Seen Better Days

6"x6" acrylic on gessoboard.....$100
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This is probably the last violin for a while. The poor old thing is missing the bridge but has nice 'Patina' from years of use. Time to move on for me.  Maybe something big...........

THE TEACHER

22x30" acrylic on linen

Here's the finished product. I started this back before xmas and posted a few progress reports back then. The other day I took a few swipes at it, adding what I determined to be the much needed final touches, and decided it was done. Sorta like being god.
In case you don't know... this is how you dig Razor Clams after dark. They are sneaky little bi-valves and you can't see them after the sun goes down without a lantern. It's all in knowing what to look for and that takes someone to teach you.
I'll probably try to get this and a couple other clamming pieces in a gallery. 

Scroll 2

6x6" acrylic on Masonite panel..........$100

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Being a serious wood carver myself,  I get a kick out of painting these hand carved violin scrolls. This one, unlike so many other paintings,  fell off my brush with little or no help from me. That's the way it's supposed to happen every day!

RED VIOLIN

6x6" acrylic on gessoboard.................$100 SOLD

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OH brother!! I spent too many hours on this one. Why it was so hard...I dunno. But here it is anyway.

DAWN PATROL

Acrylic on canvas 14x 24"

This is one that I've had for quite a while.Although the sky was nice  everything else was out of balance and I was embarrassed to have anyone see it though my wife said it was good ( if she knew what was good she never would have married me so her judgment is skewed). I had put it away unfinished over a year ago and just now finally reworked it. I spent waaayyy to much time on it but in the end I achieved pretty much what I was going for in the first place.

IN THE PAST

 

Acrylic on Gessoboard 8x10" in a 16x18" frame

I got sidetracked a little. Got a last minute invitation to hang a few pieces in the new show at the  RIVERSEA GALLERY in Astoria Oregon. I've been showing there for about 13 years and it's good to have an opportunity to be involved with them for a special new years show. So I'm going to put this one in and am trying to finish one other larger piece by thursday for them. The theme is 'old and new' ..or 'past and future' or  'now and then' or something along those lines. So doorways, paths, portals, etc. are a good fit. It will hang for a month and I'm sure I will be able to retire and pay off my kid's college loans from my take of the sales proceeds. Well..... I may sell something and be able to help with the mortgage at least... I'll post the other piece before it goes to show provided I find some inspiration between now and opening night.

VIOLIN CROPPED

6x6" acrylic on gessoboard......$100 SOLD

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Thought I'd do a couple of these cropped shots. Nice warm colors for cold winter days.

VIOLIN SCROLL

       Acrylic on gessoboard 6x6" ....$100 SOLD

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Violins are a work of art by themselves.This carved scroll makes a nice painting if I do say so myself!

As of thursday Night

 

Thursday got me a little farther down the road on this piece but it's at the stage where I'm not sure if it got better or worse. When a painting is at this place there are good things about it that need to be left alone while other parts are not right yet. trouble is... I become tentative as to what to do to keep moving forward. Earlier on in the life of a painting you can just plunge in and not worry about losing ground. But later you feel the need to be cautious. Caution makes for non creative brushwork.  I need to let this one sit for a while. Rothko sometimes sat and pondered a piece for hours and days before stepping up with that one perfect stroke that completed it. Rothko I'm not. But I understand how he felt about the process. 

I have another piece to move on to so I think I'll work on it for a while. 

The kids are home for xmas and lots of distractions now. All good ones! So, who knows if I'll get anything done for the next few days?

I made some progress yesterday (wed.) on this one. It's coming together slowly. The ocean and sky need a lot of attention now but the figures and most of the wet sand area are close to what I want. I plan to take another stab at it today..........

tuesday's progress

So.... after a few days work this was what I had at the end of Tuesday. I had a hard time pulling it together .....mostly because I have an aversion to pink. And, as I have said before, I don't like the stereotypical sunsets with silhouettes. But I pressed on and started to make real progress. Had some trouble with the figure on the right. Changed it a couple times and now I think it's workable. I'll post again when I make something of this. If you scroll down you will see an earlier post showing how this painting began.
Thanks for looking.

