It's a Phine Life

Snow Scenes

2012-01-18T22:06:00.000-08:00

Earlier this week, we enjoyed a few snow days - a rarity for our town. While out for a walk on Monday, we met up with my oldest daughter and had some fun collecting photo images together of some familiar scenes made new with the dusting of snow. Here are some of my favorites:

This just doesn't look like a street in our town...but it's Jefferson, looking west towards campus.

Roses in the snow - still colorful, even in January.

These two photos are of the art installation at OSU by Patrick Dougherty. In the photo below, you can see how large the sculptures are in comparison to my daughter - if you can find her - the curved bench is pointing to her.

So glad we made it out while it was snowy - warm rains arrived yesterday and we're looking at a very wet week ahead. Personally, I'm hoping this isn't the last of the white stuff for us this winter!

Frosty December

2011-12-06T15:42:00.000-08:00

This is what caught my attention this afternoon when I took off to the gallery to switch out some paintings. Once I was back home, I had to grab my little camera and see what I could capture of the lingering frost from the thick fog that's enveloped our valley this week. Beauty discovered during these dark days of December.

Happy Fall Y'All!

2011-11-10T21:44:00.000-08:00

Two photos taken this week

Two trees in our yard

Two brilliant leaf colors

Two weeks into November.

Happy Autumn!

TTV - Through the Viewfinder photos and friends

2011-10-15T22:03:00.000-07:00

This past Wednesday we had our last plein air adventure of the season at Paradise Springs event center outside Monroe Oregon. Instead of painting I wandered and collected images with my digital camera and my vintage kodak duaflex camera, shooting images thru the viewfinder of that camera. Below are some of my favorite TTV photos from that morning along with some regular digital photos.

Does anyone have any idea what kind of plant and berry this is below? Yes, they are bubble gum pink.

I'm also wondering what this plant is below. The leaves are quite large and they change into many different colors this time of year - purples with burgundy, yellow, and orange!

A day at the Oregon Coast Aquarium

2011-09-16T14:10:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago our plein air group enjoyed a day at the Oregon Coast Aquarium in Newport where I shot over 350 photos, painted a small pastel of the tidal flats, and enjoyed an hour of having the place almost completely to myself! Our aquarium connection used to work there and she was able to gain us entrance an hour before it was opened to the public. After that we had to work around the crowds of people jockeying to see the exhibits.

Here are some of my favorite photos from that day:

And last, but not least, the otters---I have a ton more besides these three, but thought I better post just a few this time. The silver faced otter in the first two photos is Aialik, he's 13 years old and weighs 82 lbs.

From the Garden

2011-09-13T14:15:00.000-07:00

Last week, I spent some time in our little garden harvesting some of our bounty, and was blown away to be picking ripe strawberries still in September! These are not everbearing strawberries but are Hoods, a variety that produces amazingly sweet strawberries, but just during a few weeks, usually in June. This is an example of what an odd season we've had this year for growing produce. There were more strawberries than what you see in the photo below, but they never made it inside for some reason...

Another oddity, but maybe less so, is we still had pea pods to pick! Considering how it was probably July before I planted the seeds, that's more my fault so I can't really blame the late season. Time to pull up those plants now. I wonder if it's too late to plant peas for a fall crop? Anyone know? If you're thinking those littlest tomatoes look really small, that's because they are! They're current tomatoes, and are about the size of a small blueberry, and bursting with flavor! There are more than 150 current tomatoes in that bowl---just from one plant.

This is summer to me: home grown tomatoes.

New favorite flower photos

2011-08-29T20:02:00.000-07:00

These beauties were from a bouquet I purchased at Trader Joe's. Not to sound like an advertisement, but they lasted almost 3 weeks! I LOVE flowers... Here's three of my favorites from a photo shoot earlier this month---straight out of the camera:

Family!

2011-08-04T16:50:00.000-07:00

Fast portraits

2011-07-18T15:35:00.000-07:00

This weekend, our community celebrated the Arts & Sciences with their annual da Vinci Days festival, and I was invited, along with other local artists to draw portraits at an art booth on site. It was a great experience working with willing models, happy to sit while we sketched quickly before they lost interest! The first day I worked with pastel pencils and a set of Hi-Fi Grays. I'd practiced on a couple self portraits at home the night before, timing myself, trying to complete a finished-enough portrait within 10 minutes. Though I didn't manage to keep under my imposed time limit, I headed off Saturday morning with my supplies, and did a few portraits before leaving to catch the Kinetic Sculpture parade.

Here's part of one of the portraits I finished Saturday - a bit distorted since it was laying on the table when I thought to take a photo.

Another artist that had been working with a ball point ink pen was just racing through his portraits, so that night, I practiced again, using a papermate profile black pen, working light and loose, pressing harder with the pen to add more detail once the "bones" of the drawing were complete.

Here are 3 of the portraits I finished and gave to my willing models Sunday:

This was a terrific experience and I wished I'd taken more photos of the finished portraits and the models on Saturday. There was a sweet little girl, about 4 years old that would only sit for a portrait if she was in her Daddy's lap. I had fun drawing the both of them, she sat surprisingly still! The little boy, above - the first ink drawing, was a squirmer --- though he requested we draw him, he kept sinking into his jacket, covering his mouth, chin, while his older brother sat still as stone right next to him. I was all set to draw the older boy when this little guy showed up & personally requested I draw him! He had fun taking his turn drawing the fella next to me once I finished. It was a good place to work, under a canopy during the multiple rain showers that dampened the festival, but didn't seem to discourage people from attending.

Poppy Step by Step

2011-07-14T17:22:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I had the pleasure of visiting one of the coolest nurseries in Oregon - Dancing Oaks Nursery with my friend Laurie. This nursery was the plein air Vista and Vineyard site for this week. We wandered the grounds, admiring and photographing the lovely flowers, then I settled down in a comfortable spot to paint one of the poppies. Once again, I was captivated by the intense reds, and a whole new variety I hadn't yet explored with pastel. This photo below shows the my preliminary drawing in red pastel pencil on a 12x12" primed and watercolored canvas I prepared ahead of time.

This next photo shows the first layer of pastel just before I sprayed the canvas with diluted pva size which helps adhere the pastel to the canvas. Behind the painting you can see my poppy model. This bed of poppies was just humming with bees!

This last photo shows my painting about 95% finished. After studying it for a bit I'll correct a few minor issues that are bugging me. As much as I adore this red, I'm sure this won't be the last poppy I paint this year... especially if I can get back out there before they're through blooming!

Fireworks!

2011-07-05T14:20:00.000-07:00

After taking a firework photography webinar from creativeLive last Friday, I had to try out some of the tips and tricks I learned last night! Here are 12 of my favorites---right click and open in a new window or tab if you'd like to see any of them larger:

This one I especially love!!

From Start to Finish

2011-06-06T21:54:00.000-07:00

This past weekend we painted a billboard.

Several of us from Portland, Corvallis and Eugene gathered at the Oregon Country Fair and started painting Friday. When installed the sign will be visible from highway 126, the coast highway connecting Eugene and Florence, on the property of the Oregon Country Fair. On Friday, the sign looked like what you see above. My daughter painted with us Friday and Saturday - above she's just starting to paint the top yellow border. When we arrived, the background sky had already been sprayed and the design had been "pounced" on top. ("pounce: a fine powder, often of charcoal, used in transferring a design through a perforated pattern.") The artwork was created by Justin Riede, a terrific sign artist that lives in Portland. He was basing his design on vintage fruit labels. If you'd like to see any photos larger, right click on the photo and open it in a new window or tab.

I'm helping to paint the top yellow border with my daughter (above) and another sign artist, Pat Carson is working on the lettering. In the photo below I'm working with both my daughter and my husband! How cool is that?!

The rest of the photos show the progression as more and more paint is applied, all without a lot of direction aside from the original colored in sketch. Many times we'd stand back and discuss what color might work here or there, whether a shadow was needed, was there a light source? (yes - top left) if so, then shadows needed to be related to that light source...

Below is a group shot of the painters on Sunday - my daughter is missing since she had to return to college to study for finals.

Here is Justin Riede, the sign designer/artist applying imitation gold leaf:

Below, Glen Hitzeman is painting some of the lettering.

Brad, my husband is shading the drop shadows.

José Solis, is painting some of the landscape. We enjoyed working together since we both have a looser painting style which compliments the other sign artist's linear painting style!

Here I'm on the other side of the sign from José.

The finished billboard! Truly a group project, sporting multiple layers of paint, aluminum leaf stars, glazed imitation gold leaf, a removable date panel, and lots of cooperative artistic talent. Look for it on hwy. 126 - it should be going up this coming Wednesday.

DIY - How I Paint Leather Shoes

2011-04-28T15:44:00.000-07:00

Several years ago I had a faded pair of lavender Birkenstocks which I decided I'd like better if they were a new color, so I pulled out my acrylic paints, and picked a favorite blue and proceeded to change the lavender to a dark, rich "Thalo" blue! This was so successful, I decided to take another pair of new lavender Birkenstocks and this time I painted them red. Below you can see the results of those do-it-yourself experiments.

