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y february businesses have set out barrels of pansies and primrose it doesn t feel like spring the skies stay sullen daring us to think hopeful thoughts by march daffodils and crocuses bud and bloom the forsythias puff themselves up the willows show perky red and gold in the bioswales and the ornamental cherries and apples begin to show off but it s still raining wind coming from the east wet down the back of our necks the temps go from 41 degrees to 42 degrees and back to 39 the perennials in the gardens start to green up and cover the winter sludge but the clouds remain glowering and then on an early morning walk the clouds and rain lighten and the raindrops burble a bit i am reminded that our rains nourish and comfort those bedraggled perennials and crow filled firs the air is luminescent the world starts to shine my cell phone photo turns our black non skid deck mats into shiny gleaming ice beams and gold the kind of photo that made me say what in the world was that anyway i think the phone knew more than intellect could take in it captured the rain as gleaming silver and tossed in reflected light from the dining room window as gold shimmers around the corner of the house the lilac buds amuse me with their shininess showing off long before they ll bloom in late april and the allium which won t bloom until may spreads its vulgar foliage under those lilacs concealing the mud out of which the lilies and perennial sunflower will grow the neighbor s forsythia which forms a hedge that peeps into my bedroom window showers water on me when i set out for my walk as i walk through the rain whose light is like a sweet mist i slow down i let the smell of daphne and budding apple blossoms wash over me i unzip my coat and twirl my umbrella the crows greet me as one of their own a tiny daff blooms under the gray magenta of the honeysuckle leaves which have just appeared this week and as i come home the old box on which i set my coffee while i unlock the door shows off its rain bedecked colors spring blasts from the gorge will return and the skies will argue with me until may or june but this morning s respite promises me that more spring is yet to come i m pretty sure of that and that s what i have for hope salud i posted in portland tagged garden portland oregon spring spring flowers 4 comments a project posted on march 9 2025 by june i have always loved projects teaching in college meant that each semester started up a new project each 16 week session brought different classes different students different rhythms art residencies were also projects chronologically confined like semesters but more focused on artistic and personal growth i had to come to terms with new landscapes the petrified forest in arizona gold mines in basin montana a ranch in monument oregon new living conditions an apartment in an old bank building quarters in an unused children s camp new people park service volunteers women who ran the fire department ranchers who also milked cows it was exciting and difficult and rewarding the studio wire project my last big art project had no time limits but space and imagination pushed me into its final configuration a kind of exhibit i had never before imagined it was exhilarating resulting in a video that i still love i shall try to embed the video at another time when my brain is fresher than it is tonight then i sat and wrote for the next 7 years or so a different kind of project now at age 83 although i m still 8 days out i have come back to painting painting with watercolor which is easier on my old body and i m still chasing difficulties this time with the medium itself but i have advanced i have a project i have found a subject to concentrate on this coming year i want to focus on the subject of home my home space and place and scenes from where i live i would like to catch objects at moments that are ephemeral also i would like to avoid flowers because well because too many brilliant water colorists paint glorious flowers and i can t i e don t want to try to compete but of course having decided no flowers i painted and sent off a couple flower post cards to my recovering friend i made an exception to my no flower rule because a these buds absolutely charmed me and b i thought they looked like close buddies relying on one another it was that thought that i wanted to catch these are days when we definitely need our close buddies to lean on to hold up to smile at and rant with and then because i believe in context and because i love the foliage that surrounds flowers i pulled back a bit and painted the two buds in context these daffs come up just in front of an old concrete block wall the painting is more abstract than representational or at least that s my excuse like my calls to my congress people what i produced in the painting was more fuss than meaning although i may have made progress in my knowledge if not in my production and i think that my phone calls to my senators are making the point even if the blither is embarrassing and so it goes these floral paintings are in substance more like oils than watercolors i am aware of this i am aware that in watercolor function seems to follow form inverting the natural order of working with oil painting oil painting is flexible easily amended solid dense you begin with darks over laying lights and sparks watercolor is ethereal and stubborn it dries and you are stuck with what you painted it can be amended but not easily and often to the detriment of the final result you always paint light to dark if you don t you are sorry if you are lucky you can wash off the bad paint under the faucet and reuse the paper oil paint is solid grounded and predictable watercolor is delicate and nuanced and does not dry the color you painted a bit like governments i suspect of course intellectual theory is not easy to translate into a successful product but i do love both things the theory and the practice it s the greatest challenge this final photo is the latest painting i ve done it s another postcard but more apt it makes use of watercolor s attributes rather than fighting its peculiar behaviors the painting is of a corner in our living room next to the window at this time of year when the sun is at a particular angle the light in the living room blossoms as it is reflected off the garage the shadow of the wisteria chain not yet overcome by foliage and blossoms and the lamp picking up the reflected outside light make that corner shimmer it s a painting that points me in the direction i am hoping to travel there are things i will do better and or differently in a larger painting of this same subject but this is the start toward my project home i m getting better at making those dratted phone calls too and perhaps we are all gaining ground in understanding pushing back at and reframing our approach to the present constitutional crisis i wish us luck in all our projects june posted in oil painting painting portland watercolor tagged art oil painting postcards projects watercolor 1 comment so here we are posted on march 5 2025 by june north south east west up down here i am back i am here and you out there northsoutheastwestupdown must have missed me terribly or even if that was not the case your here after all is some distance from mine here i am back after long absence i have been painting and traveling and swinging through vertigo and anguishing about national affairs which is why in the postcard pictured above the circle and the here aren t quite centered or even perhaps circles but it is just a postcard a trial run of sorts a dispensable hello wafted into ether of the us mail below are photos of other postcards that i sent friends as i traveled equally unserious equally flawed equally fun to have done and be done with what i depict below is perhaps half of the cards that i painted since february 19 some were thrown out some didn t get photographed and some were simply too bad to share with the public my friends are forgiving but my ego is less so so here s the round up in mid february we traveled south via amtrak to visit our grandson sam in the bay area we stayed at the hotel los gatos in the silicon valley town of los gatos right next to the santa cruz mountains los gatos the cats is named for the wild cats that roamed the mountains the town of los gatos has a fine logo that appears in various places most prominently on the city s tallest perhaps only high rise the image above was my playing with that logo image i couldn t track down the artist nor even who exactly has the rights to the image and i offer my apologies for the knock off i also copied the book cover of a little golden book that we found in the los gatos library s book store those of you born in the early sixties may recognize this character one of our favorite people in the world was nicknamed for a short while pokey the book spells it differently she swears that this was the book that put her off dogs forever this vase was my monkeying around with layering and splotching it was great fun to paint it and the painting below were goof offs meant to release tension they did so nicely a printer friend has tormented me with his stubborn declaration that in his art he isn t into color so while doodling one morning i thought i d give neutrals a try and send the result to him the photo above is my evidence that i tried i subsequently quit eschewing color the image above as well as the original post card suffers from a number of problems one being the orientation i can t quite remember which way was meant to be up there s also the photographer s shadow which i didn t notice until today a bit late to retrieve it from the postal carrier the last two photos are of postcards i painted just a couple of days ago we had rumbled and tumbled our way back to portland the train was only 43 minutes late i had gone to bed for a week or so and then a week ago met up with a friend who was scheduled for a surgery today so i had a reason to start painting again a sick person isn t likely to be critical of a get well postcard i m going to send her a postcard a day for the next few days great practice for the novice artist i chose the japanese style because the weather has been lovely and portland s spring weather resonates with japanese nature imagery daphne and other growing things fill the city with an inexplicable scent and flocks of birds titter and skitter through the bushes and fuzzing out trees smells and sounds make me want to paint my big critique today of these photos is of the photos the photographer has to a flatten the finished watercolors before they are photographed and b dedicate a photography space that keeps her shadow out of the picture now that i know better i will do better fumbling for the proper skill set to enable one to navigate new unfamiliar difficulties takes time today i m feeling optimistic about my painterly navigating tools which have come along in the last month or so last night in the midst of watercolor tubes and brushes and paper i listened to my senator at his people s town hall i was touched and enlightened by his struggles to do his regular job while at the same time trying to hone his skill set to confront a wholly different set of demands his efforts won t be in vain i m hoping that my watercolor efforts will also bear fruit and this evening i m painting a daffodil on paper i mean not in the garden aren t these commercial versions absolutely gorgeous i think i can try again and do better posted in art los gatos painting portland watercolor tagged painting photography portland travel 4 comments a flower or two a mucking about posted on february 19 2025 by june magnolia bud watercolor on paper about 3x 4 feb 16 2025 when in doubt paint a flower preferably one that is in a photo because it can be observed in the dead of night 10 years later and no wind will blow or fly will bite and hey flowers everyone paints flowers right well the truth is everyone paints flowers like everyone takes pictures of them some results are good and some are not the magnolia bud above is in the latter category it was a struggle and i was defeated although were i grading it i would give it a d because it represents the struggle i painted and overpainted and repainted and cussed and mussed and fussed i cropped it and turned it upside down i can t say that those actions made it pleasing to me but i tried i varied the shades of gray and black and fiddled with greens and near whites i was attempting to get a handle on color seriously difficult in watercolor painting so a d maybe a d when i am well fed a d when it s raining amaryllis watercolor on paper 4 x6 february 17 2025 the next flower i painted was photographed and observed before and while i painted it and i m happier i was trying hard to achieve the velvety deep red of the amaryllis in my front window but i also needed those lighter highlights and i chickened out with my shadows not finding the right quality of deepness when i needed it but it s a better painting the brush strokes are intentional and the light areas were where and how they needed to be definitely a c and depending on the quality of the mutton i ate before i graded this it could be a c in other words and for whatever reason i m happier with it end of the day watercolor on paper 4 6 feb 17 2025 finally here is my end of the day play i shrugged off being persnickety and careful and clenching my tongue between my teeth i decided not to be prissy i m fond of this piece but don t ask me why partly it s because the colors are swapping themselves around granulating and bringing in all the diversity that would be lost if one were tight lipped what is that pink doing there and the smidgen of lipstick red that is seen no where else in the painting and why are those rectangle adjacent forms not real rectangles don t know the answers maybe after i read enough academic treatises on watercolor paintings i ll have something high falutin to say what i do know is that this kind of diversity this sly sneaking into each other s communities of paint to build pleasing relationships is the ultimate of being human we are not all white christian and male we won t go away even if those in charge imagine having a tidy rectangle in which nothing slides into nothing else and colors are all nameable and stay in their corners even when that gets imagined by unelected billionaires and spelled out by nerds engaging in monumental crime sprees against democracy even then this silly little exercise made me feel good i m giving it a b a posted in portland tagged abstracts art artist creativity flowers watercolor painting 6 comments older posts meta create account log in entries feed comments feed wordpress com recent posts edges march 31 2025 respite march 14 2025 a project march 9 2025 so here we are march 5 2025 a flower or two a mucking about february 19 2025 snow day activity february 15 2025 another wide view february 12 2025 retr...