seascape
« Previous Entries Next Entries »Crescent City Shoreline, CA
Thursday, September 30th, 2021
Crescent City Shoreline, CA – view from Preston Island parking area, 18H x 24W inches soft pastels on paper. Framed size 27H x 33W inches, white wood frame, crackle finish.
Vancouver Island Blues
Sunday, May 30th, 2021
Vancouver Island Blues, lodgepole pine at Nimkish Lake BC, 18H x 24W inches soft pastels on paper. Blues because of the main colors, but also because I’m a little blue that crossing the border into Canada is still so complicated. Hopefully by the end of the year most restrictions will have been lifted!
Cape Kiwanda, OR
Saturday, May 22nd, 2021
Cape Kiwanda State Natural Area, Pacific City, OR – 18H x 24W inches soft pastels on paper
Three Arch Rocks National Wildlife Refuge, OR
Sunday, May 2nd, 2021
Three Arch Rocks National Wildlife Refuge, Oceanside OR – 18H x 24W inches soft pastels on paper
Spanish Moss
Sunday, October 4th, 2020
Spanish Moss, Creyke Point, Vancouver Island BC, 18H x 24W inches soft pastels on paper
Cormorants, Moeraki New Zealand
Saturday, August 15th, 2020
Cormorants, Moeraki New Zealand, 16H x 20W inches soft pastels
Framed size 22H x 26W inches white mat, white frame with crackle finish.
Post-dated note: Accepted in the J. Mane Gallery’s Fins, Feathers and Fur 2020 exhibition
Cape Bridgewater, Australia
Saturday, June 20th, 2020
Cape Bridgewater, Australia – 16H x 20W inches dry pastels on 140 lb. watercolor paper
Stormy Oregon Coast
Friday, February 2nd, 2018
Stormy Oregon Coast 01, 6W x 4H inches watercolors — the first version painted on Jan 10th (bottom) was too stagnant, so I added some splash.
Oregon Beach Fantasy
Wednesday, January 24th, 2018
Oregon Beach Fantasy, 3W x 6H inches watercolors on 140 lb premium
Left, first phase and above after puddles of water were allowed to soak in certain areas, then paint was blown with a straw. Paint was also removed in some areas. This created a much more dynamic painting.
Oystercatchers
Monday, February 27th, 2017
Oystercatchers, 18H x 24W inches watercolors on 140 lb cold pressed. Framed size 27H x 33W inches, white mat, white wood frame with crackle finish.
Showcased in the J. Mane Gallery’s Fins, Feathers and Fur 2020 exhibition.
This is finished, although I’d love to merge the contrasts somehow. I don’t want to mess up the implied light though, or the initial spontaneous brush strokes, like in the background waves. Every new mark at this stage makes a difference too, and in context to the whole, even small changes affect other areas that need to adjust accordingly.
Before you know it, colors mud together and beautiful open spaces disappear. I’m going to take direction from my most recent pieces, which I feel were over-worked, and quit while I’m ahead.
Challenge is exciting…particularly with watercolors. Whereas with other media mistakes can be erased or covered easily and change can occur throughout the process without much hesitation, with watercolors a person needs to know a subject well – or at least be able to fake it with confidence!
Finding a way to make each painting unique means following cues happening within the work itself. In this painting, the most remarkable thing occurred after the the first phase of production.
Because this subject was unfamiliar, I started by first penciling in the shapes, wondering what I could do to make this less boring – you know, not just be a picture of Oystercatchers. When erasing the pencil marks in order to see what the paint had established, little rolls of eraser pieces scattered here and there. Sprinkled impromptu around the birds, those tiny eraser shreds added a pronounced and unexpected zing of life to the composition.
First thinking “what have I got to lose?”, the eraser-pieces were mimicked in paint around the birds. I’m tempted to make those strokes more prominent, but a small success is in order, so will use this fun technique in another painting.