The other day, while shopping at Goodwill, I came upon a very nice pair of leather Haflinger clogs. They fit perfectly, but I wasn't that crazy about their color. Since they were so affordable, I figured I'd paint them a new color, like I did before with my Birkies. ---but first a disclaimer---if you're reading this and are under 18, go ask a parent before you start painting any of your shoes! If you're 18 or over, please, don't proceed if you're at all unsure about the process... I've been painting for years, and am willing to experiment and possibly ruin a pair of shoes in the process. If you'd be really upset if you've ruined your shoes by painting them, do not attempt this! I doubt it's reversible... Now with that out of the way, here's what I used, and a photo gallery of the process:

1. First off, take photos of the original, unpainted clogs:

2. Gather supplies---cover table with old papers - notice ad for shoes - how appropriate! I used Burnt Umber acrylic paint, water in an old carton, a carton lid for my paint palette, a palette knife & an inexpensive soft brush.

3. Use pliers to open old paint tube. Mix with water - realize paint is really old, and it won't mix, it just stays in a lump on the palette. Rinse off in sink, hoping it eventually dissolves in pipes... Find almost empty tube of newer looking Burnt Umber. Squeeze out another blob onto palette and mix with water and palette knife. Once you have a very watery bit of paint next to the main lump of paint, use your soft brush and start applying smoothly to shoe. I started with the back seam, and worked my way around to the front sewn panel, spreading the watered down acrylics, adding more water, more paint, and trying to keep a consistent amount and flow all around the panel. Work some paint over the edge of the shoe, where it goes into the foot bed, just over the seam.

4. Once the panel is covered as smoothly as you can, start painting the rest of the shoe, starting at the corner near the panel, and working fast but wet and consistent over the whole rest of the front of the shoe.

5. Stop to take more photos - showing the first painted coat on one shoe, next to the unpainted second shoe.

6. Start painting second shoe, working from the back seam around to the other side, covering the panel first. Work with a lot of water, making sure any lumps are smooth on the paint palette (lid) before applying to shoe.

7. Once panel is covered, paint the rest of the shoe.

8. When you've finished painting both shoes, check to see if the first shoe is pretty much dry. If it is, go ahead and paint a second coat. Again, use very thinned, watery acrylics. Do the same for the second shoe.

9. Let dry several hours, or overnight. Paint one more coat, again using a very watered down, thinned paint. It helps to keep everything wet in each section as you paint, smoothing with your brush to keep the layers of paint distributed over the whole section (like I did in the panel section, then the front shoe section, painting each separately). If the paint isn't thinned down ahead of time, it might streak, or leave spots where the paint is thicker. Some differences in way the paint soaks in creates some darker areas which are not easy to avoid, however I think this adds to the whole "distressed oiled" leather look.

10. When dry, wear happily!

Now, showing at Sequoia Gallery and Studios:

2011-04-02T20:07:00.000-07:00

This month in Hillsboro Oregon at the Sequoia Gallery I'll be showing a new painting, completed two weeks ago. They're having a show called Hip To Be Square which consists of all pieces being created on a 12x12" canvas. Since that's one of my favorite sizes to work with, I thought it was a good fit, and contacted the gallery to see if I could participate - you see, they asked for Portland area artists. Lucky for me they thought Corvallis was ok! Here's what their postcard looks like - You are invited to go check it out!!

Here's what I painted for this show - the background was watercolored, then I painted over the watercolor with pastel. It's my new favorite!!

The reception will be Tuesday evening, April 5th, 2011 at Sequoia Gallery, 6:00-8:00. Hope to see you there!
xoxo

'Bye Furley...

2011-02-19T14:17:00.001-08:00

We sure loved you....!

Sunny Weekend Adventures

2011-01-31T18:15:00.000-08:00

This past weekend we emerged from our entrenched fog to sunshine and mild temperatures. That coincided with a planned hike Saturday morning and when we woke to bright skies Sunday, I insisted we get out again, and find a sunny place to explore. I believe this is somewhat a reflection of my upbringing. When I was growing up, I loved nothing more than curling up with my latest book and flying away into my imagination. That would come to an abrupt halt when my Mom would insist I put my book down & go outside and play - it was sunny! Since we lived in Oregon, the land of rain and little sun, the appearance of that brilliant orb was a rarity. Mom must have had an inner belief we needed sunshine, before all the benefits of vitamin D were even realized. She was ahead of the times as she'd nudge me out the door. Now, I feel a bit guilty if I'm indoors on a rare sunny day, so this weekend, we made sure to get out and enjoy it!

Saturday morning I met up with a couple of friends and we took an ambitious hike from one friend's house to Fitton Green, a lovely natural area that is west of town and has a terrific view of the Cascade mountains and the neighboring town. Here are a couple of photos I shot that morning. The first was just starting out on the trail, the last 3 were at Fitton Green.

This is a great place to hike in winter, with plenty of open areas and terrific views.

Sunday, we headed to Snag Boat Bend, a part of Finley Wildlife Refuge on the east side of the Willamette river. It's about a mile south of Peoria and we decided to go there for the open fields and abundant sunshine we hoped to find. We'd stopped there before, but had never walked the trails. We had the place to ourselves - well, almost... Ducks flew off as we came upon the waterways, a heron squawked as it headed skyward, upset at being disturbed, several hawks soared overhead, calling out to one another, 3 small nutria scampered under a duck blind and a bunny froze hoping to be camouflaged in some blackberry bushes. As you can see from the photos below, we found sunshine!

It's still January, barely.

2011-01-25T22:11:00.000-08:00

This month I've been painting on tiny, little canvases - 2x2" and 2x4". This small size has created some unexpected benefits. Because I work in pastels which are often almost as big as these canvases, it means I have to simplify and not put in a whole lot of detail. It also means some serious painting with non-serious attitude! They're playful, because you just can't get too wrapped up in something that tiny - you run out of room quickly which means you can work fast, which also makes me have to think fast. I can make decisions without a lot of pondering 'cause when the piece is that small, there just isn't that much area to figure out! They become precious when finished because of their size, but while working on them you can get beyond their preciousness and not worry about becoming too attached to an area since in a sudden swipe of a pastel, that area has disappeared to be replaced by another swatch of color that's just as fascinating. I'm also working in several series, exploring different color combinations with the same or similar subject matter. This is almost like sketching, but with a finished product at the end. Can you feel my enthusiasm? Here are some photos of some of the tiny paintings I've completed.

This snowy scene below is one I've recently listed in my Etsy shop

This is also listed on Etsy

Here are a few more I painted in November and December:

Truly a challenge to see what can be placed on such a small surface. A challenge I'm willing to keep playing with. Stay tuned to see what's next!

Home - Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros Acoustic Cover (Jorge & Alex...)

2011-01-06T22:21:00.000-08:00

This is fabulous!! You have to watch - the little girl reminds me of one of my daughters at that age...

Happy New Year!

2011-01-01T19:13:00.001-08:00

Well, couldn't pass up the opportunity to post something on 1-1-11, so here I am, after two very busy months, ready to take this new year and make something amazing out of it! I'm toying with the idea of 365 photos this year - trying for at least one a day and will be taking one of my cameras with me as often as I remember. Today I was lucky to catch these pics during a quick visit with my parents. Swish decided to entertain us, and here was what she was up to!

Who's a naughty girl???

Happy New Year!

It was a foggy morning

2010-10-20T16:45:00.000-07:00

Today, the painting group was planning to meet out at a local park - Willamette Park, extending our painting season beyond the scheduled dates. Although it was foggy this morning, I expected it to burn off fast, since these past couple of weeks have been sunny, with fog only occasionally. Willamette Park was engulfed in fog, drippy, with barely much extended visibility. I was the only one there at 9:30 this morning (as far as I could see, which wasn't that far I guess!) Another painter showed up a bit after I did, and we both agreed it was not a good painting day. She took off shortly after her assessment of the scenery while I pulled out my old Duaflex camera contraption and my digital SLR & began to wander and collect some good mood pics. Here are my favorite Thru The Viewfinder pics from today.

This one below I LOVE!!!

Have a great week!

10-10-10

2010-10-10T13:02:00.000-07:00

Happy 10-10-10 Day! To celebrate, I'm going to post 10 random TTV photos I've taken these last few months. Woo Hoo!

Hope you've been having a creative day today - post links to your images in the comments section if you have some to share! Would love to see what you've been up to. xo!

Window Display

2010-10-04T19:26:00.001-07:00

It's UP!!

During the month of October you can see about 20 paintings of mine downtown Corvallis Oregon in the 24 foot long window of Footwise, a terrific shoe store that has a rotating display of artwork each month. Friday, after weeks of prep, my husband and I managed to put it all together in just 2 hours. Of course I had to return and put up another title card, and take care of a couple of other issues, but everything went together way more smoothly than I expected! I'm hoping to capture some better photographs of the display, but in the meantime, here are three point and shoot images from inside the window:

If you're wondering why everything is hung at about knee or waist height, the window actually sits about 2-3 feet above the sidewalk - something we were told to be aware of while placing the pieces!

Friday was also the jurying day for the Vista and Vineyard annual show at the LaSells Stewart Center on the OSU Campus. I have a painting in that show too if you happen to be in the neighborhood.

I'm hoping to finish up a few more smaller pieces to put in the window display before the month is over. Let me know if you've been by to see either show---comments and critique always welcome!

Finished!

2010-09-11T10:24:00.000-07:00

For a change, I decided to actually finish up a painting---the little 4"x12" piece I started out at Paradise Springs.

