Big Sky

click to enlarge!

Big Sky
acrylic on canvas

24" x 48" x 1.5"

Available for purchase directly through the artist (contact)

It's time to play catch-up with my blog...the past few months have been a whirlwind!  We've moved to a farm - I'm really excited to be in this beautiful rural setting.  It'll be very conducive to my painting routine. :)  I've also been working on several commissions (in addition to other paintings), one of which I finished up yesterday.  I've unfortunately been lagging behind on photographing everything.

"Big Sky" is a painting that was finished several months ago; I decided to make the sky the central focus and have the bison herd be secondary.  I toyed with the idea of continuing to tinker with it but finally decided to keep it simple.  This is always a struggle with me - i.e., knowing when to stop and just put the brush down.  

I'm now hanging some of my paintings at Carnation Corners Gifts & Fine Art in Carnation, WA!  It's a lovely space that is an extension of a real estate firm.

"Sure is big country.  The only thing bigger is the sky."

-A.B. Guthrie, The Big Sky

A Moment's Rest

A Moment's Rest
acrylic on canvas
24" x 36" x 1.5"
Available for purchase at Revolution Gallery, Issaquah, WA


I've been using a different method lately when I paint.  To build up the impasto layers, I would normally mix pigments into an acrylic matte gel.  I would then apply that wonderfully frosting-like paint to the canvas with palette knives, and, after letting the impasto layer of paint dry, I would add a bit of brushwork with thin glazes.  I've been using more and more brushwork on top of the impasto layers over the past several months, so I've been accordingly changing the process a bit.


For this painting, and for most of my other recent work, I've been starting off each piece by applying a thin layer of pigment to the canvas with a brush.  I then apply acrylic matte gel only (no pigment added); I move it around on the canvas with palette knives, and my intent in doing so has been to create more motion in the image.  Once the thick gel layer has dried, I apply thin washes of pigment.  These washes interact with the original background color, which has been softened and muted by the semi-transparent matte gel.  I don't go through pigment nearly as quickly as I used to, and playing with the matte gel in its non-colored state allows for a lot of creativity.


Joni Mitchell's "Night Ride Home" album has been my painting music of choice, lately.  I've been listening to it nonstop.


Nature, I would be thy child,
Sit and worship at thy feet;
Read the truth upon thy face,
Wait upon thine accent sweet:
I would put my hand in thine,
Bow my head upon thy knee,
Live upon thy love alone,
Fearless, trusting all to thee.
-Mary Morgan, "To Nature"

Allies for a Season

(click to enlarge photos)

Allies for a Season
acrylic on gallery wrapped canvas
24" x 36" x 1.5"
Available for purchase at Carnation Corners, Carnation, WA

I came down with a head cold this week and fell behind on my painting. Nonetheless, I managed to produce this wintry painting, which definitely fit my under-the-weather mood. :)

The pigments have been mixed with incandescent pearl paint, and I laid the colors on layer by layer. A soft purple/magenta shows through the blue layers, but this unfortunately doesn't show up so well in the photographs.

The snow whispers about me,And my wooden clogsLeave holes behind me in the snow.But no one will pass this waySeeking my footsteps,And when the temple bell rings againThey will be covered and gone. -Amy Lowell, "Falling Snow"

Harmonious Thoughts

Harmonious Thoughts

acrylic on canvas

20" x 24"

Available for purchase at Revolution Gallery, Issaquah, WA

This is actually a departure from my Montana paintings, although it doesn't look like it. We came upon this sunset in southeastern Washington.

The texture is more subtle in this piece than in my other landscapes, and I used some pearl paint to give it a glow.

"Harmonious thoughts, a soul by truth refined,

Entire affection for all human kind.

...

How pleasant, as the sun declines, to view

The spacious landscape change in form and hue!

Here, vanish, as in mist, before a flood

Of bright obscurity, hill, lawn, and wood;

There, objects, by the searching beams betrayed,

Come forth, and here retire in purple shade..."