WINTER PASTIME

6x8" acrylic on Gessoboard................$100
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Here's a sketch I did a couple days ago. Sort of a warm up for the larger night digging paintings I started.

works in progress

Thought you might like to see what I'm working on. Good clam tides last week later in the evening. These two are about 20 x28" acrylic on linen. this is the 2nd day on both of them. the figures are starting to work ...though parts are still just sketched in with charcoal.

CUP O' JO

  Acrylic on gessoboard  6"x6"...................$100
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Darn cold these days. Had to spend a lot of time getting a fire going in the studio today...... green wood from our pine tree that blew down in the last wind storm doesn't burn well. But after a couple hours it started taking the chill off. This seemed to warm me up a little too. A hot cup of coffee.

PRETTY BIRD

 6x6" acrylic on hardboard panel......$100 SOLD
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MOO

                                 6x6" acrylic on primed Masonite panel.....$100
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COW SPOTTING

                                 6x6" acrylic on masonite panel..........$100
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Moooooving on to bovine creations now. OK.... so that's lame. Barnyard humor! I 'm doing a couple of these cow paintings. I like to find the colors in the white areas.

Watermelon Sliced

                                 6x6" acrylic on Masonite panel.........$100

Balancing Act

       
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 Chickadees...again. Who can resist? These guys are all over the place here and pretty much year 'round.

TOWHEE

6x6" acrylic on Masonite board..........$100 SOLD

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I see these towhees once in a while around our house. Mostly they stay inland a little but sometimes they venture out to the beach. I think they are cool! Red eyes! yep really!  Red eyes!
Below is what it looks like in a nice frame

DRIFTNG AWAY

22x30" OIL ON LINEN

That's it!  I'm done with this one. Any more would be pointless. I think it does what I wanted it to do.

what happened this week

This began as a completely different painting. I struggled 2 days on it and in the end wiped it all away. After pacing around  the wiped surface and squinting at it for a day or so I finally started this and made significant progress the first couple days. Now it is at the stage where it is almost there but I can't figure out what it  needs. I've been swiping at it all day today as I cleaned out and rearranged the shop/studio. It's darn close to done but......
 It's oil on linen and around 22"x30" like the last two.

IT WAS A GOOD DAY

Acrylic on linen 22x30"....$1600 SOLD

This is another done with the knife alone. I finished it just last week. The texture gets pretty heavy and I think I like that about it. It's almost akin to sculpting in a way. These last two are in the same color palette and I find them calming. This is  a wooden drift boat which is pretty common to this area. Great for shallow water fishing.
I plan to do a few more boats on this scale 22"x30".

LONE BOAT

OIL ON LINEN    22x30"...$1600 SOLD

I know it's been a while since I posted. I have been dealing with cancer . Surgery ...radiation...fear...recouping and blah, blah , blah. Yeah, poor, poor me.  I've debated whether or not to continue posting my work on this blog after letting it sit idle for these last few months. I wonder if anyone is still watching. But if I'm going to survive, and I think I will,  I'm going to have  have to keep painting.  Maybe not so many little dailies as before but painting every day just the same.
This is a larger piece I finished a couple days ago. I suppose it reflects (pardon the pun) my mood these days. Quiet, isolated, fairly peaceful and reflective. Looks like I better get those oars in the water!
I did it in oil as opposed to my usual acrylics. Messy stuff that oil but it moves nice on the canvas and has a longer working time than acrylics.

BOLD CROW

 This is one of my favorite woodcuts. I have printed it with different colored suns in the background so if you want a custom color I can do that for you. These are hand pulled with a limited edition of 100 on archival paper. For an additional $50 I will mat and mount one like below.

