Illustration Friday---Sour

Sour, yep, that's what these were! Their juice now rests sourly in the freezer, waiting to be added to a gin & tonic, margarita, daiquiri, marinade or some limeade. They're pastel painted on board---3 separate paintings---available individually or all 3 if you'd like!

Another day, another plein air painting

This week we headed south to a wildlife refuge. I've been there many times with the plein air group, in the past choosing to paint a grassy hill with white oaks. This time, I ventured off towards a beautiful lake, with lovely reflections, and a squawking heron. I wandered that area, shooting multiple photos, with a hazy sun blasting down, no breeze to speak of, and nowhere in the shade to paint from. By the time I returned to get my things at the car, I was overheated, and it was pushing 10:30. If I wanted to show anything at the 12:30 critique session more than just a preliminary sketch, I realized I needed to look for a spot closer to where I was parked.

At 9:00 that morning we had a lesson by one of the plein air artists about what goes into a painting---First there's technique, knowledge of your chosen materials, etc. Secondly design---color choices, composition, and so on. Lastly, which is often forgotten about, there's the need to put the artist into the artwork! What was the artist feeling while they paint? Why did they choose that particular view (and not just because of the lighting, or because it was in the shade!) After this interesting challenge to not just paint what I see, but to paint how I feel and to think about how to put myself into the painting, I stood by the car, hot, hurried, and looked around the headquarters of the wildlife refuge. At once a tall, strong, old, stately locust tree caught my eye. That was what I chose to paint. As I settled in the shade just 4 feet away from the car, I thought of how I felt----HOT! So, as I began to sketch out the tree, I decided to use hot colors to paint this image---and being happy with finding this scene so close by the car & in the shade too, I used colors that felt light and happy to me!


Here's the tree---underneath where we met earlier for the lesson, and at 12:30 for lunch and the critique.


My preliminary sketch on primed, smooth sanded canvas.


The first layers of pastel.


And here's the almost finished painting. Any suggestions? Critiques? Ideas? I have a few things still to do, like refine the foliage a bit more, and work on the shadow side of the tree.

Oh, I haven't forgotten about the poppy from the previous post---I worked on it last Friday, but it's still not quiet finished. I'll post a photo of it when I get it all completed.

Paint out day!

This was the site of our plein air paint out today---a private home with an abundance of flowers, vistas overlooking the valley, and fun garden art tucked here and there to surprise us!


The variety of poppies was pretty stunning---these especially, each one about the size of a dinner plate---or larger! There were red poppies, frilly orange & lavender ones, and these amazing giant white beauties.



I loved the painted floor in the bathroom...how cool is this?!


This poppy was unique with its crackle-like white veins shooting out from the centers.


Here's what I finally settled on painting. At first it was in the shade---like I was, but then as we approached noon, the poppy was flooded with sunshine, making bright highlights and subtle shadows I tried to throw in at the last minute.


This was the first layer of pastel on my 12x12" canvas.


And here is the pastel painting at its almost finished state. I need to study it for a bit now, see if there's anything I don't like, or want to change. Any suggestions? Constructive criticism? Ideas?

Photos from the past week

This is what our car looked like, stuffed with everything Eliza had at UO when we brought her home last week. She and I almost had to walk home! Notice the big bag that sat under my feet all the way home... luckily I like to sit with my feet on the dash and it wasn't uncomfortable at all!


Lovely evening out with friends from Portland---we had dinner at Fireworks (previously known as Wildfire, & before that as Intabas) http://www.fireworksvenue.com/main.html


Sunset out our motel on Monday night---The local plein air painters headed to Florence for 3 days, painting Tuesday at Cleawox lake just south of Florence, then at Heceta Lighthouse on Wed.


This was the view I chose to paint at Heceta Lighthouse state park---you can see the lighthouse off in the distance.


Speaking of the lighthouse....


Walking back down from the lighthouse the view of the keeper's house and the hwy. 101 bridge which I was painting nearby earlier.


The keeper's house, up close & personal---it's a bed & breakfast!


Meanwhile, back at home we've had a visiting chickadee family that frolicked in the sprinkler while we had lunch one day. I had to try and capture a few on film (probably not the correct term now that we're using digital photography?)





Have a terrific weekend!

Latest painting---still in progress

The local plein air painting group went out to a private garden last week and I decided to work smaller & focus on a single flower. Using a square format, I was somewhat limited I discovered. There were some brilliant blue delphiniums just calling out to me, but they're so long, tall & lanky, they just didn't seem the best choice to squeeze onto the 12x12" canvas I was using that day! Fortunately I found a sweet yellow rose, just right for this shape and went to work on it using pastel on primed white canvas. Here are some shots of the rose & the painting in progress:


This next image shows the first layer of pastel I had on the canvas---after I sprayed it---plein air hazard, it takes too long for this to dry on cool cloudy days.... Wished I had a battery powered blow dryer! (do they make such a thing???)


Here is the painting almost finished---there are a few changes I plan to make still---that lighter green seems distracting above the rose, so it's gotta go, then where the right petal of the rose meets the background leaf, it's a bit too perfect of a line-up, so will alter that too. A bit more lights, darks, pushing the colors a little more, and I think we can finish this up fairly quickly! I'll try to remember to post a photo of the finished painting as soon as I get to that point!

Fake TtV

Yesterday I did some reading on TtV's---through the viewfinder photo images. "Through the Viewfinder photography is defined as taking a picture of any subject through the viewfinder of any camera with another camera."... as if photography doesn't already have its own complications---let's try taking pics using our camera looking thru another one! Well after exploring this new way of photography I began to desire an old Brownie or other old box camera to attempt this process. What I like is the dust textures, the frame around the image and the slight discoloration that can be created by shooting pics this way. Here are a ton of photos taken with this process if you want to see what I'm talking about: http://www.flickr.com/groups/throughtheviewfinder/

Well, seeing how I don't have a box camera, I did a bit more research & discovered how to reproduce this look thru photoshop! Of course I had to experiment, and this is what I made---first the original photo, taken Sunday north of Tillamook Or.



Then after fiddling with it in photoshop with my new TtV knowledge (which took way more time that I expected...it's how I learn photoshop techniques---lots of trial & error, emphasis on error!) this is what it now looks like!



How cool is this?! Tillamook Bay has never looked more moody! Ok, maybe it has, I just wasn't there to capture it. Now I can create it with a little help from photoshop (or photoshop elements---what I really used this time).

Here's the website I used to learn how to do this: http://poetic-pixels.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=62:fake-ttv-tutorial&catid=57:post-processing

Go---play (or struggle if you do photoshop like I do...)---try this yourself! Then give me a link to your photos in the comment section.

More from the past week(s)

Loving this 4 day weekend (for me), considering how we busted butt around here with the weed issue the last 3 days. Shoulder high beauties in the garden---not veggies tho! Pow! Out & in the yard debris bucket! All of last year leggy, dry, skeleton sunnies: Bam, yard debris. Stupid nit-picky grasses poking up thru my snow-in-summer, towering 2 ft. higher than the flowers: Snap! all gone! We ended up borrowing a 2nd yard debris bucket from the neighbors---they're both empty now (pick-up comes every other week---we got lucky it was this week!)

So today is for me---the things I'd hoped to do this extended weekend: on the list for today, since Brad's back at it in the shop, which means he's not nudging me to join him in the yard resurrection! The big to-do today? Resurrect the closet! Yep, that means plowing thru and removing everything that I don't wear (which would be about 85% - see post listing my weird quirks below - Apr. 30, #4), donating those items, and putting my few favs back into the now usable closet.

Meanwhile I'll leave you with some glimpses of our past week(s):


mmmmmmm my favorite poppy---one of 11 in the backyard this year!


Looking out the window on the door at our cabin in Yachats during our beach get-away.

Off to tackle that closet....

busy, busy, busy, but having fun too!

Well, it's been an action packed couple of weeks, and blogging kind of took a back seat! Here are some of the highlights that have happened during that time:

After our exciting Obama sighting downtown, (see below) my daughter had another impromptu encounter with our possible future president! Last weekend, Senator Obama was visiting Oregon to drum up some last minute support prior to the following Tues. primary, with a planned stop in Roseburg, that Saturday. My daughter, living in Eugene, a couple hours north, headed out that day to a park with a couple of friends hoping to soak in some rare sunshine and work on homework. It was an unbelievable HOT weekend, temperatures soaring near 100º after weeks of barely hitting 60º, so after too much sweating the girls headed to a local ice cream parlor, hoping the lines wouldn't be miles long like other attempts in the past. They were amazed how tiny the line was considering the heat & headed in to get a cold treat. As they went to order, the ice cream scooper said "better hurry, you won't believe who's on their way here!!" That's when they realized that most of the people inside were folks from the press! Eliza made a quick call home to tell us what was up, then squeaked "He's Here!" before hanging up! Senator Obama arrived with his wife and people from his team, secret service vehicles, busses, & a police escort---walked in, shaking hands---chatting---& Eliza got to shake his hand, & have a nice visit with his wife Michelle! Talk about being in the right place at the right time!! She called us back after they all left to tell us all about her Obama encounter---again---excited to report they both ordered mint chocolate chip ice cream!