-William Wordsworth, "An Evening Walk"

Running Before Time Took Our Dreams Away

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(detail - click to enlarge)

Running Before Time Took Our Dreams Away
acrylic on canvas
24" x 36"
$1175 framed
Available for purchase through Freshwater Studio & Gallery, Dillon, MT (contact)

I was listening to Pink Floyd's album "The Division Bell" while painting this one. The painting's title comes from a line in that album's last track, "High Hopes" - it really stuck out to me as I was working on the buffalo.

The photo has some light reflection on the left side, which helps to reveal the texture a bit in the photo. I've been working on practicing patience lately with my art, and I feel like that's permitting me to produce richer colors on the canvas (that effect isn't translated as well when photographed). The immediate gratification of using palette knives to mix colors on the canvas is wonderful, but I wanted to achieve more depth without using more texture. Texture is still an integral part of a painting like this, but I've been layering textured paint with light color washes to make the effect more subtle. I've also been scraping with the knives more; once several layers of texture and color have dried, I literally scrape more color onto the canvas to achieve softer highlights and to make the paint break in a natural-looking way. The layers of colors interact with each other to produce a bit of a glow.

Where vast and far the rustling grass burns with its russet stain,
O'er prairies lone, beyond the throne, of Rocky Mountain chain,
The lowing herds, the league-long herds, of bisons roam the wild,
By streams serene, by meadows green, and where great cliffs are pil'd
-Isaac McLellan, from "The Flight of the Buffalo"

Still Standing

Still Standing

acrylic on gallery wrapped canvas

18" x 24"

$530 + $28 shipping (contact)

I'm trying out some different things with texture in an effort to loosen up a bit. For some reason, it's easier for me to be more abstract when I'm painting animals...I find it harder to apply that ability to landscapes. I still have a lot of experimenting and learning to do, and it's way too much fun. :)

I bought some Golden iridescent pearl paint yesterday and am going to start experimenting with that, as well as Golden's crackle paste, which I'm very excited to try out.

In the Dandelion Field

(click images to enlarge)

In the Dandelion Field 

acrylic on canvas 12" x 24" 

Available for purchase at Carnation Corners, Carnation, WA

We saw this beautiful white horse outside of Wisdom, Montana. I was nervous about painting her, since I didn't want her painting to end up looking like 1980s-era white unicorn poster...but she was too pretty not to put on canvas! The yellow accents have some iridescent gold paint mixed in to give them a subtle shimmer (yep, still using that gold paint...I love the color tint it produces even more than the shimmery effect).

As I mentioned earlier, I'm trying to take more liberties with my painting. Although I used a lot of texture on the first main background layer for this piece, I didn't use nearly as much paint as I usually do for the remaining layers. The rest of the background was created by literally scraping paint onto the surface with palette knives. I rotated this knife method with doing color washes with a brush, and I think this created a lot more depth to the color than otherwise. The horse itself is a bit translucent in places - I wanted her to blend in a bit with the background. To give her a similar depth, I painted her using multiple layers of thin washes in varying shades of blue, yellow, green, and white (some palette knife scraping was involved as well).

Now my brothers call from the bay, 
Now the great winds shoreword blow, 
Now the salt tides seaward flow; 
Now the wild white horses play, 
Champ and chafe and toss in the spray. 
-Matthew Arnold, The Foresaken Merman

Work in progress - barn

Work in progress

I tend to feel a bit awkward when posting pictures of a work-in-progress - it's like catching the painting without its bathrobe on. I'm trying to get over that, though, so that I can be more open with my paintings and share my process on this blog, as well as the finished pieces.

The barn's texture is there, although it's hard to see in this photo. If you enlarge it, you'll notice that I've scratched the palette knife across the semi-tacky paint of the barn to produce the effect of wood siding. It's now ready for me to go in with a brush and create the shadows and highlights - I'm mostly just accentuating the troughs and ridges of the impasto layer. Then color washes will be added to create a weathered appearance. The foreground needs lots of love, as do the trees, etc.

Golden Sunset - SOLD

Golden Sunset

acrylic on canvas

16" x 20"

SOLD

I did a little touching-up on the painting that I did as a quick demo for the Mountain Valley Art Club. I decided to just keep it rough-looking. Since it was a fast demo painting, I'm offering it up for free...all I ask is that you pay for shipping.

