JANUARY 5, 2009

I've used these for models before, and after doing this little painting and I might do something else with them. I used white qouache for the lines on the origami crane.

POSTCARDS FOR JANUARY 3RD AND 4TH

I've managed to do a postcard 4 days in a row! Maybe I will do one every day of the year. But I'm not making any vows to do so yet.




My belladonna amaryllis has bloom almost constantly since last spring, but I think this is the last one for this winter. I brought back a bag of bulbs from a friend in Maine about 10 years ago and have enjoyed the flowers ever since.


Today I spent most of the day in the studio, working on a larger painting, while it snowed for most of the day. All day, I thought about drawing this cottonwood, came upstairs about 3:15 to do so, as the view is better up here, but by the time I made a cup of tea and really got started, it was nearly dark. Kind of guessed at a lot of it.

BEGINNING ANOTHER YEAR OF POSTCARDS

This is my first posting here since the beginning of last year. I've decided to revive this blog and keep up my other one as well. Again this year, I will probably be painting a lot of views out one or the other of my windows to the south.


Yesterday morning, New Years day, the morning was gorgeous. The scan of my little painting lost the color in the sky, though. The temperature was 10 below 0 that morning. Four moose wandering around the field, gone when I started painting .


This morning, a gray sky and snow. A light snow for most of the day. I went out this evening and a sliver of the moon was showing through thin clouds and snow.

I painted these 2 in an old sketch book of nice fairly heavy drawing paper. I bought a beautiful handmade book with Fabriano watercolor paper when I was in Florence but decided to fill up some blank pages of others books before I start painting in it. My postcards will probably be mostly in book form from now on. Most of the ones on this blog so far have been on separate pieces of paper. I've always thought of them as my journal, though, and have not sold or given but a very few away. I keep them in cigar boxes and some day might put them into a book.


This and the next one are in another little book I made with a few pages still blank. this is on Nidiggen paper with gouache.

I'm not sure what kind of paper this is. It's the same little cyclamen. I started it from seed about a year ago.

A NEW BLOG

I am just now getting my start with good intentions for the new year. In contemplations over the past couple of years and what I want to accomplish this year, thoughts of this blog come up and I think how enjoyable it was to post here when I was focusing on my postcard paintings most days. But as that little obsession faded, so did my postings here. I just haven't been focused on painting in watercolor since my show in April but I've felt a bit of an obligation to post my few little paintings here thinking each time I'd rather be posting something I've been more excited about. I have usually been keeping my hands busy making something or other...... Through ups and downs I've just been busy with life and much of it as an artist, if I can call myself that. I've been having a lot of fun with collage and book making, and have started making prints again; I finished a couple of quilts, got a new camera and have taken hundreds of pictures and have been teaching myself Photoshop Elements. And my few postings to this blog over the past year have shown that I still do paint, and sometimes in watercolor.

For most of the past year though, I haven't been very well focused on any of my pursuits, and keeping this blog, I think, is a distraction from getting to that point where I am focused again. So, ta da...... I'm going to abandon this blog (at least for now) and start a new one. I changed the name of this one a few times in the beginning weeks but when I came up with Watercolor Postcards it pretty much limits what its content ought to be... I've avoided putting much on here that weren't my little postcard size things, though often I've really wanted to share what I've been doing. So I have just set up a NEW BLOG.
You can go to it by clicking here: http://carolebaker.blogspot.com

I will be posting photos as well as more paintings and whatever else I am working on and probably more non art related things. Who knows. Before I close, here are a few little paintings I've done in the last couple of months.




These are some of Kim's pottery that I bought at her sale December 1.



This poinsettia that I got in November was the one sign of the Solstice season in our house. Van and I were both sick during the holidays. We canceled our turkey dinner party and had Campbells Chicken Noodle Soup for Christmas dinner.


These are some of the treasures I collected from beacheslast summer.



And this was done from memory of the view of the afternoon sun (about 3pm) on Jan 14. coming home from the PO. The days are getting longer, the sun is already above the horizon, though I haven't seen it in a couple of days.

