but never in spoken language, and in my mind had always pronounced it "copes".  I think there are a lot of words like that, ones we understand from reading but do not use when speaking, and I fear now that I am probably mispronouncing many of them to myself.  I know I am not alone; once I heard my wife use the word albeit, but she pronounced it as if it was German ("all-bite") and I didn't know what she was talking about.  When she spelled it out, I said "you mean 'all-be-it'?"  It isn't being wrong that bothers me, it's being wrong my entire life and not realizing it.  Like trying to paint or play golf, just another lesson in humility.

And then a couple of attempts that didn't make it:

Luscher Hills in Springtime

 

Luscher Hills 16x20

It has taken me years to realize that I can sometimes create the effect of what is real by using rough and careless brushwork instead of careful and tedious application of paint.  Some effects require specific techniques, like using glazes to achieve the look of stream beds, but sometimes just a crazy scrubbing with the paintbrush can do what deliberate effort cannot.  

Spring Brings New Light

 

Cloudbreak on the Willamette, 12x16

It's time to get outdoors to paint, and I hope to be more consistent this year in forming a weekly practice. Even better would be able to paint while traveling, but that has always seemed nearly impossible to fit in. 

Birkett Mills - Penn Yan, New York 16x20

While back in the Finger Lakes Region doing a property investigation, I became enamored of this group of old buildings, Birkett Mills, the oldest continually operating buckwheat mill in the United States.  We only had one day there, but the countryside was beautiful, with rolling hills and old established farms, clean and orderly.  There were vineyards and lakeside homes and so much to explore that we will be going back again this summer to spend a week there.

Sunrise on the Willamette, study

Spring Fields

 

Sometimes when I throw paint down quickly, even over an old used panel like this, it seems there might be a painting in there somewhere if I can then take the time to develop it.  

Quick Sketch with a Big Brush

 

Fanno Creek Tangle 8x8

Having been kept from painting for months now, I tried to force a quick session to see if my brushes had forgotten how to paint.  I'm not sure what my verdict is, but I do know I need to make some time, if I can only coax my right brain into taking the reins again.  Too much business is bad for art, I guess.

Regarding another painting, South Yamhill by my painter friend, David Richardson:  This warm and moving painting has hung over my hearth in every home I have lived in for the past thirty years.  I have considered it the soul of my home, really, central to the feeling of comfort and security.  Just around Thanksgiving of 2019 another dear friend, Maggie, asked if she could borrow it for her dining room for a while, and reluctantly, I agreed.  I was concerned about what might happen to my sense of peace and safety if such a central piece was removed.  I certainly did not expect what followed: pandemic, wildfires, insurrection, ice storms...  At long last I insisted I needed to get it back where it belonged, and a couple of weeks ago it was returned to its home.  Let's hope this might help get the world back in order.

South Yamhill 4'x5' by David Richardson

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