BUMPER CARS

6" x 6"acrylic on gessoboard.....................$100

I don't know what got into me but I suddenly wanted to paint the old bumper cars. They are a landmark in my home town. I might do a couple. I can hear the bell ring and the grinding-whirring noise as they skoot around the metal floor. Lots of screaming and laughing and the bang! of the collision. After all these years the same old cars in the same location every day in the summer...Seaside Oregon...what a place!

GOD'S PLACE

30"x40" acrylic on canvas............................SOLD

This it finished. In the end I decided to call it  'God's Place' rather than 'Neahkahnie Mountain.' The Riversea gallery in Astoria Oregon took it. AND Sold it! Thanks Riversea!

 Here's the same piece ,NEAHKAHNIE  MOUNTAIN after 3 days 'work'( I use the term loosely).  I've fiddled with it a lot and just was about to throw a can of paint at it when it finally started coming together. I found it difficult to convey the sense of standing high above the ocean looking down on the trees and water. Starting to look like the real thing although I had intended to keep it real loose. Most of this is done with knives but I broke down and reverted back to a brush.

This is after the 2nd day. Not getting anywhere...reworking the same thing over and over. Went to bed very unhappy.

Neahkahnie mountain

 I decided to start a larger piece today. All these little tiny daily paintings are making me crazy! So this will NOT be finished in a day but I thought maybe I'd post  the progress here on my blog just so anyone watching  will see that I do work even when I don't post a daily finished piece. And you might be mildly amused by seeing how I do it. The subject is from a photo I took yesterday from the lookout point on Neahkahnie Mountain looking down at the sea. Neahkahnie is Tillamook Indian for 'God's place'.  Above is the canvas primed and stretched  but not on stretcher bars yet. I didn't want to waste time making stretchers while I was in the mood to paint. I flew at it most of the day and made a pretty good start of it.  I had intended to shoot a couple photos as I went along but ...I forgot.
Above is what I got done on the first day. I shot the photo through my mirror so that I could stand next to the piece and give you some perspective as to the size. It's about 56" x 40". Around  60 times the size of one of my  dailies. I like working large!

LEMON SKETCH

6" x 6" acrylic on gessoboard

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This was a quick sketch  though it started out to be more detailed. I worked on it quite a while but was getting nowhere so I started to wipe it off in frustration and then.... the pleasure of moving around the paint grabbed me. While I was playing with it.... poof! a nice lemon sketch appeared.
looks good in this colored frame below.

LONG LIFE

6" x 6" acrylic on gessoboard

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This old paint brush had some cool colors on it from a long working life. I thought it worked well with the background....so since I am always looking for subject matter for the next daily painting.....TA-DAH!! Looks petty good in a frame too.

 

ATTITUDE

6"x 8" acrylic on gessoboardSOLD

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Some people hate crows but I like 'em. They're smart and comical. I was reluctant to do one because they are black and I don't even use black. In fact I don't even have any. I  mix blues and reds to get the shadows. black is so dead.....not really a color. But there are lots of reflective colors on a crow. Really we are painting light reflecting off of the crow so... there it is. Below is how it looks in a frame.(black of course)

DREAM FOR SALE

6" x 8" acrylic on gessoboard

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My wife and I walked the docks at the marina in Ilwaco Washington on a bright ,blue day. Good light and color. I saw quite few 'for sale' signs like the one in the window of this nice, old fishing boat.  Some of these old working boats had been turned into pleasure craft. Made me want to sail away.

AT THE MARINA

   

8" x 10" acrylic on gessoboard.........$100
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I used a photo taken by Jim Furnish that inspired me for this one. I took a little artistic license, as always....Below is how it looks in a frame. I'm thinking of offering my daily paintings framed or unframed...not sure I want to go into the framing business ....it's so much like work....so it's just a thought right now.

MEADOWLARK SINGS

6"x 6" acrylic on Gessoboard............$100

If you've never heard a Meadowlark sing  ...you've missed something wonderful. They have a beautiful long song something like water being poured from a bucket. They sit high on top of a tree or post and belt it out.