DECEMBER 1, 2007

I've been home for almost a month now so figured I'd better post a few postcards from my trip to Oregon and Washington. It was a fabulous trip... saw some beautiful places and best of all, visited and traveled with friends. I can't thank them enough for their hospitality and transportation. I am so lucky!

I first spent a few days with my friend Judith in Portland.



Her living room was a lovely and comfortable space; my little picture, done with watercolor pencils and pen and ink brings back memories of conversations, music and tea. The paintings on the trip were done in a small watercolor Moleskine... I finally broke down and bought one. I like the paper, the size, and the band around it but don't like the perforated pages.... nor the price. I will try to make one like it.



My friend Annie picked me up in Portland and we had a wonderful trip down the coast. Two nights in Cannon Beach where I painted this of the Haystack. We had beautiful sunny weather, visited two old friends we hadn't seen in years and ended up in Eugene where Annie lives. We stopped at just about every scenic turnout between Astoria and Florence.

I took the train back to Portland and met with JoAnn and we went to Port Townsend where we attended a really fun retreat (Artfiberfest), visited friends In Port Angeles and most of a week in Seattle.



This crooked little thing is about all I sketched for about 2 weeks of the trip.... I did do a lot of arty things at Artfiberfest though. The little sketch is in Katy and Joey's home in Seattle.

For the last week of my trip, I visited another dear old friend, Louise, who lives in the middle of an organic bosc pear orchard in Zillah Washington. I had some time to paint but also was a little helpful in the orchard and we made a very enjoyable trip to the Columbia Gorge



This is the orchard from the front porch of Louise's house.




This is the view out the North window of her house....Rattlesnake Ridge. That's a road in the middle, orchards all around.



And this is East, out the kitchen window, with pear trees in the distance.



Since being home, I did 2 small still life paintings of pears that I brought home..... But mostly, I've been working on a couple of quilts. I've also have been doing little collages.... trying to do one every day, but not succeeding Here are a couple of them.



The mussel shells were color copied from one of my watercolor paintings and cut out.




The cranes are a woodblock print on thin paper glued on with other papers.

I thank my few readers for their comments.

END OF SUMMER

I'm off on a trip south to Oregon and Washington tomorrow. It's been a busy 2 months since I last posted.... fun trips on the water; camping, hiking, walking, and visiting with friends; lively guests; a shopping trip to town on the boat; and lots of time with my new camera and MacBook.... too much fun! Not much time or enthusiasm for painting, but I do want to put a few little ones here.




In August, 5 women friends and I kayaked around P. Island and camped for 2 nights. This is a few from our camp site the first night at Black Rock.




This is from our campsite on the second night, looking towards home.





This was one late afternoon in August when the fireweed were blooming, down at my favorite place at the beach....



And this from the same spot looking North.



Also in August, I went up bay with Kate and Fritz in their boat The Great Sea. I think this is the top of Mt. Wright.




This was the first of the 2 evening in Sandy Cove.

And this, Alum Root, was at the base of Mt Wright.... first time I've ever seen it.

Our community was very saddened by the loss of 2 fine young men in a plane crash in August. My heart goes out to their family and loved ones.

JUNE AND JULY

I hope, dear readers and lookers, that you haven't given up on me. I've been away from home quite a bit this summer, away from the computer, but am now settled back into being home and I got a new ibook laptop in the mail this week (my birthday present to myself) and so now I can task more comfortably at home (I'm now on the recliner in the living room) and do things much faster at the library where there is a wi-fi connection.

So.... back to June. Without my hand written journal, I'd have no idea when I did anything. My journal is also where most of my sketches and paintings are this year. On Friday, June 8, I flew to Juneau and spent the day there, lunch with Michelle and the afternoon with my grand-daughter, Alyssa. We went to the Chicken Yard playground on Star Hill and the other one down by the Orthodox Church. A beautiful sunny day.





Alyssa picked bouquets of buttercups and dandelions which were profuse on Star Hill. The playground there is on land that use to be a chicken yard. I drew and painted a piece of art.... a nun and some chickens made out of rusty iron. The playground use to be a chicken yard for some Catholic Church institution that was once located there.

