CARS AND WILDERNESS

 I went to Juneau on the ferry on the 3rd and drove a friends truck on for him.  It was a long wait and I sketched this..... with watersoluble ink which I did some watercolor washes over when I got home.

I cleaned up my desk-top and found this little watercolor and some other scans.  This was painted in August when Van, Judy and I went up bay for a few days on our last trip on the Apex.... Van is retiring after fishing on her for over 30 years.  Judy and I paddled the kayak through a passage between the two islands (the darker trees) that opened up on the high tide.

JOHN'S BATH HOUSE

JOHN'S BATH HOUSE 4" X 5 1/2" watercolor

  John, a dear friend passed away last week in California and about 20 friends gather at his cabin  to remember him on Sunday.  I set on his deck and painted this, remembering enjoying his company while we painted together.

It was a gloriously beautiful  fall day.  A blue heron landed in a tree next to the cabin and watched over us for most of the gathering.

FAIRWEATHER MOUNTAINS

watercolor  4" x 14"

Yesterday at the mouth of the Salmon River.  This is the first time I've gotten outside to paint in ages and it felt great.  The mountains were brilliant.

SOME NEW LITTLE GOUACHES

Good grief!  I've sure haven't kept my resolve to keep posting here everyday.  Well, time to try again, and here are a few little gouaches that I've done this month.  These are using some under-painting technique I learned in a workshop in Ireland this summer with a wonderful artist and teacher, Nina Weiss.

They are all pretty small, 4 x 6 inches or so.   All were done from my studio window

 

 

  

 

  They are in the order that I did them,  I like this last one best, after I started using a larger brush.

FEBRUARY 6, 2011

Did I say I was going to put a little painting here every day this year?  Well, if I did, I must have been kidding. Time for the post New Years modification of resolve.

 In addition to my painting in the studio, I painted these shells that I picked up on a walk at Bartlett Cove a couple of weeks ago.  I intended to do one shell a day, but only got these 5 done this week.  And that is the way it is.

Sunday JANUARY 30, 2011

I took a pot of bulbs out of my cold room on the 13th and painted them then.  These are some of them today.

JANUARY 29, 2011

I used a small flat oil brush for most of this and did the trees quite quickly... I usually labor over them.  It was painted with gouache. 

JANUARY 28, 2011

Today, a study for a painting I hope to do.... I also did some drawings with a rowboat in the foreground.

JANUARY 27, 2011

I was so into starting a large watercolor painting as well as an oil painting that I completely forgot about painting anything else.  So here is another page from the journal of my trip to Italy in 2005.

WENDESDAY, JANUARY 26, 2010

Another page of studies today from a a couple of photo.. taken from an airplane... just as we lift up from the Juneau airport on our way home. I started an oil painting and will start a watercolor from these.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 25, 2011

 It was actually warm and dry enough for a while to stand outside for a few minutes and sketch.  I brought the kinickinick inside to paint.

MONDAY, JANUARY 24, 2011

A page of studies for a larger painting.... I still don't have a composition I'm satisfied with.  This is from an old slide of Muir Glacier, probably taken in the 80's.  I doubt that it can even be seen from this spot now as it has been receding.

Sunday, January 23, 2011

I did this one yesterday along with 2 others.  It is from an old slide. 

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Two little studies for today.  These are from an old slide that I took from a boat trip in Glacier Bay in the 80's.  I'm pretty sure I did a larger painting from the slide years ago.  I was thinking to try one using oils.

JANUARY 21, 2011

This is done from a photo I took in October last year, the late afternoon sun shining on the trees. I painted with gouache and I am considering doing it in oil

JANUARY 20, 2011

  Another little painting from my studio windowIt was good to see some color in the sky after a few days of snow. 

JANUARY 19, 2011

 

These have been sitting in my window in a bottle for years.  I wanted something to fill up a page in a sketch book that I'd painted with black gesso.

JANUARY 18, 2011

On Tuesdays this winter, I have been sitting the desk at the library in the afternoon.  This is my view from the desk.  The trees outside the window confused the drawing so I made it dark outside.

JANUARY 17, 2011

 

One of the bulbs in the pot I took out of the cold room last week.  Its grown a bit and gotten a lot greener.  I don't know whether it is a narcissus or a daffodil.

JANUARY 16, 2011

 

Sunday and another postcard from the past... this from a journal I kept on a trip to Italy in 2006. 

JANUARY 15, 2011

I put together a new palette of gouache paints yesterday and played around with them today, testing some mixes and painted this from a photo taken in the high pass between Haines and Whitehorse.

JANUARY 14, 2011

Outside my window again, today about 3 pm.  As you see, the snow is gone. It has been clear and bitterly cold outside.  I'm lucky to have such a beautiful site out my studio window.This one is done on a cream colored watercolor paper.  I used  a little gouache on the spruce. 

 

JANUARY 13, 2011

I brought these out of the cold room this morning. They seemed to be getting greener as I painted them.

JANUARY 12, 2011

This is the other woodcut I've been working on for over a week and finished today. I'll write more about it on my other blog.

JANUARY 11,2011

About 3 pm these days the light in the trees out my window is fascinating. I've painted the view many times, never very satisfactorily. Here's another attempt, this time with gouache on a brown paper.

JANUARY 10, 2011

I've spent the last 2 days printing about 75 Year of the Rabbit woodblock prints. They are done with watercolor, so I'm going to let this be my posting for today. These are for a Baren Forum exchange. This is the 10th year I've participated in the exchange. This year I've done them on time and have enough to send to friends as well as the other participants.

JANUARY 9, 2011

Yahoo! I"m off to a good start here as I've succeeded in painting a little something every day for 9 days. As I've got lots and lots of little paintings from years before I started this blog I'm going to take a day off once a week and put one of these old ones. This one's from 1996.

JANUARY 8, 2011

JANUARY 7, 2011

JANUARY 6, 2011

JANUARY 5, 2011

The nuts along with oranges and lemons came in the mail... a nice surprise from out neighbors visiting California.

JANUARY 4, 2011

Working at the library this afternoon. I did the sketch with my fountain pen with water soluble ink and painted with water to make the ink run.

JANUARY 3, 2011

I painted this very quickly, couldn't find my hair dryer so things flowed together. I am planning a woodcut after it.

JANUARY 2, 2011

This is one of several watercolor palettes I use. I have way too many colors on this one.

1/1/11

Happy New Year! I'm starting 2011 off with a resolve to put a little painting here everyday. So here's the first one.

A SKETCH FROM 1999

I've been going through some old sketch books and since I'm not doing much sketching these days, I decided to put some older ones here. This was done in May of 1999 in Weird Bay in Glacier Bay on a kayak camping trip. We had to dig out space in the snow to put our tent above the tide line.

DON'S FIELD

I dug this little painting out a few days ago; it took a while to find it.


Written on the bottom: "With JoAnn and John on edge of Don's field of lupine June 29, 1999-a day of sunshine and showers"




watercolor 3 1/2 x 5

I sent this to John who is undergoing chemo in California now . I hope it brings back good memories of that beautiful day as it does to me

CHANTERELLES

watercolor about 3.5x2.5 inches

MORE FALL COLOR

4x6 watercolor

Aimee's guest house. We lived in this little cottage our first winter here while we built our house. Its has been greatly improved since then. I did this the week before last before the rain started.


4x6 watercolor

A view outside my new studio window on Monday.... last month Van replaced the old window which had gotten foggy between the thermal panes.



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A WEEK OF WATERCOLOR POSTCARDS

Last week with unusually beautiful sunny weather for this time of year, and after a long time passing where I've hardly touched a paint brush, I went out walking in the neighborhood with my painting kit and did these. They are all 4x6 inches watercolors.


View across the Salmon River from the Smokehouse porch,



another view from the Smokehouse porch,



the Salmon River bridge... I had drawn this in pencil in 2006, forgotten and found in a pile of paper. It took me a while to find the spot where I sat then in the grass and brush last week to paint,


the cottonwoods are so beautiful this time of year. These are next to our neighbor Don's house,



and so are these.


Down at the beach, not in the neighborhood.

Its more like normal now with a steady light rain, but I'm determined to keep doing doing these little paintings regularly and post them here again. So, I'm hereby reviving this blog.... again.