Trip to Juneau

 I went to Juneau on Monday and spent that night at the Greuning Cabin with a friend who is doing a residency there.... I did a two week residency there last year.  I started this from the cabin around 6:30 pm.   I only  did the drawing.  Later, about 8:30 we went to the creek to watch for bears and I painted the sky and water.  There was a haze from from forest fires, making for the pink sky.  The next morning I painted the land mass as I remembered from earlier, which was more interesting than the almost one dark value later.

This was from my perch on the rocks where we watched two different bears come down to fish for chum salmon.  I saw another bear (or maybe one of the same) the next morning at about 6.

I sketch this while  coming home on the ferry Wednesday, looking towards Lena Point.  The drawing is way off as we were moving and each line was from a different view point or memory.  I painted it after I got home.

The fireweed are blooming,  here they are seen from near my neighbor Aimee's house looking across the Salmon River towards the beach and Pleasant Island.  Hot and sunshine today, though the sky is hazy.

Yesterday, I set my tent up at the Saturday Market at Sunnyside and tried to sell some paintings.  Not a great success, but fun to talk to people and sketch and paint.  I left out a lot.... like people, vehicles and more chairs.

Our sun porch is a mass of color with wave petunias, tuberous begonias, nasturtiums, lobelia, clarkia and some plants I don't know the name of.  I painted this yesterday of some of the petunias using Daniel Smith brand Opera.

This was done on Wednesday..... Cottonwood and fireweed that haven't bloomed yet.  I drew it with a pen on Niddigen paper.

Unable to post my yesterday's postcard  at home, and again today.  My ATT internet is always slow, but I couldn't even get my email today.  So now I'm at the library.

Yesterday morning, this was the view from my studio window... I didn't move much on this one.

 I painted with Kathy yesterday and did an oil of this same scene.  It was not a keeper.  I went back this morning.  This is looking up the river from Kathy and Cheryl's house.

The Last Five Days

Its the fifteenth day of the month and I have done 15 postcards.  And I've managed to finish two oil paintings and start another this week  Now I'm going to catch up with my posting and try my best to post daily this coming week, plus do about 10 other things on my list.

This was Wednesday's painting.... trying to paint flowers faster without a good pencil drawing first.  I ended up with no room for the jar.

On Thursday, I tried again, drawing with a fine point red Micron pen.  I drew the jar with an aqua blood bleeding pen, but it was in line with the flowers, so out came the black gouache and I cropped the bottom.

A friend brought a bag of cherries by on Thursday, some that a guest had brought her.   It was hard not to eat them all before painting them. 

Yesterday was busy and I was able to do these pretty quickly.  I about had them memorized.

Today we were finally getting some serious rain.  I painted this about noon; I moved a lot of trees.  Later this afternoon, a black bear and her two cubs were here. First the cubs climbed one of our mountain ash trees and ate berries while their mom scratched her back on the tree.  Then the three went out to the strawberry patch (just to the left of this scene), and spent an hour or so. 

More from the Beardsleys

4x6 inches

 This was started on my kayak/camping trip before the 4th.  I pulled it out of the garbage and finished it. The drawing is off, but the rest is as I remember, more so than the second one that I did from a photo.

4x6 inches

Blue Poppy

8x3.5

I intended to paint a quick sketch, but ended up spending about 2 hours on this.  Wish I'd left the seed pod off the top.

House with Pink Lupine

about 5x5 inches

 The pink flowers in front of the house are lupine.  They are an introduced species, not like the native lavender ones.  Dying pines behind the house 

Beardsley Islands

4x6

  I left Bartlett Cove in my kayak on last Sunday with two friends, Bonnie and Carolyn, where we camped two nights on two different unnamed islands.
We left Bartlett Cove about 4 PM, paddled through "the cut" and landed on a small island  near the west end of Link Island. This is the view looking west at about 9 PM on Sunday night.  There were humpbacks beyond the first islands.

5x7

Here I was on the rocky beach looking east on Monday morning,

4x6

and here, looking more or less northwesterly.

4x6

We paddled North on Monday afternoon to our second campsite on another unnamed island.
This is Carolyn resting and reading that evening,

4x6.5

This is the view across the bay, Mt Crillion and Bertha in the distance, waiting for the sun to go down.  This is the second attempt, done at home, as the one done that night was way off.  This one isn't much better.

5x7

and Tuesday morning I drew these in ink as the wind was blowing them around.  I painted them after getting home.

4.5x4

Yesterday, I painted this from a photo that I took Tuesday morning of another island. 

Rink Creek

4x6 inches

We drove out to our friend Don's place in Rink Creek last week.  We didn't stay long, but I took some photos from which I painted this.

I only did 25 postcards in June and vowing now to do one everyday this month.  I'll be leaving in my kayak this afternoon for two night camping in the Beardsley Islands and am looking forward to a different land/waterscape.