Rainy day dream
18" x 24"
oil on aluminum




Here is a new windowsill meditation. The rain here has been relentless, unending. nearly 11" in Jan. 26" since October!
I needed to paint a jury piece for my Rose Festival application. I'd seen this style of window that morning in a magazine at my Doctor's office. I knew I wanted my Mt. Hood to be my view, and found a photo of the roses when I was looking through my mountain pictures. The pear I found at Fred Meyer, isn't she a beauty? I was thinking about being here in Portland, between the ocean and the mountain, so I found an old favorite shell to speak of the sea. After I got this far, I found myself wanting some red, so I added the cherry. I thought about it a few more days before realizing I wanted the blackbird. I'm thinking of the anticipation of flight, appreciation for the incredible sweetness of my life, I can close my eyes and hear the steady drumming of the rain, (painted in as the wallpaper of my room.) It's nice to imagine roses and mountains in my future.

happy tuna

24" x 36" oil on galvanized flashing

Doesn't this fish look happy? She is a striped tuna, painted from a wonderful picture sent to me by Dave's brother Doug. She looks like she is smiling.

Walleye

24" x 36" oil on galvanized steel

These walleye were so much fun to paint. I thought of them each going their own way, unaware of the passage of time. I left the moons behind each fish's head silver. I was thinking about the passage of time when I put in the phases of the moon. I enjoyed a color meditation as I worked with them. They travel all around the color wheel, with their light and shadow showing complimentary colors. It was interesting to work with the color values until they looked balanced. The backround was originally violet, but after living with it a week or so, I glazed it with hansa yellow medium, then drew my spirals in to reveal the violet underneath. This painting makes me want to jump!

crab apple moon with oysters

24" x 32" oil on aluminum

Heather wanted something with oysters, and I had this beautiful dungeness crab to paint so I combined them... The moon is an apple sliced horizontally.The greenish color on the oyster shells and the apple influenced the apple green backround. My friend Spencer thinks the line work looks like a net.

Him and her

24" x 36" oil on canvas

sold

I started this painting several years ago when Dave brought home a beautiful chinook. Something happened and I was unable to finish before we had to process the fish. The canvas ended up in the attic and I came across it a few months ago when we moved. I brought it into the studio and thought about it for awhile...

I painted him in warm colors, her in cool, and gave them a deep green sea for their voyage home.

Bass dance moon
16" x 20" oil on aluminum
sold

Tangle
16" x 20 " oil on aluminum

I painted this last summer at Sitka, in a workshop with the brilliant and incomparable colorist Robert Gamblin. He had instucted us to go out into the old growth sitka rain forest and "confront the tangle." Though Mr. Gamblin and the other students were just around a bend in the path, I felt so alone. Like this ancient being I was yearning towards the light.

paperbark bird turns away

oil on recycled aluminum

7 1/4" x 8 3/4"

The pear and the paperbark bird sit inside, marking the passage of time...the new moon, the full moon, stars and the unending night. The pear dreams of acorns and possibilities, but the paperbark bird turns away.

Yellowtail moon
20" x 36"
oil on aluminum
sold I enjoyed painting this beautiful fish from a photo sent me by Dave's brother Doug. The sea is painted with a glaze of transparent pthalo blue mixed with hansa yellows and galkyd. Of course I had to draw in my spirals, thinking of waves, currents, the never ending ocean. I was also hoping for the unending life of these magnificent tuna. I really scratched the spirals in, so they shine silver in light.
The sky is painted opaque adding white to warm red. The downward lines speak of the unrelenting rain, here for 27 days in a row and no end in sight. My moon is red orange. The painting asked for this color, being the only one that hadn't been used yet. It seems a warm echo of the yellow orange eye.
I love how fish seem to fly through the water.

everlasting
oil on aluminum
24" x 24"
sold


this painting came out of an idea I had to quilt together several small format paintings with a single theme into a larger painting. I wanted the quilt to be like a block quilt, and the patchwork to seem fabric like, sewing the images together.
The theme of everlasting is spirals in nature, with the four pears being my observers. the panels are nautilus, a whirlpool galaxy, gardenia and a ram's horn. Scratched into the paint are spirals, circles and stripes for Daniella, squares, triangles and crosses. These marks are common to markmaking in human cultures worldwide from the earliest times. The spiral is one of the earliest marks ever found to be made by humans. It comforts me to use them. It makes me feel connected to both the past and the future.
I confined all secondary colors to the content blocks, and used my primary colors, both warm and cool to enclose the images. Daniella has asked that I darken the warm blue in the border, and I hope to get that done today.

Here is my first blog entry.

Daniella and Zuma are helping me to learn how to do this.

She is my inspiration again!