Here's how it looked when I finished painting that day - as seen in the post below:

After working on it some more, here's the finished painting:

Better? The colors are a bit darker than the actual original, which has the brightness of the first photograph. Can you see the differences (aside from color?) By the way, this is available for sale - send me an email if you're interested!

Watch out!

2010-08-12T14:41:00.000-07:00

DO NOT - I repeat, DO NOT go to Detering Orchards if you have not had the latest puppy vaccination. Luckily I have had it, but sadly, one of the plein air artists that was there yesterday succumbed to puppy fever. By the time I left, they were down to just a single puppy in the box. Rumor has it, an artist caught the fever. As you can see below, a vaccination is truly needed!

Trying something new

2010-08-06T13:46:00.000-07:00

Usually when I start a painting, I do a light, rough sketch right on the canvas with pastel pencils, then jump in with the large pastel sticks, loosely painting the background - often the sky, moving from the top of the image to the bottom, working quick and saving the details and focal point for last. For some reason, with this painting I decided to start with the focal point, ignore the sky and surrounding areas, and just fiddle with the perspective, zooming in on the details immediately! Here's a photo of what I was painting - it's on a 4"x12" gallery wrapped canvas:

Here's the first attempt at the little building - I wasn't happy with how it was turning out initially - the perspective seemed off to me, so I kept working it until I was happier. This isn't at the happy place yet!

As this photo shows (if you compare it to the above photo) the light is always changing when you're plein air painting. See how the shadows have changed on the roof of the little shed and along the roadway? That sunlight is moving fast!

After a few hours of work, my painting looked like this below. I'd tweaked the perspective on the shed to where it felt more correct to me - it's close to being finished. I've now decided to eliminate the leaning tree trunks in front of the shed. Sure they were there, but I've realized they really don't help out this painting - at all. Time to pull out my artistic license and remove them. I'm sure I'll see a few more issues with this piece once I start working on it again, but I really like how it's coming along - it's a bright little piece that makes me feel good when I see it.

So much going on...

2010-07-15T16:48:00.000-07:00

This past month has flown by, with so many different activities we've been involved with. Here's a quick glimpse of what we've been up to:

Mariah turned 26 on July 1st... How can that be?

I met the mayor of Eugene, Kitty Piercy, at Olive Grand during the First Friday artwalk where I & 2 others are the featured artists this month.

We tried out our friend Jesse's recumbent bike while he visited on his biking adventure from Chico to Banff to North Carolina. The bike was a challenge to ride! Fun though.

We played with sparklers on the 4th:

I enjoyed a terrific 3 day painting workshop out at Tyee Vineyard with Mitch Baird, an energetic, talented artist from the Portland area.

Here's one of his painting demos and his palette - these small plein air paintings are his studies for future large paintings.

One of the hazards of plein air - you can't control your environment around you! Luckily, though Mitch was set up in a major tractor path, the owner kindly went around Mitch & he didn't have to move.

Here's a little pastel I did during the workshop that first day.

Saturday was the last day of the workshop, and that evening we were off to a wedding. Here are a couple favorite photos from that lovely evening:

What have you been up to?

Painting at Dancing Oaks

2010-06-25T15:41:00.000-07:00

This past Wednesday, our plein air group headed to Dancing Oaks Nursery, out in the boonies north of town. It is one of my favorite places to visit, and is always a visual paradise! This was where my youngest daughter chose to have her high school senior photo shoot (can it really be 3 years ago?!). I painted a small 12x12 piece which I'm still working on and trying to decide if it is worth keeping at this point. While there I took numerous photos of other flowers for future painting references. These photos are straight out of the camera - no photoshop or iphoto enhancements. Here are some of my favorites. Be sure you scroll all the way to the bottom of this post - the last flower, the iris photo, made me gasp! Which photo is your favorite?

The cluster of flowers at the top of this foxglove look like little pouty, talking mouths...!

Love this one:

Real TTV photography

2010-06-09T14:43:00.001-07:00

Well, it finally happened. I've gone from doing fake photoshopped layered TTV photos to the real thing. TTV photography is a technique where you use an old box style camera, and take photos though that camera with another camera - usually a digital SLR camera, but you could do this with a little point & shoot, or film camera too. The box cameras are those old Brownies & other brands that had a mirror system and you would look down from the top of the camera, held about waist high, to see what you'd like to photograph. Over Memorial Day weekend, a friend and I figured out how to slap together a contraption made up of cardboard, black paper, white tape (what was on hand) & a tripod, then spent a couple days experimenting with exposure, discovering everything was mirrored when viewed which made for a lot of awkward adjustments as we would swing right to compose our photo, discovering we'd loose our chosen image, since it was actually swinging left! Not a very fast photography method, but with patience, we managed to capture some fun photos! Some of these were enhanced to play up color, or remove & change color. All were cropped since the image is rather small initially. Some are straight out of the camera (aside from cropping). Here are some of my favorites from our first weekend playing, and then again, yesterday on another photo adventure.

Lesson in Patience

2010-06-03T06:45:00.000-07:00

This past weekend we escaped to our friend's land on the east side of Mt. Hood. While sitting out on their deck I decided to try and capture some of the local wildlife - with my camera lens. Here are some of my favorite photos from that lesson in patience:

Visiting Garland Nursery

2010-05-20T19:11:00.000-07:00

This past Wednesday was the first paint out day of the year with the local Vista Vineyard plein air group. We met at Garland Nursery where there were a lot of gorgeous plants, yard art, and fortunately covered areas to escape the showers that wet several first painting attempts. I had to work at OSU for part of the morning so didn't get a chance to start any paintings there. I did take a lot of photos though! Future painting references for sure!! Here are some of my favorite shots from that morning:

Which are your favorites? Which would you like to see become paintings? Leave a comment and let me know!

Puppies!

2010-05-16T14:41:00.001-07:00

A couple of weeks ago we stopped by my brother's on our way home from Eugene to see the new puppies his family adopted. Can you say CUTE?!!

This is Eva - she looks bigger than she actually was - the camera makes her head look huge! Below is my brother with Izzy.

This photo of Izzy looks like someone is squishing her head with one hand - that's actually 2 hands trying to show off her forehead wrinkles!

Eva & Izzy - sisters!

My turn to cuddle Izzy...

He's discovering the puppies like to chew on ears...

The puppies were bugging poor Lucy the cat - I was trying to capture them in action, and instead caught Izzy trying to crawl under Eva's back legs!

Lucy just took a punch at Izzy - Eva's out of there!

Eva taking a little break - for just a second...

Eva has a stick Izzy wants to chew on too...

All together now: Awwwwwwww!

Where did April go?

2010-05-04T14:19:00.003-07:00

Ok, I know where April went - but that's the problem - it's gone! That's ok I guess, I'll not make any promises though about posting more often, seems when I do I jinx myself... So, instead I'll post some photos from the Art Sale we had April 24th. If you'd like to see any of these photos larger, right click on the photo and you can choose to open the image in a new tab or window.

Here we are, packing to go - moving things into bins to go on the roof of my friend's car.

This field of mustard was growing just south of Salem - my driver kindly stayed in the right lane of the freeway so I could capture some shots without traffic blocking my view! She too loves to capture fleeting moments through the window of a moving vehicle. I can see turning this into painting sometime soon!

Here is where we had the art sale - my friend's Parents generously donated the use of their house, clearing out rooms to showcase the artwork.

These next few photos show how my friend set up a bedroom to display her pieces. She's an amazing decorator - her ability to transform rooms, decor & people is magical!

My daughter set up an area to do henna for the afternoon.

Here she's applying henna to my right wrist. It was quite the challenge to take a photo with my left hand, not moving my right at all! Try it sometime - it's amazingly difficult, so I was happily surprised to see these pics came out pretty well!

This composition of fresh fruit just sparkled with intense color - truly a straight-out-of-camera image!

Along with artwork and henna, we enjoyed the lovely guitar & voice of Hans Barklis. As you can see, the fish behind him were also entranced!

If you missed this Art Sale event, we're sorry you couldn't make it, but we're really hoping to have another one. If you'd like to be put on our email list to be notified of future events, please leave a comment, and we'll make sure you're sent an invitation to our next one!

P.S. - a shot of my wrist - 2 weeks after the henna was applied - & one of the 2 puppies my brother's family recently adopted!

Painting People

2010-03-12T11:53:00.001-08:00

I've been putting off, for too long several painting ideas floating around in my head (& in my photo collection), so this week, because of another artist's challenge I decided to just set aside my in-progress paintings and just DO IT! Here is the first painting. I'm hoping to start a 2nd later this week.

This shows the initial pastel pencil drawing on a reclaimed canvas & a couple of close-ups of the drawing. The previous plein air painting still shows through the drawing, but will be covered by pastel eventually, with maybe bits showing through for textural effects. (right clicking on the image, then clicking "open link in new window" or "open link in new tab" will make the image larger if you want to see it closer...)

After the first layer of pastel:

I then sprayed the canvas with diluted pva size to "glue" the pastel on. I like to take a photo before spraying, paranoid the spray will ruin the painting! Luckily, that didn't happen - although since the spray hadn't been used for a while, it was clogged and needed to be changed. Meanwhile I used a different spray bottle which didn't cover as well and spit large drops! I've since corrected these issues...

Here a photo showing the 2nd layer of pastel---

I'm very grateful to my friends that helped make this painting possible: letting me take the reference photo with such a lovely model in this beautiful setting! I'm hoping this will be the first of many people paintings, and more models (hint, hint) will step forward to be included in this series! Thanks m'dears!!

Off I go to paint some more - hoping to finish this one this weekend!

Spring Roll "class" 101

2010-02-22T15:09:00.000-08:00

A week ago, we had friends over for a Thai dinner. Along with Massaman curry we also made spring rolls. Here are pics of the process!

Ok, now I'm hungry...

The Visitor

2010-02-20T15:02:00.000-08:00

This week we had a visitor to our back yard.

She was collecting fluff from the leftover centers of our Japanese Anemones.

I think spring is on it's way!

Latest paintings

2010-02-09T11:23:00.000-08:00

After experimenting with watercolor on small prepared canvases, I've decided to take the leap and move from 4x4" & smaller to 12x12" & 16x20" with my 2 latest paintings. Yesterday I took a couple of drawings I made several years ago and then with the use of an opaque projector, blew them up then drew them onto the 2 larger canvases. Finishing that, I headed upstairs to my watercolor studio where I refined the pencil drawing & started in painting the backgrounds.

Here they are, first coat of paint on the background areas:

My studio buddy is helping to show the size of the canvases (& totally ignoring me):

For those studio junkies out there (like me) here's a close up of my watercolor palette, and a shot of my dormer watercolor studio at the top of our stairs.

And lastly, a shot of my preliminary drawings on the canvases.

After playing with pastels for years, it's fun to switch it up and bring out the paints & brushes once more. Stay tuned for more updates - hopefully sooner than later!!

Happy New Year!

2010-01-06T12:48:00.001-08:00

Just a quick post to wish everyone a terrific, loving, happy 2010! Here are some pics from the wonder-filled New Years Eve party we were so happy to be invited to! Sweet, sweet friends, live music, beautiful surroundings, warm light, dancing = Magic!

Cheers!!

Henna!

2009-12-01T17:48:00.000-08:00

On Sunday, my daughter and I played with some more henna we purchased premixed and frozen in an application cone. Once it was thawed we snipped off the tiniest bit of the tip of the cone, after reinforcing the wrapped cone with more tape (our previous cone burst towards the end of its use...) and started drawing on each other! Here are the results:

The photos above, show the design I drew on my daughter's shoulder. Below is the design she drew on my hand.

Some close-up photos of her shoulder:

Here is my hand the morning after leaving the henna on overnight, shortly after I picked it off.

These last photos were taken today, showing how henna will continue darkening, up to 48 hours after being applied. Notice too how it darkens more on my fingers than the back of my hand. If you missed it, you can see the post I wrote earlier about henna here. Do I really need another new artistic distraction? Or maybe the question is, is it possible to have too many artistic distractions? My guess is they all work together, adding to an artists repertoire. Growth is good!

Miniature paintings

2009-11-19T14:48:00.000-08:00

My latest paintings have been watercolors on canvas - mini canvas! Most have been on 4x4 inch canvases with 1 1/2 inch wide sides which I've painted, continuing the watercolor image around on the edges. I also have been painting tiny canvases, little 2x2 inch and 2x4 inch with a 3/8 inch painted edge. I'm experimenting with a finish that will be waterproof and tough. First one I ended up sanding back off, it was just too foggy and unacceptable (to me at least...). I'm in the process of repainting that one (also an experiment - can it be saved?!)

Here they are--I've included my hand holding them to show a size comparison:

This first one might look familiar.

This is my second home grown tomato painting---you can see the first here:

Some holly from the field next door:

And last, but not least, a satsuma - yes, it's satsuma season! A favorite!

Next up, sealing these gems without destroying the colors. More experimentation... wish me luck!

Art Show at Starbucks

2009-11-17T13:49:00.000-08:00

Just a note to let any local folks know I have 4 paintings up at the Timberhill Starbucks - Woot! It's a terrific wall, although not very visible, considering it's as far back in the shop as a customer can go, but the rich yellow paint color compliments my paintings nicely. It's good to get the paintings into a new location. You can also always see my paintings at Art In The Valley Gallery downtown if you miss out on the Starbucks show. If you're like me though, you want any excuse to go out for a coffee treat, so stop by and check them out if you're in the area!

(no coffee purchase necessary, but don't tell Starbucks I said that!)

Pear & random face

2009-11-06T12:09:00.000-08:00

I've been painting a pear lately, in watercolor on a small canvas again, and in the process this face appeared! I knew it had to go, or it would be all that I'd see, so before I made it disappear, I had to at least take a photo.

This first photo shows the pear I was painting and the first layer of watercolor with some of the pencil sketch showing through still.

Next we have the pear with the face---can you see it?

Here's a close-up of the face. It's not just a pear shadow anymore!

The face is now gone, and the pear is about finished (maybe it is, I'm still trying to figure that out). I'm painting even smaller canvases now---the pear is 4x4 inches. The 3 canvases I'm working on yesterday & today are 2 x2 inches & 2x4 inches.

I'll post some pics of those soon.

Playing with photoshop again

2009-10-24T15:56:00.000-07:00

The other day, I opened a few photos of mine, then played around with them in photoshop, layering them with different textures to create the images you now see below. If you'd like to see more detail on a photo, right click & open in another tab or window. That should enlarge them for easier viewing.

Signed,
Jana, texture addict....

Painting on a cloudy day

2009-10-15T13:36:00.000-07:00

About 2 weeks ago we painted at Takena Landing, on the west side of Albany, near the 2 bridges that cross the Willamette river. I was lucky to find a location that ended up under one of the bridges - lucky, because of the threat of rain. I don't think it actually rained while I was painting, but we ended up cutting our lunch - critique - time short when fat drops began to fall!

Here's the view I painted:

I was attracted by that yellow tree across the river. When the sun came out for a minute, the tree blazed and was reflected in the river slightly.

Here's the scene with my easel & painting close to finished:

And here's just the painting:

It's pastel on canvas - a fun 4"x12" size I've also painted a few horizontal paintings with. Almost finished...

Art Show and Reception

2009-10-01T11:35:00.001-07:00

If you're able, it would be great to see you tonight at the reception. If you can't come tonight, please stop by sometime this month to see the show---there are a lot of great paintings, including 2 of mine!

Analogue

2009-09-21T13:08:00.000-07:00

This drawing is my entry into a contest Michael Nobbs is holding over on his blog. You too can enter if you'd like! I enjoyed the challenge of thinking of something analog to draw---that we had around our house. Once I saw our electric coffee grinder, I knew just what to do! Thanks Michael for the drawing nudge! I used a pretty fat ink brush pen to do most of the drawing, then pulled out a thin Pigma Micron to add a bit of shading.

By the way, come visit my etsy shop!

Macro photos from Henna day

2009-09-03T17:00:00.000-07:00

While waiting for the henna artist (see post before this one) to arrive, I played around with the close-up setting on my little olympus camera again. This little point and shoot is truly a little macro wonder! See for yourself:

If anyone knows what this little piece is above, please let me know... it puzzles me!

Fabulous Photo Session

2009-08-31T11:23:00.001-07:00

Last Friday I was invited to photograph a friend getting her back henna tattooed. Henna is used for temporary tattoos and is applied in a paste form. Once the paste dries and after it's been on for several hours it is scraped off and the tattoo will appear brownish red. Here are some of the photos showing the process.

Once the henna paste has been drawn on, and after it's dry, a mix of lemon juice and sugar water is dabbed on with a cotton ball. This helps keep the paste on the skin longer so the henna will be better absorbed.

Of course, now I want to get some henna and play too!

Latest painting experiment & Illustration Friday: Impatience

2009-08-13T13:43:00.000-07:00

Well, after painting on smoothly primed canvas with pastel for a while now, I decided to see how this smooth canvas would work with watercolor. I put one of our homegrown tomatoes on my paint rag in my studio to draw up & paint a "quick" study. Of course I forgot that working in watercolor (for me anyway) is anything but quick! Ha! Even though the canvas was a small 4"x4" it still took me a couple of days to finish this little gem. The joys of waiting for watercolor to dry! Since I have been working with dry, soft pastels I only have to wait for something to dry when I've covered the surface completely with pastel---then I spray with my diluted PVA size & sit back to evaluate where the painting is going while it dries. When I work in watercolor I have to wait for different areas next to one another to dry before proceeding if I don't want the color to bleed into a still wet spot. When working as small as I was, that seemed to occur a lot! The good thing is it gave me a chance to paint another pastel while this one dried. I'll share it later---since I'm waiting for the acrylic painted "frame" to dry. Actually in the time it took to paint this little watercolor, I started & am almost finished with a 2nd pastel.

This painting also fits this week's Illustration Friday theme: Impatience. You see, when I'm growing tomatoes, I have very little patience waiting for them to get all the way red---I often pick them while still on the very orange side of red (ripe). The nice benefit of this though is that if I want to paint one of my tomatoes, I don't have to worry about being real speedy---they can slowly ripen while I paint!

Here's the watercolor painting, and a couple of the side views to show how the painting extends around all 4 edges of the gallery wrapped canvas. I think I'll call this one "Homegrown", however since I feel a series coming on, it might change to "Homegrown 1".

