This is a very typical scene here in Juneau, AK. We are in the Tongass National Rain-forest and the days are mostly gray as in this painting. Though I miss the sunshine most of the time, I love how the fog hangs over the mountains like this. It has its own beauty. The building in the front is the old pump house from the now extinct Tredwell Mine.
Another morning walk to Mendenhall Glacier. It is beautiful no matter what the weather. On this morning the fog was just clearing. I liked the warm reds on the peaks contrasted with the deep purple in the shadow from another mountain. And of course the little bits of left over fog are always interesting. This is a 5×7 oil on canvas…mostly meant to be a study of the light effects.
This is a 5×7 oil painting of a point outside Juneau, AK. When I took this photo, I just loved how the blue reflection on the shady parts of the rock seemed so blue and complemented to bright, vivid green of the grassy knoll. But when I started this picture I was really intending to practice my skies. I have trouble keeping them light enough, and I’d like to be able to get better blues into them. So on this one I was trying to use some Cerulean Blue…I usually use Pthalo. I used both here, starting with Cerulean near the mountain peaks and gradually going to Pthalo as the sky got higher. this is not how my photo looked, but I was happy with it. After the sky was done I figured I’d just add the rest…and here it is. I think I will try to do some quick practice though of mainly skies. Because I started with the sky I ended up running out of the proper proportion of water at the bottom. I think this would be much more pleasing to the eye if it had a couple more inches of water, but there’s always next time.
This is the view from my dining room windows. It is not always visible because of all the low clouds and rain that we get, but when it is, it is spectacular! During winter the low sun creates the most beautiful lighting effects on everything. On this evening the frost was really thick on everything. It tends to build up because the sun doesn’t get high enough to melt it off things. So the hoarfrost almost seems to grow. This made everything seem so cool and gray and soft compared to the bright warm glow on the mountain peaks. I cannot seem to get a photo of this painting that really shows the coloring well, but this isn’t too bad. As with a few of my paintings now, I have painted this a couple times (or pretty close to this) and it gets a little better each time.
Someone let me borrow a photo they took of a beautiful lookout spot here in Juneau, AK. I can just imagine how awesome it would be to sit here in the evening and watch the whales and seals and other wildlife out on the water. Beautiful spot! It was a pleasure to paint.
I’ve been wanting to paint this for quite some time now. Those reflections just have an abstract quality to them that I like. For a long time I didn’t think I knew how to approach all that is going on in this picture. I finally decided to jump in, and I’m fairly happy with it.
This is an 8×10 oil painting done from a photo I took down in Cohassette, MA while visiting my parents. On this particular day it was misty and overcast. I wanted to try painting this because of those weather conditions. It is very different to paint bright sunny day as opposed to a gray overcast day. It takes practice to see things in different light. I think that this is why I like to paint. I like the challenge of portraying the certain feeling a scene takes on in different lighting conditions. I really spend a lot of time observing the changes in light and shadow as well as colors under different conditions. It is really amazing to me.
This is a 5×7 oil painting. I took the photo used for this on the back of our boat. It was early morning and the sunlight was extremely low and intense. In this study I was trying to work on creating the intense glow of the bright orange buoy. It fascinated me to see how much it cast its brightness onto the surrounding items. I did a workshop last year where we were challenged to do the same thing. My results on that painting were not quite as successful as this one. I definitely learned a few things from that workshop. This is just another example of how it can be very helpful to do the same picture more than once, or at least something very similar.
This 10×8 oil painting was done of a photo taken while hiking here in Juneau. I really wanted to paint this as a challenge to myself. I loved the dappled sunshine on the shallow water leading into the picture. I think it turned out ok. I really tried not to overwork it. I may go back in and lighten up a few spots in the background, but over all I’m please with the results.
I Just love this guy or girl…this looks like a very healthy bear enjoying a bit of contemplation. In this painting, I was attempting to paint in a looser more impressionistic style. I used a 6×6 piece of gesso board which is a very smooth surface. It can be tricky to paint on when you first try it, but I think it lends itself nicely to leaving clear brush strokes. This is part of the look I am going for when I refer to impressionism. I am not trying to paint the bear’s hairs, but rather an overall fur coat.
Art with my Coffee 