That evening, I flew to Sitka, spent a couple of days with Van on the boat and then he took my friend Judy and me across to Mud Bay where we hiked across Kruzof to Shelikof cabin..... a repeat of our trip of last year, but thankfully, we knew the way this time and spent all 3 nights in the cabin. We managed once again to avoid seeing any bears, but people on bikes that passed us and walked in from the Iris Meadow had to detour around one. And on our return, a guy told us he saw us in the meadow and also saw a bunch of bears at the same time. It is a large meadow.

Judy and I spent hours on the beach. We found beautiful shells, sand-dollars and drift wood and on one evening saw a tiny fawn, all alone, on the beach. The next morning, we saw tiny hoof prints next to larger ones. I saw several deer the morning we left.

We were both thrilled to see Calypso Orchids on the edge of the forest next to the beach.



I had big plans to paint a lot, but alas, it rained most of the time. I painted this of the inside of the cabin:



and this from one of the windows..... I did one of the same view last year which is on a post from last summer.

Back home on June 21st. I spent most of the next 2 week with a case of vertigo. I'd rather forget those 2 weeks. Went to Juneau on June 30. The vertigo finally went away a few days later and hasn't returned. In Juneau, I house set in a lovely home with a very nice cat named Ferguson, spent lots of time with Alyssa and other friends,celebrated the 4th of July, had some medical tests (all normal), did some hiking, and did some shopping. As always, lots of plans to paint a lot and didn't. It did rain a lot.... my favorite excuse.

A group of painters in Juneau calling themselves the Plein Rein Painters meet every Saturday and go somewhere and paint together. I went with them on one of the Saturdays that I was there.

We went to the Mendenhall Glacier on a cloudy morning and the sun came out there over lots of bergs and this is one of 3 little paintings I did.


On July 14th, I flew to Anchorage from Juneau with my friend Aimee .... on our way to Homer. Our plane was late and we missed the last flight to Homer and ended up spending the night in the airport and flying the next morning about 5. We visited our friends Sue and Kathy, both gracious hostesses. We went in Sue's boat, across Katchemak Bay to China Poot to fish for sockeye with a net and dinner at Halibut Cove. In Homer, viisited a winery, Brigetta's beautiful garden, lots of galleries. Another trip across the bay, a car ride and hike and ATV trip to Sue's cabin on the Rocky River. We visited there in 2001 when I painted this of Sue's cabin:
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and this of the cascades coming into the river from across from the cabin.


I painted this this year of the cascades.

Above the cascades is a waterfall. This is the way one crosses the river.... steel cables. As Sue said "It's not for everybody." It wasn't for me. I settled for seeing Aimee's photos of the falls.



The wild geraniums, roses, and indian paintbrush were at their height around the cabin.
The rose was pink, painted pink, but the scan isn't pink. I don't know why.

Back home on July 21. Van was home from fishing for a week. I celebrated my birthday on the 26th and have enjoyed a string of parties and potlucks.... Tis the season, with productive gardens, plentiful fish and ripening berries.



I painted this a few nights ago as the sun was setting, down at the beach..... my scans are all washed out.... The fireweed are beautiful now. There are 2 or 3 young black bears around town.... I see one or the other most days in the fields eating wild strawberries.

JUNE 6, 2007



Summer seems finally to have arrived with fields of dandelions and shooting stars, moose cows with calves, and lots of tourists. but it is still quite cool most days. The one really nice sunny day in the last two weeks was last Friday and I went with Marilyn and Kate down to the Good River Bridge. I walked down to A. and L.'s cabin and set in front of their window and painted..... the perfect view.

I worked all of the past week on another woodblock print. It is of the Fairweather Mountains and I made it for an exchange. Had a lot of problems with it. I made lots of extras so I'd have some to try to sell, but it was reductive (meaning the blocks were altered for printings of each of the colors) so I couldn't print more. Many of the extras will be trashed.

And also planted my vegetable garden. I have no great expectations for it this year. I'm going to be gone quite a bit this summer, so at least the weeds will flourish and the slugs will love it without my nightly squirts of ammonia water.

I will be leaving for Sitka on Friday and back home on the 17th. I just packed my paints, so hope to have something more to show here when I'm back.