I've been attracted to the texture of watercolor lately, how the colors change & mix when water is added, or subtracted, or how when the paint is allowed to drip or bloom it creates new color shapes & values. Something I encouraged with this little painting! It's been sprayed with an acrylic uv matte clear finish to protect the surface - which made me a bit nervous since I wasn't sure if the painting would change once sprayed. Happily, it changed not a whit! Yay!

Workshop with Ned Mueller

2009-08-06T16:14:00.000-07:00

It has been a busy couple of weeks and things don't seem to be slowing down much---yet! In July, I enjoyed a 3 day workshop with artist Ned Mueller, our instructor. Each day he gave a painting demonstration, then set us off to paint 'til 3:00 critique time. Luckily for us, it was the week before we had the over 100º temps! Here are some photos of Ned in action the first day along with my drawn canvas & then my almost finished pastel painting.

I had just started painting the sky when I remembered I wanted a photo of the drawing.

I need to study the painting and figure out what still bugs me! What do you think?

Painting plein aire

2009-07-20T11:18:00.000-07:00

A couple of weeks ago our local plein aire group went to a private home to paint for the morning. It had some amazing garden areas that were just fun to discover! Here are some of my favorite photos from this outing, along with what I chose to paint & the preliminary drawing. The choice of what & where to paint was dictated by the amount of shade available to sit in since it was predicted to be a very hot day. You can right click on any photo & open it in a new window or tab to view it larger if you'd like.

This was the driveway gate:

Just inside the gate was this lovely garden!

I'm always drawn to Canna Lilies...

Notice---shady location!

I'll share a photo of the completed painting as soon as I finish.

OCF Sign Painting crew

2009-07-03T13:11:00.000-07:00

Last weekend we enjoyed an insiders view of the Oregon Country Fair as part of the Sign Painting crew. The preparation that goes into this 3 day weekend event is phenomenal! We were just 3 volunteers out of hundreds, working behind the scenes to create this unique festival. We camped for 2 days and were fed some amazing meals while we helped out---there were probably over 300 people just at Saturday's dinner---and the preparation has been going on all spring, & even earlier! A lot of the property is underwater during the winter months, but once the water recedes the work begins to clean up, prune back & repair the fair area and the fields & forests encompassing the acreage. We stayed near the "Cow Palace" which is sign painting headquarters and worked with 3 other painters and one supervisor. Here are some of my favorite pics from last weekend---if you right click on a photo, you can open it larger in another tab or window if you'd like to see it closer.

This was a floral arrangement that caught my eye at the area we had our meals. Love that spiral!

As we were leaving the meal area after breakfast our first morning there, this lovely lady was perched all by herself on this post near the entrance. Eliza was standing nearby, waiting for us, totally unaware of the presence of this beautiful bird. As I walked up I asked Eliza who her friend was, & at that moment she noticed the bird with a startled jolt of surprise!

Working at the Cow Palace:

New booth "address" signs we painted in preparation for new painted numbers. A fairly simple job I volunteered to help with.

Once the backgrounds were dry 3 of us went to work on the list of booth numbers---now that was a challenge! I'm not a letterer (or numberer either!) so my first attempts were pretty lame. The last two I really liked though! Initially I was just lightly penciling in the placement of the numbers with a stabilo pencil then hoping I'd be able to use the paint & brush to make the number "pretty", like one using a calligraphy pen would do. Nope, no luck! After a few poor examples I then started drawing the whole number in with the stabilo pencil which turned out some way better finished pieces!! Amazing how a bit more planning = success! Eliza jumped in to paint a few numbers too.

We took a walk through the abandoned fair grounds where the skeletons of booths were overgrown & waiting to be cleared & cleaned up. After the fair is over the booth owners remove boards that might prevent rain & sunlight from reaching the ground to enable the area to continue to grow during the off season. It's interesting to see everything as a shell of sorts, although everything is still pretty recognizable and artsy!

This little fella was munching a mushroom near where we were painting:

Brad & Eliza re-painting one of the fair signs---

Some of the signs all ready to go, painted by crews earlier this year.

The meal area, and one of the "little" salad bowls!

Meanwhile, back at Cow Palace...

Finishing up a couple of my favorite numbers...

The sign crew for this particular weekend:

The Oregon Country Fair is July 10th, 11th, & 12th, just 13 miles west of Eugene.

GoVenture

2009-06-23T11:41:00.000-07:00

An interesting challenge is going on between 2 different artists/bloggers (Kal & Elise) this week where they both create something new each day depending on a theme or word/s they have chosen. Other people have been invited to join along, so with yesterday's theme being Green + Dizzy, I submitted a photograph on Flickr I played around with a little in photoshop, bumping up the greens.

Today's theme is Not My Type, which made me think of this painting I did a couple of years ago:

Though they share similar coloring, I believe they both agree they're not each other's type...

Tomorrow? The word is Pocket---the wheels are turning already...

Happy Father's Day!!

2009-06-22T16:19:00.001-07:00

Strawberries!

2009-06-19T15:20:00.000-07:00

Mmm, there is nothing better than a fresh picked Oregon strawberry! We have a nice little patch of strawberries growing out in our garden that are really producing a lot this year---we feel so fortunate to be able to go out and just pick some of our own strawberry bounty! It's a terribly short season, and often we completely miss out from being too busy to get to a u-pick garden. I highly recommend growing your own if your climate allows it---truly one of the most terrific taste sensations!

The first picking, a couple of weeks ago:

I think I see another red painting series coming out of this...

Illustration Friday - Unfolding + Poppy # 2

2009-06-12T10:57:00.000-07:00

This week's Illustration Friday theme is Unfolding, and happily, it fits the poppy obsession I've had lately. Here's the 2nd one, painted in pastel, on canvas. To see the first one, check out my previous post.

Poppy #1

2009-06-02T14:40:00.000-07:00

May 20th the local plein air group headed to Shreiner's Iris Gardens for a morning of painting. They have an outstanding display of flowers---Iris of course, but many, many others too! Lupines, peonies, & my personal favorites: dinner plate sized poppies! After scouting out the best poppies I settled in to paint one in particular. I have my own poppy plant I purchased from Shreiner's several years ago and it was blooming gloriously in our backyard these past 2 weeks also. Since I had so much fun painting their poppy I decided while ours was blooming I'd try to capture some more, resulting in 3 more 12x12" almost finished poppies! I knew I had to work quick since the bloom time was short, and sure enough once the temps rose into the 80's they immediately began to show signs of wear & tear. Photographs just don't do justice to the amazing reds of these particular poppies---they're always a bit too pink & not as rich as the poppies are in real life. Even major photoshopping can't capture the intense color! That was my painting goal---to put that red on canvas. It was really a fun challenge! Here's the first one I painted from Shreiner's poppy: I'll post the other 3 in the next few days.

This was my quick sketch on site at Shreiner's - to see any image closer you can right click & open in another window or tab.

Here's the first layer of pastel:

And the final painting:

Painting, painting, painting!

2009-05-29T15:51:00.000-07:00

Today I'd like to show you what I was working on earlier this month for a friend of my brother's. She wanted me to do a painting of her mother as a toddler sitting on her mother's lap (this friend's Grandma's lap). I haven't done any portraits for ages, aside from the occasional random sketch of a stranger while waiting for pizza or something. I decided though to take on this challenge and after agreeing on a price, size, and medium I went to work. We also agreed since it'd been a while, she wasn't obligated to purchase the finished piece unless she loved it! I was okay with that, since I knew I could salvage the canvas & either try to sell it as is or remove the portrait & use it for something else. This way, no pressure for either of us.

The biggest challenge was using the photo she gave me! This is something I swore off ages ago---unless I was able to collect my own image by drawing from life, or shooting my own photo, I'd refuse to do any painting commissions. That's usually part of my inspiration---the composition of light, shadow, color, all directed by me to create the final image. I was open to something new to push my creativity though, and decided to work with what I was given to see if I could succeed with something that made the both of us happy.

First off, here's what the original 3 x 3 1/2" photo looked like:

This is the initial sketch on the 12x12" canvas:

A close-up of the faces with the first layer of pastel:

This is about 3/4 finished---if not almost finished:

Here's the finished painting, after it was checked out & approved by the new owner:

With this painting I've learned to not obsess over exactness & to be satisfied with "close enough". Knowing that my buyer is thrilled and very excited with the finished product makes me happy too!

Next up: a poppy painting marathon...

Inn at Northrup Station

2009-05-22T11:54:00.000-07:00

Recently we enjoyed an overnighter at a fun & funky hotel in NW Portland---the Inn at Northrup Station. We were wanting to celebrate Brad's birthday out and about like we did mine at Cannon Beach, but wanted some place unique & different, so it'd be memorable. We started by googling hotels in Portland, and although we found some nice places, nothing stood out. As Brad left to go get ready for bed, I tried one more attempt & googled funky hotels in Portland---that's when I discovered Northrup Station! It was exactly what we were looking for, and after Brad gave his approval we made our reservation.

We arrived an hour earlier than our check in time, but since we found parking right in front and we wanted to explore the neighborhood anyway we parked, then figured we'd see if we could check in already. The kind front desk fella totally accommodated & soon we were moving our things into our 3rd floor room! The place more than lived up to our expectations! We loved the colors and patterns everywhere, the mod decor, the atypical hotel feel. Of course we had the camera working overtime, capturing everything that caught our eyes!

This is actually a model of the Inn at Northrup Station. It's displayed in the lobby and shows how the place is located right on the trolley line.

Below are some photos of our room:

One of the many cool lights---this one in the stairwell. Can you see us?

Across from the lobby was the breakfast room where they served a complimentary continental breakfast each morning.

The check-in desk with the model display next to it:

Brad down the hall to our room:

My shadow and looking west from our little balcony:

The painting in our room---there were quite a few by this same artist throughout the hotel:

This shows the kitchen and office area in our room & Brad.

This is one of the 3 different light globes hanging over the kitchen island - & Brad again! Fused glass was used throughout the hotel, lighting the hallways, the rooms, and in the breakfast sun room too.

Lastly, our door into our room with the Inn's logo.

Truly a memorable mini-vacation for a couple of people that LOVE color & visual stimulation!

Cargo Textures

2009-05-19T13:26:00.000-07:00

A week ago, Brad and I were finishing up our overnight escape in Portland by wandering around the NW 23rd area, then the Pearl district where we stumbled upon Cargo. The flying paper banners, lanterns, and streamers blowing outside their front porch in the wind were hard to miss. Stepping inside the giant warehouse store was mind boggling, especially after we discovered the amazing textures on the furniture for sale inside! At first our eyes were assaulted by lots of little odd imported gifty items, but the further into the depths of this color filled store we went, the more amazed we became! Being the texture lover I am, I couldn't resist taking as many close-up photos as I could while we wandered this place. Then we discovered there was an upstairs too!! More texture love to collect! Here are some of my favorite texture pics:

Loved all that peeling paint revealing colors from times past.

This photo shows one of the areas downstairs where the light shining through the colored glass caught my eye.

Will write next about where we stayed in Portland---talk about fun & funky! Stay tuned!
P.S. visit my website to see some more artsy goodness---especially the jewelry page, soon to be updated with more treats!

New Website + more spring close-ups

2009-05-06T11:31:00.000-07:00

Well, if I've been absent, it's only 'cause I was painstakingly remaking all the template pages for my website which hasn't been updated for almost 2 years! That was when my hard drive died, eating everything including my website templates. Once they were all ready to save & upload, it became another week long chore to find a compatible ftp server. Eventually I did, and am so thrilled I'm back in biz with my art website once more! Check it out & let me know what you think. Any suggestions? More changes still to come, but at least now I can change it if I want!!

Meanwhile, I'll leave you with a few more favorite spring photos I took a couple of weeks ago---before this week of non-stop rain...

p.s. These are all straight-out-of-camera images, no photoshop or other enhancements---yet ;)!

Spring Showers bring Spring Flowers!

2009-04-13T16:53:00.000-07:00

I've been blown away by our display of spring flowers this year. I always love our front yard in the spring, especially the daffodils that come up every year without any effort needed by me (aside from the initial planting years ago!), but for some reason this year they seem exceptionally abundant! These photos were taken with our new little Olympus 370. No I'm not paid to advertise this gem, but I've sure enjoyed its super-macro abilities!

This is what our backyard looked like during lunch on one of those sunny days we had a couple of weeks ago. I loved how the apple tree branches engulfed the whole yard like a big hug! Truly a winter or early spring view since once the leaves appear the shadow branches disappear.

Our poor trillium, hidden under the apple tree, getting chewed up by nasty slugs I'm guessing. Once I discovered it's tattered appearance I raked all the big maple leaves away from the base, hoping to eliminate hiding places for those slimy pests...

Now I'm in the front yard, visually diving into the glory of the daffodil abundance! Note to self---plant daffodils in the back yard!

This one below has become my computer desktop.

A random plum blossom, greeting the sun!

And last, but not least (in my eyes!) is a single bloom from our Kerria Japonica bush.

Sadly, one of my daughters hates this plant---maybe both---since when it rains it droops into the driveway, making passage difficult, especially if on a bike! Last night, my youngest, on purpose parked the car, right so I'd have to get out, under the soggy Kerria---ha, ha, ha. Too bad my oldest wasn't there to appreciate her efforts! Luckily for me, she moved the car over a bit so I didn't have to get drenched!

A little spring break escape:

2009-03-30T14:00:00.000-07:00

We'd been contemplating a little road trip during spring break, sitting around the breakfast table w/our daughter, wondering if & where, when her phone rang. It was a friend of hers, stranded in our town, suddenly without a ride to Arcata CA where she and her roommate were to start back at college the following day! Well, the timing couldn't have been better---we now had a destination, and reason to go somewhere! In 3 hours we were packed & off on a 6 + hour road trip, 3 girls in the back seat, chatting away, our car stuffed, including the girl's Betta Fish, Dynamite! He was tucked between bags behind their heads, in a wine carafe...

We drove through all sorts of weather, spying snow not that far off the freeway, and even driving through some now and then, but mostly enjoyed a pretty nice little 3 day vacation! Here are some pics of our trip:

Off we go!

We're definitely not at home anymore! This shows the town square in Arcata.

On a tour of Humboldt State University, we spied this cool tile mural. It's on a building that used to be an elementary school.

Of course, if you're in Arcata, you have to go across the bay to Eureka and take a peek at this amazing house...

This was across the street!

We even stopped in Trinidad on our way home! Exotic travels! Sadly, it wasn't the Trinidad off the coast of Venezuela, but it was a beach harbor, north of Arcata. Only 231 stairs down...and back up!

Another have-to-do on a trip down to Arcata is to go on a hike in the redwoods---they're stunningly massive, to say the least! Nothing was photoshopped in these photos---those tree trunks are really that much larger than the people!!

Talk about feeling small!!

Then again, maybe it was something in the water.....

Latest obsession

2009-03-16T15:18:00.000-07:00

I've been working with beads again, and seeing them all lined up in my studio and the sun streaming through my window inspired me to pull out the camera for a photo shoot!

Ok, break time is over, back to it!

Super macro

2009-03-09T12:18:00.000-07:00

I finally read the instructions on our teeny new camera last week, which gave me a few new tips and tricks to try, but so far, my favorite setting is the super macro setting.

Amazing what smaller cameras are capable of. Sure I still love my Canon Digital SLR, but for a little, lightweight, go-everywhere camera, this one is quite stellar!

Post Chocolate Fantasy

2009-03-04T21:04:00.000-08:00

Just a glimpse of what was there.

Worthwhile video to watch!

2009-02-25T11:41:00.001-08:00

Happy Valentine's Day!

2009-02-14T22:09:00.001-08:00

Wishing you Love, today & always!

All together now:

2009-02-11T12:45:00.001-08:00

Awwwwwwwww......

and 3 weeks later:

Almost 3 weeks ago my parents adopted a mama & baby siamese! They'd been dumped on campus---the mama & her 4 babies---but rescued and now the last baby left & the mama are happily entertaining my folks! Lucky us---we get to go visit and watch them play. The mama is tiny, possibly just a year old herself, so still young and full of spunk. Such fun!

Before Turning 50

2009-02-07T15:17:00.000-08:00

Acquire a pair of cowboy boots....
√

Different Perspective

2009-02-03T11:27:00.000-08:00

So, I hinted at something different in the below post, and this is what I painted for a show at New Morning Bakery. One of my favorite things they serve is their chocolate cream cheese cupcakes. They threw out a call for artwork to help celebrate their being in business over 25 years, so one afternoon in January, I took a stroll downtown, purchased a cupcake to go, then seeing an open booth, sat for a few minutes organizing some gallery paperwork. While there, I stealthily pulled out my new little olympus camera and shot 2 photos of my cupcake, snug in its to go bag.

Back home, I pulled out a canvas that I'd painted a mediocre landscaped on, sprayed it with an air compressor to blow off any loose pastel, then gave it a quick wash with water. (nice test to see how tough pva spray is on pastel, on canvas!) Then I sketched on my painting. Below is that initial drawing, turned sideways so you can see the previous landscape as it's still portrayed on that washed canvas.

It's a bit hard to see the blue pastel drawing lines on the canvas, but if you right click on the photo you can enlarge it in another window or tab, and see them better.

This next photo shows the painting with the first layer of soft pastel---this time you can kind of see what I'm painting, but a lot of the background is still showing through.
After spraying with pva, I painted another layer with soft pastel, and again sprayed the surface with diluted pva size. Here's a shot of the 2nd layer.

After more layers, time studying it, more painting, more time staring at it, more fiddling, I finished! (It's often a major accomplishment to decide one is truly finished...fiddling with a painting can be an on-going process!)

Close-up of the cupcake.

I enjoyed working on this painting a lot---playing with the colors, trying to stay loose, and letting the pastels create the texture I was hoping for. All in all, I was pretty happy with this one! What do you think? Any suggestions?

Oh, it's painted on 1 1/2" thick 16x20" primed canvas with a black acrylic painted edge. It's for sale, and if you'd like more information, please leave a comment or email me!

