Painting Greeting Cards are now for sale on Etsy!

I make the colors as brilliant as I can

I've just released sixteen of my paintings as 5x7" photo greeting cards on my Etsy web site! These are the same cards I've been selling at art fairs for several years. They include many of my old and new paintings, sold and unsold. I do plan to release more as I get the cards in stock and ready to ship.

Sample Card in an 8x10 Ikea "Ribba" frame

I've been contemplating this action for a while now, as the cards have become more and more popular. But before I went ahead, I wanted to make sure the images are copyrighted. So I submitted forty-four of my original paintings on Copyright dot gov. That took me a few days because I'd never submitted works of visual art before, or submitted work as a collection. But once I figured out their terminology, it really wasn't hard, just a bit arduous getting everything ready. It does feel really good to have them legally protected now.

Our US Copyright service is one of the best things this country has to offer to creators, and the people who do it are doing a great job. I'm sure there are those who would like to eliminate it from government, but I sincerely hope that never happens. It's one of the few art services that artists on fixed or small incomes can actually afford. I'm sure if it were privatized, it wouldn't be nearly as affordable. Those 44 images only cost me $55 (and a few days' work). How much art supplies can you get for $55? Now I can publish the images in any format as long as I live and they'll still be protected.

And speaking of frames, I talked to the floor manager at Ikea two weeks ago, and she said that Ikea is very gradually adding US-sizes to their frames; the 8x10 frame above is actually 8"x10", but it was the only smaller-than-poster-size one (use their handy measuring tapes before you buy). Otherwise, they're great for matted paper works, but not for standard panels. She said the reason it's happening so slowly is that the US market is such a small percentage of their total sales. When expensive frames are so easily damaged in handling and showing, having an inexpensive display option is a really great thing.

Painting a desert morning

I haven't had all that much luck painting detailed landscapes before, especially the mixed textures of dirt and grass, but I was pretty happy with the way this one turned out. I did a lot more glazing than I've been doing lately, putting in every color I could see, and this time it seems to be working. I do feel like I got really lucky with the colors, but this is my third painting of this area so maybe my experience is accumulating.

I think another part of the reason is that I really took my time with this one, almost the whole of the 12 days of heat we've had. And before that I worked longer than that on a still life that I may never finish because I came to detest even the idea of continuing with it. Maybe next year.

I also think—and this is going to sound strange to some—part of it has to do with the additional fish oil I've been taking. After borrowing Grain Brain and reading how important sufficient levels of fats of all kinds, including both HDL and LDL cholesterol, are to the health of the brain, I added fish oil to the flaxseed oil I've been taking, and a couple days later I started seeing visual slideshows of colorful images as I was going to sleep. That only lasted a couple days, but I couldn't help wondering if some small part of my optical brain was working just a teeny bit better. Plus, the acupuncture I've been getting has made me quite a bit more relaxed when I'm working.

Isn't the whole point of being healthy that your body (including brain) feel and work better?

Anyway, it was a fun painting to do. Much more fun than the still life. Guess I need to go back and study that stuff more.

Red Rock Canyons

Red Canyon

22"x30" Ink & colored pencil on archival paper $500
You can purchase this painting HERE.

We're in the second painting season of the year, the one where it's too hot to work outside, and I'm working on inks as well as acrylics. I wanted to try a different theme with the inks, so I decided to try some of my canyon images from Zion National Park. I was hoping the angular nature of the rock cliffs would work well within the limitations of my process. I also wanted to explore some different color schemes than I've used before.

Canyon Night

22"x30" Ink & colored pencil on archival paper $500
You can purchase this painting HERE.

The second one I did, I wanted to make into a night scene. It took me several weeks and a couple different tries to get the colors right, but I'm happy now.

The art becomes a garden

Mother Nature, embraced by Nature

I was out in my garden this morning in the overcast light, mesmerized by the flowers and the colors and how lush everything looks on a cool, calm, summer morning, and I came at last to my only plaster sculpture.

