Spring Flood (12 x 16 watercolor) $200.00

Driving the countryside around Salem, I’ve been admiring the flooded fields.   At first I was only looking as I drove places I needed to go.  Then I began taking the back roads just to more of them.  Finally, I began driving  just to see them.

This particular field is  northwest of us out toward Silverton.   I loved the silvery blue reflection of the sky 0n the water and the way the furrows pointed to the horizon.  I took several high horizon photos  to emphasize the retreating furrows, but in my reference photos the sky was flat pale gray and uninteresting so I added the cloud where furrows meet in the distance.  I also removed a a railroad trestle that ran across the back of the field because it created a solid black line just where I wanted everything to fade.

Painted with cobalt blue, cerulean blue, burnt sienna and new gamge.

Or purchase a print through my shop at Fine Art America.com.

Between the Showers on HWY 101 (watercolor 10 x 14) SOLD

This January we spent a weekend in Lincoln City. It being January in Oregon; it rained at lot; it was often foggy; and in between the sun shone. I took the photo for this little painting in the car on the way to wave watch in Depot Bay. Before we reached Depot Bay it rained again and then the sun came out to stay for the afternoon.

This painting has sold, but you may still purchase a print from Fine Art America.com.

Afternoon on SW 11th Street (watercolor 10 x 14) $200

This is downtown Portland about a block south of Burnside.    The little building peaking out on the left is our Portland mecca, Powell’s Books.  But it’s the bright old fashioned brick building lit up by the sun in contrast with the glass and steel building behind them that caught my eye.

I simplified the buildings considerably, taking out much brick ornamentation.  I eliminated a few street lights and lamps too.  I also moved the shadow forward a little to encompass all of the foreground cars.  Before I made the change, the closest left-hand car stole the show. The pedestrian was on the  on the scene, but not where I’ve placed him.  My applogies to the Joyce Hotel whose name I removed from their canopy since it drew too much attention to itself.

The palate is simple, cobalt blue, phthalo blue, quinacridone brown madder, and raw sienna.

Foggy Morning on the Columbia (watercolor on paper 12 x 16) $175.00

These are two paintings I did at the gallery in late September in preparation for a workshop with Karen Vernon. Karen, best known for her huge floral paintings on clayboard. My primary goal for the workshop was to learn to paint on clayboard. So the week prior to the workshop I painted the same scene twice, once on cold pressed paper and once on Ampersand’s Aquabord.

The first painting I did conventionally painting from light to dark and reserving the whites without masking. Some of the fog is lifted, some of it is reserved. I used a very restricted pallet of burnt sienna, cobalt blue, phthalo blue and new gamgee.

Foggy Morning on the Columbia (watercolor on aquabord 8 x 10) $60.00

For the second painting I added dioxon purple to my palette. I proceeded once more from light to dark getting to know the new surface. The first thing I discovered is that the surface has to be bone dry to accept an over glaze. The second thing I discovered is that it’s very hard to lay down an even wash on the clay surface. On the other hand lifting is very easy. Rather than reserved the whites, I lifted them after the painting was almost completed. The result is softer than the watercolor painted version.

In class I learned that the trick to even washes on clayboard is to saturate the surface and let the water soak all the way through the clay part of the board before beginning. Over glazes require that the board be thoroughly dry. A hair dryer is an absolute must for working with clayboard.

The workshop turned out to be a fantastic experience.  I will be detailing so of the lessons learned in the coming blog entries as well as posting the paintings I started in class.

The clayboard version of the painting is protected with a clear satin polymer varnish and may be framed with or without glass.

These paintings are currently for sale on line at my Etsy shop.

The Ranch Below Fetterman's Masacure (watercolor) 9 x 16 SOLD

I began painting it at the Oregon State Fair this summer. When the light got bad in the evening I switched to clay and propped the painting up behind me. It caught the attention of a lovely woman and her teenage daughter. It reminds them of a ranch they know. After much discussion she bought another two big sky paintings and asked to purchase this one on completion. Last week she saw the completed painting for the first time and bought it. I’ve never been quite so pleased with a sale.Visiting the mountain west this summer, my husband and I toured two American Indian War Battle sites.  The first was that of the Fetterman Massacre which happened about ten years before Custer’s Last Stand.  The view is from but not of the site of the Fetterman Massacre in Northern Wyoming near Fort Kearney.

Fort Phil Kearney was set up in the northern Rockies to guard the Bozeman Trail. The Bozeman Trail (northwest from the Oregon Trail), passed through Wyoming, and on to the gold diggings in Virginia City, Montana. Unfortunately the trail crossed traditional Sioux hunting grounds. Sioux war chief,  Red Cloud, vowed to defend the territory. Washington, however, ordered the trail kept open at all costs.

In 1866, Colonel Henry Carrington, in command of the 18th Infantry Regiment, was sent to build and garrison a series of posts along the trail. Captain William Fetterman joined the regiment.

The Sioux harassed the fort and posts, particularly parties detailed to work outside the fort and those traveling between the forts.  Red Cloud and Roman Nose of the Cheyenne assembled several thousand warriors to remove the U.S. Army from the trail. Red Cloud’s plan was to send small parties of warriors to attack the wood trains and lure the soldiers off to meet the main band of warriors.