There's more fun to share about different things this past week---I'll post more tomorrow. Stay Tuned!

Happy Mother's Day!

We spent part of the day wandering the Rhododendron gardens at Hendrick's Park in Eugene. What was cool about this aside from the amazing display of flowers, was that it was planned by my daughter! What she didn't realize was that EVERYONE in Eugene goes there for Mother's Day!! She's used to being there when it's quiet, peaceful, unpopulated... Luckily, we found parking easily after being redirected at our first attempt at park entrance (they switched some roads to one way only to accommodate the crowd) and it was busy, but not uncomfortably so---made for fun people watching as we wound our way along the masses of rhodies. Here are a few of my fav photos from that garden:

I've been Tagged!

I was tagged my Michelle---http://www.michellegeller.typepad.com/ sadly I don't know how to make her name light up & become a link to her site...someday I'll figure that out!

Now I'm supposed to post 7 weird or random facts about myself----there were several other rules too, but I've never been good at following rules exactly. I like to change them up for some reason... For fun, if you read this, post 7 weird or random facts about yourself---then leave a comment here to let us know the link to read your 7. Or just post the 7 things in the comment section here.

My 7:

1. Both my babies were born at home---first was a successful breech home birth, 2nd was also successful but not breech.

2. I can’t eat sweets, or chocolate after 6:00 pm, or I have a hard time falling asleep (*sigh…)

3. I used to have angora rabbits and would spin their fur (you pluck it off them as they snuggle in your lap---they’re bred to not have a lot of feeling in their skin, so they don’t mind when you pull their loose hair!)

4. I could wear the same thing for a week---I don’t like changing my clothes or thinking of what to wear. When I'm working at home for lengths of time that's just what I do! Luckily Brad doesn’t care & since he works at home does the same thing. We’re very “green” that way. (Now if something gets pitted out, it’s in the laundry, no questions---I just rarely pit out!) (another random fact?!)

5. When I was 20 years old I managed a restaurant in Portland Oregon. I worked downtown at a different restaurant the summer after my sophomore year in college and was then offered the position of manager in a new restaurant the owner was opening, so I took that year off of college to run the new one.

6. May 1980 Mt. St. Helen’s blew her top and I was living in Portland when that happened---ash from her eruption blew all over Portland and the surrounding areas. In June I rode my bike downtown Portland with a friend to see the Rose Festival Parade wearing bandanas over our noses to protect us from the fine ash. We looked like bike-bandits!

7. When I’m painting with a fat paintbrush, at some point I have a real hard time not painting someone nearby… the urge to add an impromptu paint mustache is really hard to resist. I’m getting better at not succumbing to this urge the more I paint with my husband---he doesn’t like paint mustaches.

Now go ahead, think of 7 odd facts about yourself & list them in the comment section or leave me a link in the comment section to where you've made your list! Go! Do it! (ok, you have some time---took me several days before I had time to do this!!)

Also, I can't leave without sharing a photo--- & another random fact---I grow baby ginko trees on my window sill in the kitchen---I have 2. They are now 2 years old---every fall they lose their leaves & look like sticks in a pot through the winter. I faithfully water them still. Then sometime in the spring they show a teensy bit of green, proving they're alive. Here's one of them! Now go, write some randomness about yourself!!

Spring in Oregon

Or so the calendar says it's spring---but looking outside at 6 am the last couple of mornings you sure wouldn't think so! Both days we had SNOW covering the rooftop next door & dusting our car. This morning the grass was even covered! As far as I know this is the latest date Western Oregon has experienced snow---since records have been kept. Then throughout the day we've had on and off hail showers, some with snow mixed in. We arrived home yesterday after running a few errands to the scenes below---not the best day to start up the Farmer's market downtown---and to think it was 80º last Saturday here!!

One of the reasons I don't Mt. Bike....

Another reason: they bike uphill for miles on gravel roads.
Reason 3: Then they fly down tiny deer trails over fallen logs, roots, & slippery muddy slopes, (this time of year).

Luckily, they don't look like this usually, since they try to not ride when it's this muddy out. Give me pavement, the occasional small hill (love riding bikes downhill!) & dry weather please!

Easter colors

This year we played with rubber band resist on our eggs---sort of a tie dye effect. Way too much fun! Here are some of our favorite photos from our dye day: