A PAINTING FROM A PHOTO

I took the photo I used for this about a month ago from my kayak. From the kayak, I painted the same view which you can see here. I'm not sure I captured what I wanted to.... the fireweed seedheads were what caught my eye, in contrast to the trees and beach grass below.... probably should darken up the area just under the seedheads. I've always have trouble painting grass. I used masking fluid for this one. I'm going to try painting this again with gouache

GOODE RIVER

My outside painting around here is probably about over for this year. Snow is coming lower down the mountains.... it's below 1000 ft now and won't be long until its here a sea level. I took advantage of a rare sunny afternoon and walked to Goode River, visited with Artemis and Lori and it was warm enough to sit in the sun and paint...


for about a half hour anyway. This is the Goode River which is really just a creek. Long shadows just before the sun disappeared.

VIEW FROM THE COUCH

This is one view from where I sit most every evening usually facing towards the TV set. I drew this one evening a few weeks ago, while probably paying more attention to the TV than the drawing from the looks of it now. I put some watercolor washes on it yesterday..... forgot it was drawn with that darn bleeding ink.

FORGOT TO POST

I really thought I had posted this. I've been working most days in the studio and boggling my mind with making 3 sets of airplane reservations. I did finally do a long post on my other blog about my woodblock print.... I'd better get over than and make sure I actually posted it.

On Thursday night Mark, Kelly, Aimee and I got together at the Fireweed Gallery and with Kim as our model, Mark sculpted and the rest of us sketched.

This is one of 3 watercolor sketches I did. We plan to get together at least every other week. Hopefully more folks will come.

WOODCUT FINISHED

Here it is finally... my 9 x 3 inch woodcut. I'll be doing a post about it on my other blog soon.


It was good to get the woodchips out of the studio and get my paints out again and get out in the sunshine on my bike for a while. I stopped at Kim's and enjoyed her view and painted this while visiting. While I was inside all week printing, things turned brown.

FOUR LITTLE PAINTINGS

Van and I are back from a short and unproductive fishing trip (salmon trolling). It was the first time I'd been up bay in a couple of years and the first time this time of year in many years. We didn't get up to the glaciers, but awesome scenery none the less. Lots of sea lions, humpbacks and orcas, a brown bear on the beach where we anchored the second night. Thick fog on the third day.

I painted these the first night. Most of the cottonwood were brown or had lost their leaves already but there were a few bright patches. I painted these while we were anchored in North Sandy Cove.


...and painted the same ones again.


I painted this while trolling..... we were heading towards Geike Inlet.


And this while trolling.... not sure where we were.

I worked on my block print while on the trip... carved my key block. I've been working pretty steadily on it since coming home and seem to have blinders for any other image making.

GOING FISHING

Van and I will be going up bay to fish for a few days.... Van does the fishing; I go along for the ride. I'm taking my paints and just got Wally Lamb's newest book from the library. I'll also be working on a block print for a Baren exchange.

This is one of several "plans" for it I've done... still undecided about the background. I posted a painting a few posts back that I'm working from. The paper size for the print is required to be 3x9 inches. I usually have these exchange prints done way before the deadline (Nov. 1 for this one), but I've been having a hard time coming up with something I wanted to do in this size.

MORE FALL COLOR

Wind blew a lot of leaves off the cottonwoods yesterday, but still bit of color, including beautiful blue in the sky.
I set on the river near the bridge and painted the river and bridge, but not much good about it what I did.... I cropped this little bit which is only about 3x3 inches.

POPPY FROM THE PAST

A busy afternoon in the studio today with rain and wind outside. I found this painting over the weekend while cleaning out some drawers, painted from a photo of a poppy in my garden some years ago.

TERMINATION DUST

When the clouds lifted earlier this week, there was new snow on Excursion Ridge and beyond. Its mostly gone from the ridge now, but the mountains on the other side of X-Inlet are almost covered.


Van left on the high tide for Juneau this afternoon. I walked down to the beach from the boat harbor after dropping him off and painted this. Some clouds covered the ridge while I was painting so lost the tree pattern. The cottonwoods have turned to a rich gold now since the freeze on Tuesday.

DON'S LILIES

Van and I drove out to our friend Don's cabin on Monday and Don gave me some dahlias and a bunch of Asiatic Lilies that he had grown.... they would have frozen the next day, so needed to be picked. The lilie are quite spectacular on my kitchen table and the smell is positively wonderful.

I started a larger painting of them today, but first did this little one