MAY 30, 2007

This is the 6th year that I've participated in a Chinese New Year print exchange sponsored by the Baren Forum, http://www.barenforum.org/index.html, an on line group for woodblock printmakers. About 50 people sign up and agree to make and send a print to everyone else on the list. They don't all come by Chinese New Years, in fact some never come. But it is fun making and receiving them with the surprises coming in the mail all year long. I spent much of a week cutting blocks, printing, and sending mine out. This year is the year of the boar or pig and this is my print:



For the sky, I carved 3 woodblocks and printed with the Japanese technique (Hanga) using watercolor and rice paste. I copied the sky design from Hiroshige's "Three Wild Geese Flying Across the Moon." I was not successful carving the pigs with wood... they looked more like aardvarks than pigs.... and finally carved one pig on an eraser and stamped it 3 times and then painted with watercolor.

The calendar tells me it's time to plant my vegetable garden, but I think I'll wait another week. My tulips are just now showing some color. This time last year the petals were falling off.

I'm missing action in the eagle nest that I view from my window. The pair have deserted the tree after many years. They moved the nest lower a few years ago, but now the nest seems to be angled down more, so probably the limb that its on is breaking. Last fall a new nest was built in a cottonwood about a mile away. I think it is being used now, and I hope it is the same pair.

On the Saturday before last, Marilyn and I went to the lake on the other side of the runway and painted in the morning. Good to see some different shades of green.


I've tried to paint the lake several times..... each time most of it gets cut off the painting.



I've changed the day for getting a group together for plein aire painting from Saturday to Fridays. It seems to be a better day for the people who say they want to come. So far (3 weeks) it's been just one other person and me. JoAnn came with me on Friday. It was raining a bit and we went down to the beach. We set under the dock for a while...I started 3 little paintings and none got dry enough to go back into.... then went and set in the car where I painted this. Some one wrote "the war" under the "END". Probably one of the people who walked with me and about a dozen others in the peace march on Memorial Day.

MAY 18, 2007

Lots of catching up to do here. I was in the midst of preparing for my show when I posted last. The opening was April 6th and I was happy with the sales. It was quite a job boxing everything up. We were planning to take them into Juneau on the boat but the weather didn't cooperate, so I had to fly in with them. On Easter Day, I flew down to Florida for a 2 week visit with relatives and friends. I was mostly in my hometown of Bartow in central Florida, but traveled as far south as Miami Beach and made 3 trips to the Gulf Coast. I met my nieces husband for the first time and 3 new grand-nephews.


I didn't do much painting there. This is one of the few.... a papaya tree as seen above my cousin Madelons back fence after a refreshing swim in her pool in Palmetto. I did see a lot of art, a lot of inspiration, beautiful places. Seemed like I was going somewhere all the time.

On the way home, I stopped in Washington State for a few days and visited more friends. Back in Juneau, I boxed up the paintings that didn't sell.....


this is one of them.... I got home on April 27th.



And now finally spring is here. Green is showing up in the fields, migrating birds are coming through, and "snow birds" are returning to their summer homes. Finally there are a few flowers in bloom... the marsh marigolds in the ditches and my lavender primroses in the garden.


I painted this from my car on the dock road last week... some hint of green in the field.

I have been asking people to join me for plein aire painting on Saturday morning. Kate joined me on the 12th.... I'd better change the date on the painting. We walked the path to the beach south of the run way. I painted from about the same place last year....



This was on March 5, 2006..... probably the way it looked a couple of weeks ago this year.... Its been a much later spring.

This is another postcard size painting I did last year in March.



... and this one also, started on the same day... March 22, 2006. Its larger... about quarter size paper. I added some crows in the foreground after taking this picture of it.

I spent this afternoon walking on the loop south of our house with my friend Artemis. We walked down the Salmon River, had a picnic on the beach, Artemis napped while I painted. Walked up the section-line path. Each year the willows look more and more pathetic from the moose browsing. This is the first really clear days in quite some time and the Fairweathers are beautiful. The sweet gale is blooming, not quite as rich in color as it gets. I must go back and paint there next week.

This is the dock from the beach today.

Van left for his summer of fishing last week. I'm getting into my summer routine, more time to myself and so dear friends, if there are any still checking here, perhaps there will be more regular postings.