I carved this Nature figure in a sculpture class I took in the winter of 2005, as part of my excuse to retire to do only art. When I arrived at my new home in Oregon, I didn't have a garden as such, just a mishmash of jungle, one camellia and some rhodies, and patches of aggressive groundcovers, so I set it on top of the picnic table. Within a year the birds had taken to landing on it and pecking the top of her head. I thought, "Critics. Hmph," and knew I couldn't do anything about it, so I just left it there.

Now, ten years later, I see that it has become something else entirely, and rather than demeaned by the conscious reworking by the birds, I consider it to be enhanced, both by the unknown service it has provided them, and the discriminating colony of algae that now inhabits its tiny crevices and distress scars from the birds and the weather. Here is Mother Nature in her permanent "in progress" state.

I think it's time to find it a place of honor in the garden that has taken form around it.

Painting the weather

Early Spring Clouds

I just finished two paintings of my local weather. The first one is from a photo I took from a fast moving car on an early spring plant-shopping trip a few years ago. I started working on this one last fall, but just couldn't get the clouds right until a couple weeks ago, when I stopped trying to do the whole sky in one session, and built it up over a few days. Painting clouds is one of the few times I almost miss painting in oils.

Snow Coming

The second one is from a drive home just as a snow shower was starting. I love the gray days and I love clouds and rain, and I hope I can get good at painting them. Wet weather is such a big part of living in western Oregon that to not paint it seems like a missed opportunity.

Painting Zion Canyon

I just finished my first painting of Zion Canyon. I spent a week there in November of 2004 and took about 800 photos. I didn't try painting them sooner because I had no confidence that I could do justice to the rock formations. But I finally decided to try this spring (and hey—it's spring!) so I sorted through them several times and pulled out ten that I think have pretty good compositions. I liked this one for the soft light and the rich colors. This photo was taken in the morning on one of my last days there, when the temperature dropped about 30º and I woke up to a quarter inch of solid ice all over my car.

If you've never been there, it's definitely worth a trip, and as long a stay as you can manage. Going in the off-season was particularly nice. I was entertained by the fact that almost all of the people I saw there, especially early in the day, had cameras, tripods, and varying amounts of other photographic gear. That was the first trip I had ever made where there were more photographers than tourists. I didn't do any real hiking, just followed all the roads I could find. I think a committed visitor could spend 3 months there—or as many years—without running out of new sights.

And I have a special fondness for it because it's the setting for my story book, Take The Wind Up With You.

Finished—after 5 years!

Blue Ridge Railway

Six (I think) years ago, I flew to VA to visit my older brother, and he took me up to some of his favorite photograph-shooting places on the Blue Ridge Parkway. One of them was this old—very old—railroad track, just off the parkway near a tiny creek and pool. I started painting it the next year and worked on it for several weeks until I lost confidence in my ability to finish it the way I wanted it to look. It came off the easel and went into the stacks for later. Much later, as it turned out.

After finishing my latest painting, I finally felt good about picking it up again. I was pleasantly surprised that I could get back into the style I was using then and didn't have to do any repainting, except for the color of the sky I had previously chosen. The foreground leaves that had scared me enough to make me stop turned out to be just a matter of continuing painting on it until I got just the right mix of colors and shading.

My biggest problem was with the overall color scheme, which was so warm that I always felt like I needed a glass of water every time I looked at it. It only took a brief moment of meditation with my color wheel to realize that all I needed was some blue violet and and violet and viridian to balance it out. Ta-da.

I'm pretty happy just to say it's finished, and I'm planning on entering it in the County Fair show this August.

If I were starting it now, I think I would approach it very differently. I did have a fleeting urge to redo the whole thing and make it softer and looser. But, as the saying goes—the urge fled. I want to move on to my Zion photos next, and it's an early gardening season this year, and there's never enough time for everything I want to do, especially during gardening season.