Breakers Below Yaquina Head (watercolor 5 x 7) $25.00

I did this little painting at the gallery last Wednesday.  It is another view of rocks below Yaquina Head Lighthouse in Newport, Oregon.

I painted it  loosely without using mask reserving the white paper in the clouds, waves and foreground by painting around them.  I added the spray on the rocks with opaque chinese white.  I used phthalo blue, cobalt blue, raw sienna, burnt sienna, and a hint of quinacridone deep red rose.

This painting is currently on display at Art in the Valley, Corvallis, Oregon. You may still purchase it by mail on inquiry through the contact page of this blog.

The Bamboo Grove (watercolor 5 x 7) SOLD

This was an exercise in mixing greens.  The more I looked at this little clump of bamboo, the more I realized just how many greens were there.  To get some of this variety  on paper I used two blues, cobalt and phthalo and three yellows, hansa, new gamgee, and cadmium.   As most of the greens I mixed were blue-greens I used a little bit of  blue green’s compliment, red orange to set them off.  Burnt sienna was perfect for the purpose without any mixing.   I carried the blue-green red-orange motif into the path, painting the red Georgia soil it’s natural red and overlaying it with blue-green shadows.

Funny thing about red soil.  My husband talks about red Georgia clay and how hard it is to dig in or clean out of clothes the way mid-westerners talk of mosquitoes  and three feet of snow.  But here in Oregon we have more than plenty of red clay.  From the mid Willamette Valley south the ground is red as red can be.   And yes it’s hard to wash out of pants.

Headland at Sunset (watercolor 5 x 7) SOLD

Sunset at Agate Beach (watercolor 5 x 7) SOLD

Making Waves (watercolor 5 x 7) SOLD

On our last trip to Newport, my husband and I found a tiny little state park, not even big enough for a highway sign from 101 let alone our road atlas.  It is a wave watchers paradise.  Wet fireworks.   We spent a happy hour there with out noticing either the time or how damp we were getting.  This little part of the rocky headland didn’t produce such spectacular spray, but we were fascinated by the whirl pools the breakers kept forming against the rocks.

I began by masking the whites.  Then I painted in the rocks in burnt sienna, phthalo blue, cobalt blue and a little raw sienna.  The water is phthalo blue, burnt sienna, and raw sienna.

Mothers' Day Daffodils (watercolor 5 x 7) $25.00

[This painting is currently on display at Art in the Valley, Corvallis, Oregon.]

I’ve spent my gallery shifts this month making postcard sized paintings for the OSU Mom’s Day Weekend Craft Fair.  It’s a fun fair to do.  Where else do you get to see a crowd of college boys with their moms?

As part of the Mom’s weekend celebration I’ll be at the gallery demonstrating  polymer clay cane-making on Friday from 1:00 to 2:30 at Art in the Valley, 209 2nd Street, downtown Corvallis.  The craft fair will be on campus in the Memorial Union Quad.   The fair runs from 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Saturday.

Three Tulips (watercolor 5 x 7) $25.00

Sliver Stream (watercolor 5 x7) SOLD

Like yesterday’s paintings, I did this little watercolor at the gallery last Wednesday.  Postcard sized paintings work really well for gallery shifts.  Space at the gallery for painting is limited and I want to be able to drop whatever I am doing to greet and talk to patrons.  At this scale there’s hardly ever a bad moment to stop painting.

These little paintings make good sketches for working out larger work too. It’s so much easier to experiment with composition when the paper I’m risking is only 5 x 7.

The subject is Agate Beach in Newport at sunset.  If the stream has a name, I don’t know it.  And it wouldn’t surprise me to discover it seasonal runoff.  It’s course over the sand varies every time I visit.  But it’s always wide and shallow.  This Spring the it’s mouth was over fifty feet wide and perhaps two or  three inches deep.  I liked the silver reflections in the late evening and early mornings.

The palette is burnt sienna, new gamgee (yellow), quinacridone deep red rose, cobalt blue and phthalo blue.  I painted the sunset colors in tandem working first in the sky and then in the reflections and back again to the sky as I added new colors.  I began with the yellows, then worked along through the oranges, reds, and purples.  The purple is phthalo blue and quinacridone.

The View From House Rock (watercolor 5 x 7) SOLD

This is the view looking west from House Rock just north of Brookings, Oregon.

I’m not sure why House Rock is named House Rock.  When we were on it we weren’t sure if we were supposed to be on it or looking for it.  A little google search made it clear we were on it, but no information about the name.  I have my guesses though.  The hill was surprisingly flat on top and hiking down below it I discovered wild onion, wild iris, wild rose, and strawberries.  Only the iris were in bloom.  Many years of  hiking around ghost towns have taught me which domestic plants go native when the settlers leave.  Onions, rhubarb, strawberries and roses were common survivors in Colorado and they appear to be survivors here too. I think there was once a house on house rock, not that the rock is shaped like a house.

The palette is burnt sienna, raw sienna, cobalt blue, and phthalo blue.

Beach Walk (watercolor 5 x 7) SOLD

This another painting of the beach at Brookings.

I just had to do one of the dogs.  Dogs and beaches  go together.  So much to see.  So much to smell.  So many, many other dogs.

This older dog wasn’t tugging too hard, but he was strongly encouraging his person to walk faster.  I want to see.  I want to run.  I want to go.  I want to do.

I used my typical beach palette: burnt sienna, raw sienna, phthalo blue, cobalt blue.  I masked the waves before painting to preserve the whites.  Painted last Wednesday at Art in the Valley, Corvallas, Oregon.

Beach Birdie (watercolor 5 x 7) SOLD

We call my youngest daughter “Bird” and “Birdie” and even “Birdles” because she looked a little like a bird when she was a baby.  It’s been a long time since I thought she looked much like a bird.   But crouching down on the shoreline, she made me think of long leggity shore birds.

The palette is simple, cobalt blue, phtalo blue, qinacridone deep red rose, and burnt sienna. I used liquid mask extensively to make preserve the white paper.

See more little girl paintings at Fine Art America: girl paintings.

Sunset at Brookings I (watercolor 5 x 7) $25.00

Last weekend I was in Brookings, Oregon for the Watercolor Society of Oregon’s Spring convention.   We visit the coast often, but we rarely get so farther south than Florance.   Brookings is on the California boarder and getting there from Salem efficiently requires dipping into northern California, hardly a hardship as the redwoods are on the boarder too.

The southern coast is a different. Brookings is a rocky rather than a sandy beach.  The land drops off rapidly into the ocean there.  The result is that the waves do not feel like them are above you as they do in Lincoln City, but they break larger closer in.  I haven’t figured out how to paint the immediacy of Brookings breakers, but I’ll get it.

In the meantime, here are three  postcard sized Brookings sunsets.  I did the first on location and the other two at the gallery yesterday.

Sunset at Brookings II (watercolor 5 x 7) $25.00

The people in the third one are my husband and youngest daughter.  It was one of the few times anyone stood still on the beach that evening.  Stephen and the girls were much too busy skipping stones to stand still.

Sunset at Brookings III (watercolor 5 x 7) $25.00

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