A new painting

2009-01-27T20:53:00.001-08:00

This pastel painting was painted as a donation to our local Arts Center fundraiser February 28th. This event is called the Chocolate Fantasy---a dreamy evening full of chocolates, art, and music. My only complaint?! I'm just not a chocolate fan!! I know, I must be some kind of weird feminine aberration... but I just don't really like chocolate much! If I have to have chocolate I want it in the form of brownies, chocolate milk, chocolate cream cheese cupcakes* (see below!) and the occasional mocha, but that's about it for the chocolate fantasies of mine. Ok, chocolate rum cake is pretty tasty too, but a chocolate kiss? hershey bar? chocolate covered almonds? Nah, no thanks... Now if it was a popcorn fantasy? Chips & dip? I'd be all over that!! Luckily for me, since I do get 2 tickets to the event for my contribution, there is at least one table that has non-sweet treats available... What I'm really looking forward to, is seeing all the other donated artwork!

This first photo shows my preliminary drawing with pastel pencil on the prepared canvas:
Not much to it, is there? That's the joy of pastels---you build as you go!

Next we have the first layer of soft pastel, pretty much covering the drawing and the whole surface of the canvas.

I've sprayed it thoroughly with diluted pva size, and continued on with another layer of pastel.

And, here is the painting, all finished!

I'm calling it "Showers Likely"
It's on 12x12" canvas with a finished gallery edge.
Coming up---my 2nd painting, finished this month! Stay Tuned for something completely * different!

Poster-ize yourself!

2009-01-19T15:23:00.000-08:00

Make your own!
(In the style of Shepard Fairey)

Happy New Year!

2009-01-06T11:29:00.001-08:00

Ah, an amazing December---first off, some Kauai highlights with more photos to follow.

It was a fabulous vacation on Kauai with Brad and the girls - though we arrived during one of the wettest 3 days of Kauai's history (considering the rainfall on that island is one of the highest on the planet---it was truly a wet 3 days!!). Here's a photo of Opaekka Falls from a website and then below, a photo we took---what it looked like our third day on the island!

While we were admiring the falls, (in the rain!) locals were there too, checking out the abundant cascading water---they said more was falling that day than after a few years ago when it'd rained over 40 days in a row! We laughed at our luck---but being Oregonians and rather used to rain, it didn't slow us down too much!

To show we didn't have to endure only rain, here's what we enjoyed our fourth day on the island:

This was our view off our lanai at the time-share we stayed at in Poi'pu on the southern point of Kauai. The place was luxurious and quite comfortable with amazing park-like grounds.

Our first couple of days we stayed in Kapa'a, north of the largest city - Lihue, where we were serenaded each morning by some of the abundant "wild life" on Kauai. The island is over-run with chickens---rumor has it they escaped during the 1992 hurricane Iniki, others say the chickens have been roaming free for years prior, brought to the island by the sugar cane industry to help control pests. Since Kauai doesn't have the mongoose population that was introduced to other islands to control rats (& consequently destroyed a lot of native bird populations...) the chickens have multiplied vigorously! They're hanging out in parks, beaches, alongside the highways, wandering through hotel grounds, picking their way through parking lots... truly everywhere! We heard them crowing at 7 am outside our first hotel, but once we moved south to the time-share we didn't hear or see anymore on their property---our theory is the gardeners caught them for supper! Of course we have lots of photos of chickens... They were quite pretty!

We loved snorkeling, and saw a lot of colorful fish, just 5 minutes away from where we were staying at Poi'pu Beach park. Because of the storms and rain the ocean was a lot less clear, and quite rough at times, even in the protected areas. It was Mariah & Eliza's first time snorkeling and they loved it as much as we did! It's so magical to be floating leisurely, kicking gently with your fippered feet, in just 3-4 feet of water and experience your own personal wild aquarium! One morning, when the water was particularly murky Eliza came upon what she initially thought was a big rock, then it moved & she thought---whoa, big fish! Then she realized an instant later it was a sea turtle, feeding just off the beach on some underwater rocks! She squealed through her snorkel for us to come see and we swam over---I was shocked how big the turtle was! Probably about the size of our kitchen table---3-4 feet across it's shell! We watched it bob in the surf, rise for air, and just marveled at our luck! We'd been seeing them off the rocky point where we were staying, coming up for air, then diving back down to feed, but this was truly a wonderful experience to be hanging out, inches from one of these gentle giants! Here's a photo of Brad and the girlies snorkeling at Poi'pu beach.

Our first night at the Point at Poi'pu:

While we were gone, Oregon experienced some of the snowiest weather ever. On our way home, they had to divert our flight to San Francisco, since PDX was closed! We spent an extra vacation day waiting in amazingly long lines, but then receiving vouchers to spend the night at the Westin Hotel near the airport. Our initial flight home left Honolulu after midnight, so we arrived around 9:00 am in San Fran---meaning some of us had very little sleep. I had been looking forward to sleeping at home, and none of us were prepared to spend any time outside in the cold! We had brought minimal warm clothes, planning to go from airport to warm car, to home. Since we ended up with a bonus day in San Fran, we couldn't just sleep away this opportunity, so after a fabulous meal at the Elephant Bar (about a mile walk away from the hotel) we took off on the airport shuttle, catching BART to explore San Francisco. This turned out to be a cold, wet, freezing adventure. Our light shell rain jackets weren't enough for the 40º temps, and after some wet wandering along the wharf, we tried to catch a trolley bus back to where we'd disembarked from BART. This for some reason took forever, and we ended up getting even more soaked & cold!! Once the trolley did arrive we were so happy to climb aboard with the heater blasting! Sadly though it only went a few blocks before it stopped and said it was the end of the line for this particular one, we had to get out and catch the next one!! Dang-it! That one of course was drafty, the front windows open to help defrost the driver's window, and by the time it arrived at our stop it was so clogged with people we were barely able to squeeze our way off! It was such a relief to dive down under the streets to the BART station, where we waited in an underground gust of wind for the next train.

The following morning we awoke to our alarms at 3:45 am to catch the shuttle back to the airport for our 6:00 flight. The hotel had contracted 2 shuttles to bring us there, but only one showed up, so the hotel paid for 3 more taxis to bring the rest of us to the airport where we were shocked to see an amazingly long line again to the NW ticket desk!! The day before it took over 2 hours before we were out of that line, so you can imagine our dismay as we headed to the far end of the line! It went quick though, and soon we were hustling to the gate where they bustled us on the plane, minutes before 6:00! It was the same crew, plane and passengers we'd traveled from Honolulu with. Lots of familiar faces, and smiles as we took off over San Francisco for Portland. We were sitting on the left of the plane, and I watched the sun rise through the windows on our right as we proceeded north. Then at one point I suddenly noticed the sun was on my side of the plane... what the?!?! and sure enough a few minutes later the pilot came on to tell us PDX was still closed, and we were on our way back to San Francisco!! AUGH! NW airlines told us our boarding passes would be good for up to $10 worth of food at a nearby vendor once we landed, so that was some good news considering probably very few passengers had eaten much yet that morning! All of the passengers disembarked once more, bringing all our carry-ons and soon we were sprawled everywhere around this particular gate at the airport. People slept, played cards, ate, read, little kids ran around & all their parents began to gather together, forming mini-play-groups, and amazingly everyone seemed in fine spirits! The departing time kept getting pushed forward, as the hours passed, so once they did say we could board again we all cheered! The biggest cheers & applause occurred when we actually came to a complete stop at PDX---after over 36 hours from when we first left Honolulu!!

Lastly, a couple of photos of our car at Brad's folk's house---they kindly offered to drop us off and pick us up from the airport in Portland---even in a snow-storm!

Here's Eliza helping to remove the snow so we could drive home - this was actually fun, since we hadn't had any chance to play in the snow yet! Unfortunately about 1/2 way home, the snow disappeared and we had no snow except one or two tiny hand sized patches here and there at our house!!

Yes, we miss Kauai, and we all could have stayed another week or more, but after our adventures coming home, we sure were glad to walk in our door!!

Illustration Friday---similar

2008-12-06T10:59:00.000-08:00

This weeks Illustrated Friday theme is Similar. Those small peppers were quite similar to one another, but also different in their own unique shape, color combination, size, and personality---just like all of us! Included in this still life I have an old salt shaker that used to be my Grandma's along with her table cloth. Lots of memories tied to this piece... Enjoy!

Random thoughts today

2008-11-30T12:49:00.000-08:00

First off, here's a photo I took of the new labels I made for our spice jars. Too bad I didn't take a before---it would have demonstrated why we needed new labels! These jars are probably over 25 years old, and the masking tape labels on top were not only faded & difficult to read, but they never did look very "nice"! After treating myself to a 1 1/2" circle punch I realized it was the perfect size to make new labels for the jar lids. I made circles on my computer the same color as our kitchen walls, and from a list of the spices I had I added text to the computer circles before printing. Using the circle punch I cut them out. I liked how they looked, all lined up with cleaned lids, the labels and the floor below.

This next photo shows Brad holding some pods we found walking home the other day. They were scattered under a tree on the edge of campus. What are they?! Anyone know what kind of tree they're from?

Gallery Day

2008-11-20T15:25:00.000-08:00

I've been absent blog posting lately, just too many other things going on. Sadly they're not that exciting to everyone, so now you get this little post to just show I'm still rattling around blog-land.

Today I'm sitting the local gallery downtown, putting in my once-a-month shift. Usually it's an opportunity to catch up on things I've been putting off at home. Now though, I'm the official treasurer which means I get to figure out how to do the gallery bookkeeping! So far so good today, as far as I know I don't think I'm messing things up too badly ;)! It's later in the month when I make out all the checks to the other gallery members, that's when I'll either make it or break it!