And yes, that's more gold paint. I think I need to have someone hide it from me.

Through the Field at Dusk - SOLD

Through the Field at Dusk

acrylic on canvas

12" x 24"

SOLD

I'm still trying some different things, as you can see...and still using that lovely iridescent gold paint that I've grown to adore so much.

I've come to appreciate the majesty of the antelope much more now that I'm in Washington. Back home in Billings, it seemed like they were everywhere - doing their business on the high school track, eating neighbors' rose bushes, etc. I grew as accustomed to seeing herds of antelope wandering around our neighborhood as to seeing stray cats and dogs. These versatile and beautiful creatures are, of course, doing their very best to adapt to an ever-encroaching human population. I can't imagine how frightfully confusing it must be to leap out of a golden field and onto hard asphalt or a manicured lawn of bright green grass.

I love these wild flowers in this bright land of our;

I love, too, the curlew's wild scream.

The bluffs of white rocks and antelope flocks

That graze on the hillsides so green.

-Brewster Higley, "The Western Home"

Sumner Demo

Prairie Sunset - Demo

16" x 20"

acrylic on canvas

contact

Last night I had the pleasure of doing a painting demonstration for the Mountain Valley Art Club in Sumner, WA. This was the first demonstration I've ever been asked to do, and I'm really happy with how it went & am so thankful to the club for giving me this opportunity. Everyone in the club was absolutely wonderful - they had so many questions and were eager to see a technique that differed so greatly from their own. I talked a bit about why I picked up palette knives in the first place and showed them the three different gels I use most often (super heavy gloss gel, matte gel, and light molding paste). I discussed the two methods I tend to use when I paint - I either use only palette knives and create a more impressionistic piece, or I use a combination of knives and brushes to create more detailed pieces. I brought Relics along as an example of the latter, and I busted out a 10-minute 16" x 20" sunset to show them an example of the former. They really seemed to love seeing so much paint slopped on the canvas with the knives. I brought a spatula for good measure, too.

It was a great night and I absolutely loved meeting everyone & seeing some of their own artwork!

I think I might dress up the quick demo painting and re-post it.

Peter Yegen

Peter Yegen

acrylic on gallery wrapped canvas

18" x 24"

Available for purchase at Revolution Gallery, Issaquah, WA

Peter Yegen Jr. farmhouses & barns, with the YP brand, are a familiar fixture for any Billings resident. Yegen started an insurance & real estate company back in 1919 and drove his company by the bare-bones motto, "We Pay For Ashes and Sell Dirt Cheap." YP barns from every decade of the 20th century are strewn throughout the Billings area; while a lot of them have been torn down or fallen into disrepair, many of them, like the lonesome one in this painting, remain standing despite the onslaught of time.

And saw rain falling, in the distance

more slowly,

The road clear from her past the window-

glass -

Of the world, weather-swept, with which

one shares the century.

-George Oppen, from the Discrete Series

Moonlight Stragglers - SOLD

Moonlight Stragglers

acrylic on canvas

16" x 20"

SOLD

This is another more impressionistic painting with rough texture and a surreal quality to the composition. People keep telling me that I need to paint more bison, which I find to be such impressively gorgeous creatures, so you can expect to see more cropping up in the future! :)

Montana has been pulling on my heart-strings lately. Can you tell? I just recently finished an amazing anthology called "Montana Women Writers" and will share more about that in the next few days. I also saw Storyhill, a folk-rock duo from Montana, a few days ago - I've seen them live so many times and just can't get enough of their beautiful music. My homesickness probably stems from all that Montana-goodness, as well as the fact that it's been so cloudy and rainy here in Washington. I find myself missing my prairies.

What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset."

-Blackfoot saying

Sacrifice Cliff

Sacrifice Cliff

acrylic on gallery wrapped canvas

24" x 36"

Available for purchase directly from the artist

(contact)

Sacrifice Cliff, part of the sandstone Rimrocks, overlooks the Yellowstone River in Billings, MT. It was a sacred place for the Crow Indians. Legend has it that two Crow youths found that their village had been destroyed by smallpox; distraught, the boys then rode their horses off the cliff.

Work in progress 5

(wip1 / wip 2 / wip 3 / wip 4)

These are the last two work-in-progress photos. I added more washes to the river, put in the little islets & foregrounds with palette knives, and brightened the details with brushwork.

Work in progress 3

(backtrack to: wip 1 / wip 2)

The cliffs are no longer bald! I've added trees and shrubs, some of which are still floating out in the ether, but they'll be grounded soon. I painted some of the shrubs by loading a palette knife with paint and scraping it against the textured "rock" - the texture broke the green paint up into natural-looking foliage.

I also brightened the cliff faces with more color washes. The subtle iridescent gold paint that I mixed in with the other colors doesn't want to show up in photos - but in the right light, it gives a little bit of glimmer to the sandstone cliffs.

In other news, I've started a Facebook business page for my art...if you're a member of Facebook, you should join as a fan to follow updates! :)

Muddy Pasture

Muddy Pasture

acrylic on gallery wrapped canvas

22" x 28"

$685 + $33 shipping (contact)

This little forgotten building overlooks a muddy, well-worn pasture after a hard rain in Shepherd, MT.

I have quite an affinity for broken-down buildings, and I guess I'm not the only one - the Yellowstone Historic Preservation Board is working to protect and preserve historic buildings of Yellowstone County, however big or small or seemingly insignificant they may be. They keep an online status list of structures in need of T.L.C., and it's sad to see some of the charming little buildings and farmhouses that have disappeared.

Both place and time were changed, and I dwelt nearer to those parts of the universe and to those eras in history which had most attracted me. Where I lived was as far off as many a region viewed nightly by astronomers. We are wont to imagine rare and delectable places in some remote and more celestial corner of the system, behind the constellation of Cassiopeia's Chair, far from noise and disturbance. I discovered that my house actually had its site in such a withdrawn, but forever new and unprofaned, part of the universe. If it were worth the while to settle in those parts near to the Pleiades or the Hyades, to Aldebaran or Altair, then I was really there, or at an equal remoteness from the life which I had left behind, dwindled and twinkling with as fine a ray to my nearest neighbor, and to be seen only in moonless nights by him.

-Thoreau, from Walden

Running With Ancestors

Running With Ancestors

acrylic on gallery wrapped canvas

14" x 18"

Available at Proctor Art Gallery, Tacoma, WA

(contact)

This has been sitting in my studio for over a month, waiting to be photographed. I used the same fluffy molding paste with this painting as I did with the buffalo.

David felt that the white horse looked like a ghost and came up with the name for this one.

When we are praising Plato, it seems we are praising quotations from Solon and Sophron and Philolaus. Be it so. Every book is a quotation; and every house is a quotation out of all forests and mines and stone quarries; and every man is a quotation from all his ancestors. And this grasping inventor puts all nations under contribution.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson, from Representative Men

Windmill in Shadow

Windmill in Shadow

acrylic on gallery wrapped canvas

18" x 24"

available at Proctor Art Gallery, Tacoma, WA

(contact for more info)

I decided to experiment with this one...I wanted to emphasize the sky by using very little texture for the foreground and make the colors very subtle and cold. I'm really happy with how the sky turned out - I wanted to create a sense of motion with all the texture. Still, I think I prefer using heavy texture for the foreground as well.

Proud music of the storm,
Blast that careers so free, whistling across the prairies,
Strong hum of forest tree-tops--wind of the mountains,
Personified dim shapes--you hidden orchestras,
You serenades of phantoms with instruments alert,
Blending with Nature's rhythmus all the tongues of nations...

-Walt Whitman, from "Proud Music of the Storm"

Wildflower Meadow - SOLD

Wildflower Meadow

acrylic on canvas

24"x18"

SOLD

This was a really fun painting to do. I didn't do any detailed brushwork and really thickened the paint up with some acrylic gels.

My acrylic brand of choice (Winsor & Newton) has apparently been discontinued by my closest art supply store, and the other nearby stores don't sell it. I think I might have to start ordering paint in bulk anyway, since I go through a ton of it for these impasto paintings. I use almost an entire container of acrylic gel medium for each piece.

Flowers...are a proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the world.

-Ralph Waldo Emerson, from "Gifts"