Free Sunday at the Portland Or. Art Museum

It's family Sunday and its Free today.  Here is a picture of all the paper lanterns that were outside the old Museum School entrance.  It rained over an inch yesterday so you can imagine..........

Our Winter Project

We have a new winter project set up for Portland Plein Air Painters (Studio in the winter). All participants are painting from the same image; their interpretation of a landscape from a photograph. We send them to Katherine who is managing the Subject to Interpretations Blog. Click on the link to see submissions by the rest of the group and the image from which we paint.

This painting was photographed when it was still wet so the colors looked off and they were darker than the real painting. Once it was totally dry, the painting didn't have the same spark - I know now it was the paper scrap I used (very soft and absorbent)...... so I photo shopped it !!  I liked making the work more of a limited palette. Below is the actual painting, I wasn't in love with the composition so I liked the crop above better. I hope I learn from this as I work through the winter. Thanks for looking.

Franciscan Villa - Columbia Gorge

Somewhere in the Columbia Gorge again, on the old highway,  near  the  falls, is a villa inhabited by an order of Franciscan sisters.  Kathy has arranged special permission for us to paint on this lovely spot on several occasions.  I painted behind the residence just below their own private waterfall. Sunlight trickled through a canopy of leaves, the trail seemed to  sparkle with light.  Such a peaceful reflective day.

I have entered this into the juried show at the Aurora Gallery next month. (Check Side Bar)  I also have more photos of the Villa to share.

 

Pirates Day - Along the Willamette

Quin and I wanted to paint  on the waters edge or possibly the dock at Cathedral Park but the place was crawling with Pirate wanna bees.   We settled on a view above the river - out of cannon range and parrot droppings.  A few of the neighbors found us a curiosity and then the evening's entertainment. Every time the horn blew, the bridge went up or down.  That is a very busy rail road bridge.  I'm also adding a better version below of the Falls from the last post. Click on the images for larger version.

Up the River - Multnomah Falls

Early last week I wanted to go up to Hood River to see the Plein Air Show at Columbia Gallery and Art Center.  Great work filled the space; lots of familiar names on those paintings.   I've done several paintings along the Willamette this month; I think I have a body of work to submit next year.  
On the way back, the light was so golden, I stopped at Multnomah falls and dashed off an hour sketch from the parking lot. Insert is a closer view of the bridge I was focused on complete with pedestrians. Click on image for enlargement.

Olivia and Hudson Feeding the Geese

Wouldn't be summer if you didn't paint at Laurelhurst Park.Wouldn't be Laurelhurst park unless you give the geese some cracked corn.............

Liz Walker At OSA

 

Liz Walker  shared her personal experiences with producing 'starts' for her award winning images.  Her work now is more acrylic but 10 years ago while she was still living in Boston she discovered her love of Watercolor. She and her family moved to Portland When her husband took a job at Intel; Liz found the Village gallery and watercolor classes taught by Harold Walkup,Chris Williams and Susan Cowan. In her pursuit of  contrast and design Liz learned from Susan timeless techniques of paper marbling and modified monoprint to enhance her painting process.

Although Liz couldn't bring the entire set up for paper marbling, she gave a good explanation of the process/materials and showed a variety of  patterned papers that might speak to her imagination or simply  impose a prevously drawn image to get things going.

  

  Also among her bag of tricks was monoprinting on texturized (patterned wallpaper).This was accomplished with fluid acrylics applied to the wall paper then.lay clean prepared paper on top of painted surface, apply pressure to transfer the colors to the printing paper........

 

next after the print is pulled water is sprayed to soften some of the pattern impressed into the image......

 

More water sprayed to remove more of the pattern.  The picture doesn't show the still remaining pattern......

 

one may stop at any point and set the print aside to dry.. Liz actually admits she uses the same brushes for acrylic that she uses for watercolor but they aren't sable. You can view more of Liz's Art at her website

A Worldwide Artists Paint Out

K.Wallis -painting with PPAP in 2003

This coming Weekend (August 11-13) will be the 7th Worldwide Artist Paint Out.There is only one Oregon location four miles out of Hood River at Trucker County Park . After your painting session, stop off at the Columbia Art Gallery in Hood River and see the juried Plein Air Show on view until September 28th.Hope you have time to get out there.