Evening View

about 4x6 inches

3.3x5.6 inches

 I painted these last Sunday night looking south from my kitchen window between 8 and 9 o'clock.  The second one is just the very tops of the spruce, lit by the setting sun.

My Little Gallery

5x7

 I've opened my little gallery a few days last week. Hardly anyone came by.  I sketched  and started painting this on Friday and finished it on Saturday.

5.4x3.5 inches

 The gallery is surrounded by wild Nookta roses which I painted on Friday.

Some Flowers

Many of the wild flowers are at their peak, and also in the garden.

6x4 inches

This is an icelandic poppy from my garden.  I love the color.

6x4 inches

I drew this in pencil while waiting for someone at the beach.  I only got started painting it there and finished at home from memory. The Lupine are especially beautiful this year and there are some white ones at the beach.

about 3x4.5

 Earlier this week I helped to show a botanist  from Juneau studying orchids where some Lady's Slippers are growing. This is one of the three found here... Cypripedium passerinum. There are several of these on the upland beach.  I painted these yesterday morning and finished at home. It was hard to get down to their level, and I missed the details. I was really tempted to pick one, but I am one of the biggest complainers of other folks damaging the plants, so held myself back.

This one is at the beach too... , Cypripedium calceolus Subsp. parviflorum.  He said there is only one other of these recorded in SE Alaska.  We also visited a Cypripedium montanum in an area that is sadly infested with European Black Slugs and is showing damage from them.  

Monday and Tuesday Postcards

I got on line today (Friday)  to put some new postcards on and see that this never got posted.  I've really had a hard time with the internet and phone lately..... too many tourists using it here, I guess.  I tether from my phone to get on line and quite often there is no signal.  I can usually go to the library and connect there.

I seem to have a good signal now, so here goes and I'll wait until tomorrow to post the new ones.

4x6

I biked to the beach Monday evening. I found a place below my favorite trees to paint, away from the campers (4 tents) and loud partiers .  The lupine are in full bloom and there are some rare white ones east of the road.

6x4

This is a foot bridge across the ditch between our house and neighbors.   Ditches were dug here to drain the much lower land during WWII when an airstrip was built to refuel jets.  It has been dry and there is no water in it now, but usually fills up to below the plank in the fall.  I sat on the berm above and painted this Tuesday afternoon.

Couple of Trees

I finally opened my little gallery today for four hours and nobody came, which is rather disappointing.  I rearranged things and got most everything labeled which is a good thing.  I don't remember having it so full before.

about 5x4 inches

Its a rainy day and I painted a spruce from the window in my neighbor yard  which is across from the gallery.  The new grown on the spruce define the boughs this time of year and I was trying to depict with not much success.

about 5x5 inches

This is one of the mountain ashes in our yard that I painted a couple of evenings ago from the living room.  It is in flower now, but not obvious in my painting.

Afternoon at the Beach

After spending the morning making 20 jars of jam with last years strawberries and raspberries  plus habanera peppers that I bought in Juneau on my way from Seattle,  I drove to the beach to see the flowers and paint.  The lupines are beautiful and there are some white ones among the lavender ones.... very unusual. 

about4x3 inches

There are 13 blooms on the yellow lady slipper and about 3 more that might open.  I've worried for years that ATVs and cycles would run over it, but now two spruce are quite close and may overtake it. I started painting it, but the wind came up and I was just too cold to do much.  I painted a little bit more from the photo when I got home.

5x7

I painted my favorite two trees again from my car.  Other trees are becoming more apparent.  The pine tree, just as the ones in my yard is becoming more and more brown, though it didn't appear so from my vantage point.

Dying Shore Pine

The shore pine South of the house has been slowly dying from a fungal disease that is endemic here.  It is definitely more brown than it was last year.

Back from Seattle

4x6

 I came back from a four day trip to Seattle last night.  I took my paints but, shamefully, didn't paint a thing.  But I do have these that I'd done last week.  I'd put the images in a couple of posts which I never posted and couldn't seem to finish from my ipad.  So now, here those are in a new post.
I painted this of the Good River with Ellie and Chris again near Ellie's house on the 5th.

6x4

4x4

 These were of the only tulip that wasn't fading last week.

Picking  spruce tips, the new growth that comes each year, has become a little cottage industry around here.  They are used by locals to make various concoctions and are bought by the pound, mostly by the Alaska Brewing Company which makes a popular spruce IPA,  with a "tart, berry-like bubblegum character."


                      

Unfortunately some of the easiest trees to get to are at our beach and look like this one.... I painted this a few years ago.

Now it is time to get out and paint!

Three More

7x3

 Rain all day yesterday.  These golden globe flowers are in full bloom in the garden.

4x6

 I painted this old dead willow on June 1 and went back into the woods on Sunday to finish it, but the light was all wrong.  I decided to leave it just as is and painted this spruce instead.  Lots of mosquitoes.

6x4

Lovely Day

5.5 x 2.7

 June is starting out with lovely warm weather.  I went on my bike towards the beach yesterday afternoon, but didn't make it all the way as the wind was making it so hard to pedal.  This is one of two postcards that I painted of the Chilkats. 

Five More Postcard for the Month of May

6.6x5

It has been really busy this week with two extra little people in the house.  I did this little gouache on Sunday.  

5x7

 And this from the edge of the wood behind our house on Monday, .... the wood shed again.

5x7

5x7

 I tried to paint at the beach on Tuesday evening, but didn't get very far.  I did these two from a sketch, looking towards North Pass.  The first one is mostly gouache.

5x7

Yesterday, I met with two friends, Chris and Ellie, to paint together at Chris's house along the Salmon River..... a beautiful day.