Just for excitement, here are some photos of the gallery space! The first is a general photo of a wall in the gallery. The second shows my view from the desk, looking towards the front window & door. The last photo shows the back of the gallery, where the desk is.

Sent me an email if you'd like to know where this fabulous gallery is!

Rainy Walk treasures

2008-11-04T15:17:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I walked downtown to a meeting, then to the bank, umbrella in hand, in the rain. The colors of the trees just glowed with the water coating each leaf---like beach rocks, always prettier wet than dry. On my way home I zig-zagged veering off my usual path depending on which tree caught my eye next. I began to collect some of these autumn jewels, and here are a few of my favorites:

Anyone have an idea of what kind of tree the leaf above & below are from?

Happy November (whoa!) & Happy Halloween!

2008-11-01T12:40:00.000-07:00

A little something made for halloween, and below, our halloween party costumes---can you guess what we were?

More photo play

2008-10-21T13:24:00.000-07:00

I've been playing with fake ttv's again (see blog post from June '08) and here are my latest images!

These just feel like they're from way back when, aside from the smiles...

Beach sunset with Pelicans

2008-10-10T14:19:00.000-07:00

2 posts in one day! Unheard of!

2008-10-02T13:55:00.000-07:00

Watch this.

Senior Photo shoot

2008-10-02T11:21:00.000-07:00

When my daughters were seniors in high school, we decided to do our own photo shoots with the 2 of them, mostly because I love photography and have been taking & composing photos forever, and found this to be a fun challenge to see if I could produce photos "worthy" of senior pics.

When our oldest was a senior, in the autumn of 2001, we used my SLR Olympus OM1 film camera I purchased waaaaay back in 1980----completely manual, no auto focus, a fabulous camera, but everything, from the speed, aperture, and focus had to be set for each photo. We shot one roll of film only (what were we thinking!) and of course it was just the week before the photos were due to the school to be included in the yearbook! (yep, that's how I roll---wait 'til the deadline!) After the film was developed, we thumbed thru all the photos and luckily found one we all LOVED! This was before I knew anything about photo editing on the computer, so what we ended up with was straight out of the camera---no retouching, no changes at all. The biggest challenge we had was cutting the glare from her glasses, so my husband held a sheet of mat board to block that and add a bit of extra reflective lighting when needed. We shot all the photos in our backyard, with some outfit changes for fun. This below was our winner:

In the fall of 2006, when our youngest was a senior I had upgraded to a Canon Rebel TI---but it was still the film version of this camera. She chose to have her photos taken at a wonderful nursery north of town, and after getting permission, spent a fun late afternoon popping around the nursery and taking several rolls of film (smarter this time!). She also had several outfits to change into, and we ended up with a lot more choices we all liked. Yes, it helps to shoot quantity! This time we also played around with some on the computer, converting to black & white, lowering the intensity of color, etc. The one chosen for the yearbook was the one you see below:

Now it's fall 2008 and I have the Canon Rebel TI digital body. My niece was there when we were going through all of my youngest daughters photos, and liked what she saw so we offered to take hers when the time came. That's what we did last Saturday! It was also a lot of fun, even more so using digital and just feeling free to take as many photos as I could, which resulted in almost 250 to choose from!! That's her job and I don't envy her! There were a lot of winners---and I've been having fun playing with them on the computer this week. Before we took the photos I asked her if she had any ideas of what she wanted---any suggestions. The only request she made was that she's seen black and white photos with flowers that have been popped with color and wondered if we could do that. We picked a sunflower and rose from the garden as props to take with us and headed out to a couple of favorite locations around town. Below is one of my favorites I was able to play with and achieve the effect I think she was looking for:

What do you think?

Illustration Friday---clique

2008-09-21T19:38:00.001-07:00

With a clique, you're either in, or out. I personally don't like anyone to be excluded.

Plum Pudding, watercolor.

Camping!

2008-09-17T13:15:00.000-07:00

This past weekend we headed out to Waldo Lake for some "good camping". We picked up my daughter's boyfriend on our way, and the 4 of us rode bikes, paddled around in a rubber raft, went for hikes, watched the sunset, gathered firewood, made lichen beards, cooked hot dogs over the campfire, marshmallows for s'mores, found teensy frogs, salamanders, tossed the foxtail, played cards while sipping vino, spent a chilly first night sleeping in the tent & a roasting 2nd night, relaxed, & had a generally fabulous time together!

On our way, we stopped in Oakridge for an A & W root beer float, swirl ice cream cone (which my daughter was disappointed to discover was vanilla & root beer ice cream, not vanilla & chocolate!), french fries & a sub, and while waiting for our order I spied this!

Such beauty.

Cool video to watch!

2008-09-09T15:42:00.000-07:00

A friend sent us this link which is a video about 5 min. long---worth watching: The Story Of A Sign

Busy weekend with a wedding Saturday, crazy times in Portland, spanish coffees at Huber's & eggs O'Connors the next morning. Photos to follow in the next few days...meanwhile, click the link, enjoy!

Illustration Friday---Memories

2008-08-29T17:37:00.001-07:00

This painting brings back memories of driving on I-5 with my brother, and seeing a typical rain storm off in the distance, about to engulf this small farm...

Lots of painting!

2008-08-14T13:03:00.000-07:00

Last week we had a great 2 day workshop with Marla Baggetta and I came home with an almost finished painting the 2nd day. Happily I was able to work on it during our busy weekend, and it's about ready to take down to the gallery now.

This week we visited a new site to paint---Baskett Slough wildlife refuge which had lovely views of ochre colored hills, farmers fields, and a large marsh with geese & egrets contentedly posing for us. Everyone there agreed it was a super plein air location with lots of inspiration & we hoped to return again!

This weekend, my daughter decided to paint a picture for her boyfriend, since he was moving into a new house Sunday. She found a board in Brad's shop, painted the background, then found an image online which she enlarged with our opaque projector, drew it onto the board, then painted it with acrylics. As the "deadline" approached, she enlisted my help with painting the spokes on the bike tires. To say the least, her boyfriend was very happy with his new gift!

Inspired yet? I am! Off to finish another painting!!

Backyard visitors

2008-08-05T21:21:00.000-07:00

The weekend before last we had a couple of morning visitors frolicking in the sprinkler. Happily they fluttered about for a while, so I was able to grab the camera, change lenses, then play stealth photographer! They didn't seem very afraid, so after some sneaky peering thru the azalea bush, I realized I could just sit quietly on a lawn chair & they pretty much ignored me. The female was a bit more shy, but the male was content to fluff & preen right on the clothesline nearby!

The shy female...

Bailing out of the sprinkler!

Enough with the pictures already!!

Oh, in case you were wondering, these are Western Tanagers!

Latest finished painting

2008-07-26T14:52:00.000-07:00

Well, I thought it wouldn't be that hard to finish a painting. I worked on this one the past couple of weeks, making changes, some major, a lot minor, stepping back often to assess the composition, color, clouds, etc. Finally saying to myself---you're thru! Stop! So I did.

After 4 layers of diluted pva size sprayed on, letting it air dry slowly between layers, then 2 layers of UV glossy spray, I realized the UV spray was leaving nasty glossy stripes---not going on evenly like I'd hoped! Dang-it... That set me back a few days, as I tried to figure how to save the painting (usually when I was trying to go to sleep of course...).

I decided to try sanding the painting, lightly with 400 grit fine sandpaper. That seemed to remove the glossy stripes, but now I needed to paint some more with pastel to darken areas that had lightened from the sanding. Happy again with the finished painting, I once more layered pva size, ending with a non-glossy matte finish acrylic spray this time.

While it was propped up in the backyard drying, the wind decided to knock it off its perch! Dang-it again!! It crashed forward, leaving a slight dent in the canvas & some tiny scratches!! I was really beginning to question whether this painting was meant to be finished!!

I took it inside & sprayed the back of the canvas dent with water, "ironing" it flat with my hands, hoping it'd shrink up & disappear. Happily it did! Next I lightly sanded the scratches, put more pastel over, carefully matching the colors, taking into consideration the slight darkening from the spray, covering them up, and once more spraying w/pva, then lastly with the acrylic spray, making sure no way could it be knocked off, blown over, or otherwise tipped as it dried!

Yes!! Success! I then put another coat of black paint on the canvas edges, carefully blending it into the front of the canvas, wiping where the edges met (the paint was satin, w/slight gloss, the face of the canvas---no gloss). This dried overnight and today I went to work taking photos of the finished painting on the front porch.

Balancing the tripod on the steps of the porch so I could prop the painting against the door & back up far enough to get it all in, I began to take my pics. Suddenly the wind came & flipped the painting right off it's perch again!! NO WAY!?! Carefully I peeled myself away from the camera tripod, not wanting to leap & knock it backwards, & picked up the painting to see what damage I now had to repair!! I didn't see any scratches on the face of it, and just noticed the tiniest glimmer of white at the top right corner---easily repaired by dipping my finger in the "frame" paint & dabbing it away...

Once again, I set up my "photo studio", this time using masking tape to secure the painting against the door frame... Finished?! I sure hope so!! (Although I do still have to attach eye screws to the back & hanging wire---wish me luck!!)

What do you think?!

Here's a close-up of the buildings:

And lastly, a couple shots of the first layers---for some reason, I love this raw, sketchy look---