On December 6th, a wood train was attacked by a large party of warriors. When Carrington came out to retaliate he was met by an imposing force of Cheyenne warriors including Red Cloud and Roman Nose. He retreated to the fort, leaving too dead and five wounded. Carrington forbade any of his men to pursue fleeing Indians in the future.

Two weeks later, Red Cloud staged another strike on the wood train. But this time, Carrington was not sucked in. There was just one day of wood cutting left for the winter. Carrington prepared to send out a Captain Powell to reinforce the wood train, but Fetterman demanded the right to lead the rescue. Carrington yielded. Fettreman rounded up 79 men and – with the exact number he had bragged that he could wipe out the whole Sioux nation – set off to meet the foe. Carrington’s orders to him were, “Relieve the wood train. Under no circumstances pursue the enemy beyond Lodge Trail Ridge!”

As Fetterman’s men approached the the wood train, the warriors began to break off from the assault and flee from Fetterman’s approach. The soldiers chased them up the side of Lodge Trail Ridge. As they reached the crest of the ridge a second party of warriors, swung around on Fetterman’s rear. Fetternan and his men were surrounded by nearly 2000 men.

Fetterman attempted to ascend the ridge he had just come over and hide behind the cover of some rocks. But Indians were massing up that side of the ridge too. Within minutes all 80 of Fetterman’s men were dead.

Lodge Trail Ridge is now Wyoming State Historical Site.  (More information about the massacre, Fort Kearny, and the Bozeman Trail can be found at the official site for The Fort Kearny State Historical Site.)  A hiking trail leads along the ridge, and despite the markers and other information about the massacre remains beautiful. This is the view west from the lower end of the ridge.

The Corrugated Plain (11 x 15 watercolor) $175.00

I spent a few hours at The Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument in Montana. My husband is a sort of pocket expert about Custer’s Last Stand so it was a place we simply had to go if we got within three hundred miles of it.

Stephen did show me over the battlefield. Standing on the actual ground makes many contemporary descriptions clearer. Western plains are deceptive. They often look flat from a distance, but turn out to be steep and hilly. People, houses, factories hide in what looks like an unobstructed view to the horizon in a all directions.

The battlefield is like that. From the ridge you have the illusion that you can see all, but you can’t. And the land leading up to the ridge is steep and hard. But my painting is not of where Custer made his famous last stand. Instead, I painted view from where his Lieutenant Reno was pinned down. Reno retreated up the gulches after meeting the Indians in the valley below. The hills are probably much the same, but the river below snakes through a flat valley and it has moved over time. And of course that fields and ranches now occupying the land came after the battle.

Despite the graves, the markers of where Custer’s men fell and where Indians fell, the land itself remains beautiful.

Painted on Arches cold-pressed 140# paper with phthalo blue, cobalt blue, cerulean blue, quinacridone deep read rose, burnt sienna, quinacridone gold and raw sienna.

Or purchase a print through Fine Art America.com.

Montana Skyline (11 x 15 watercolor) $150

Touring Wyoming, Montana, South Dakota, and sliver of Nebraska this summer, I was forcefully reminded of what is so beautiful about the mountain west.  It’s the vast ever changing vistas with little or nothing to clothe them or block the view.  There’s a reason they call it big sky country.

I took the reference photos for this painting from the car window on I90 somewhere east of Butte but west of Bozeman.   But it hardly matters, there isn’t an ugly spot on all of I90 throughout Montana.

It was the light on the peaks that caught me eye.  If anyone can identify name of  the mountain for me, I’d like to know it.

Or purchase a fine art print at Fine Art America.

Wet Summer in Big Sky Country (watercolor 10 x 14) (SOLD)

I grew up in the mountain-west.   It’s dry country.  On the plains it’s high desert.  In the mountains it’s not exactly a desert, but it sure isn’t lush either.   This summer, it was wet all across the mountain states.  Wyoming was green.   Let me repeat that, sage brush covered Wyoming was green. Yellowstone was positively lush with green grass. The park probably had twice it’s usual allotment of wet land.

This is the east side of Yellowstone National Park above the lake, but below Yellowstone’s Grand Canyon. The colors looked like spring, but the grass was much too long.  The silver stream is really just endless wet ground—a spontaneous marsh, made just for this year.  But between the cloud shadows and the sky reflecting on the water it was beautiful.

I painted it conventionally beginning with the sky and stream, then building up the greens layer by layer.  To get all those shades of green I used three blues (cobalt, phthalo, and cerulean) and two yellows (quinacridone god and yellow ocher). In addition I used burnt sienna and quinacridone deep red rose.

This painting has sold, but you may purchase a print from my gallery at Fine Art America.

The Shady Side of the Street (watercolor 9 x 13) $200

I redid my Mexican Cafe from scratch and I like it much better.  I used the same reference photo and the same palette.   The real change is the composition.   This time the shadow leads the eye right into the diners.  And I eliminated much of the detail in the building to keep the eye there.

I took it to my critique group yesterday and it got rave reviews.  Someone pointed out that the  composition works so well that it even looks good upside down as an abstract painting.  Now, if only I could figure out how to do this every time.

An Abstract?

This painting is currently for sale on line at my Etsy shop. Or purchase a print from my print gallery at Fine Art America. (Fine Art America offers many prints of fine watercolor paintings).

Mexican El Fresco (watercolor 10 x 13) $150.00

Another cityscape from downtown Portland. The day and the palette are the same. The light and consequently the painting couldn’t be more different.

Or purchase a print from Fine Art America.