South Toward Cannon Beach

South Toward Cannon Beach

Earlier this month a friend and I flew up to Eugene, OR, and spent about 5 days exploring Eugene itself as well as the Oregon coastline. I took a lot of photos but only now am taking a bit of time to edit them and post them.

The Oregon coast is known for its sea stacks, as is the coastline further north into Washington and Canada. Some are quite small, others are rather dramatic, such as the one known as the “Haystack” because of its domelike appearance. It’s visible on the far left of the ocean’s horizon line, faint and lost in the atmospheric haze.

I took this picture, merged from two photos, looking southward from Ecola using my G7X, a great point-and-shoot camera I use a lot for traveling. Being a Canon, it doesn’t have the rich colors of Nikon (my opinion, but many agree), but it caught the overcast qualities of the coast beautifully.

A Rusty Brush

It feels as if ages have passed since I picked up a watercolor brush to paint. Out of all the media, watercolor is by far the hardest and to do it well it needs to be done often. I tend to be a bit “precious” – and by this I mean it is far too easy to look at too many details and fail to simplify and pay attention. When I haven’t painted in a while – in watercolor – I tend to just dive in and see what sort of mess I can make, or not make. This first painting exemplifies this.

One good thing, I didn’t create mud, but my sense of depth and contrast was not well done. The sky was dramatic, but I made it too dramatic. The mountains and far edge of the water is poorly defined and overly defined at the same time. They all could be a bit more pale so that the trees on the left could look better. And then the leaves on the trees themselves are not well projected against the sky. But, as a bit of a save, the choppy water has a rather nice energy.

So, a bit too much altogether in the above painting. When I find myself doing too much (IMO), I always like to look to Edward Wesson or Edward Seago for simplicity. I found a painting by Wesson which is just simplicity itself, and did a bit of a quick study of it. Unfortunately, I cannot give the name or year he did this particular watercolor.

The first painting was done mostly with rounds and a small flat. For this one, I used a 1 inch wide flat brush with stiff bristles. I wet the paper a lot and then just painted. This how I try to get that gracefulness and simplicity so characteristic of so many of Wesson’s landscapes. I feel this is far more successful than the first one, and it makes me feel a bit happier with the painting process – like meeting up with a comfortable friend.

Watercolor, Arches Rough, 10×14 paper.

In the Fields

This painting was laid in on the last day of my Tuesday afternoon class which ended in July. It’s been sitting around while life moved into different areas. I finally found the time last week to finish it up. Final touch ups took place a few minutes here and there after that. Now, it is in a frame and ready to be put on display.

A summer or two ago a friend and I went to her family’s little farm plot out on the Oxnard Plain. I don’t know if this was her husband or just a worker I saw, but I thought it was such a wonderful photo it deserved becoming a painting. It shows the beautiful flat farmland found in western Ventura County, CA, and the coastal mountains which border it. I spent my teens in a then-small town nearby and always loved driving through the farm / ranch country on narrow roads surrounded by a variety of crops. I still do, too.

Oil on canvas board, 16×20.

Country Track alla Prima

I had been working on my geese (see “Honk, Honk, Honk”) for weeks on end. The last few sessions in my painting class found me bringing it in, setting it up on the whiteboard ledge, looking at it, and then dabbing a bit here or there. I expect I will dab a little bit more, but I will be submitting it the first annual student art show at the adult school campus in August.

Spending a lot of time on a painting means a lot of focused work. Breaking that focus seems important for me. Play and don’t get precious. In painting class this means slap on some paint and get going. With this painting, I did. And I finished it in two hours, all within the allotted class time. I rather like it and totally enjoyed the play time.

Oil on cotton canvas board, 11 x 14.