It was a foggy morning

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

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

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!

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!

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

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...

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

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: