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.

The Newsreader

The Newsreader~ Watercolor over gesso~ Full Sheet

Started this painting last week and I think I have gotten to a resting point. Let it set in for a couple days and see what pops out. I will post a few progress shots.

Step 4

Step 5

Step 6

Work In Progress

Gessoed Ground~

'Little House' on prepped board. 8 x 7 inches

I'm in the Summer Class Harold Walkup, NWS is running in Portland for 6 weeks. Our assignment yesterday was to coat a sheet of watercolor paper or an old Painting with gesso, create some scratchy texture with a comb or grout spreader, and paint watercolor. I did a small practice one in class based on a landscape(above) and later last night I drew out a figure and started working some shapes and values. It's pretty easy to make corrections with a wet sponge and tissue.
Stage one (below) I have gotten in the habit of placing skin tones first. I am working from a desaturated photo I took a couple years ago. I'm thinking a lot about values as this layer progresses.

I finished last night at this state, pretty rough but getting some values and detail established will help me make some decisions later. I am really liking this surface because I am forced to use more paint and I get a different look than I expect after the strokes dry.....don't forget the easy corrections! I will work on this a little more today and take it to my critique group tonight and see what they think. Thanks for taking a look and taking the the time to comment. ~ Carrie

Phase 2 of Newsreader - Full Sheet

Very Small Success

I can't seem to upload more than one of these small avatars at a time. I plan to make prints of these and put them in 5 x 5 mats or just a little smaller (CD Jewell case) and see how they sell at the Garden Show in a couple weeks @ OSA. I have it listed in the side bar for upcoming shows. Hope you can come.

Trouble Posting

I am doing this post as a test because I haven't been able to correct a HTML problem.
I have a lot of reference pictures of goats from the Franciscan Villa in Corbett. We have had a couple invitations to paint up there with a former Montessori teacher that belongs to WSO. We consider ourselves very lucky.