at dawn...

6x6" acrylic on plein air panel board

This painting is the first of many more small study boards I am going to start producing while I am working on a larger painting like the one you saw from the last entry.  These are fun to do and can be completed in one day. I keep track of several painters who do a painting a day blog -- that has inspired me to push myself a bit to get more work done.  I am hoping that I will see a progression  and that my art will improve.

Last week I was inspired by a local Portland Architect /Artist, Brad Cloepfil and I went to see his lecture at the Art Museum.  They had a question and answer interview style lecture with Brad and the curator and a slide show of his work.  This was my favorite image from the show.

posted by another local portlander at  brianlibby.com Brian is a portland freelance writer.  Unfortunately, Brad did not win this competition.  His work is very sculptural.

(you can see more of my work at lrarchitectllc.com)

keeping a sense of wonder alive...

postcards from PORTLAND

not finished yet.......

What’s cooking in my studio -- This painting of a home in California, is in progress. (it may take me a few more weeks to finish at the pace I work at)  What an incredible space with the entire two story open air wall out to the garden -- ah only in california!  Which reminds me, the SUN is shining in Portland today WOW.  That means I have no excuse to run. 

The sunshine is skipping along the floor!

Sun is dribbling in through the window panes!!

In portland tonight...

Tonight Brad Cloepfil is speaking at the Portland Museum of Art. He is a wonderful crazy local architect that has gotten quite famous and now has a second studio in New York.  He is on my list of ‘people I admire’ because he gets to say things like, “Allied Works is still an atelier...” 

Have you heard anyone use that word lately? 

It’s a french 17th century term for a workshop used by an artist and here he is at work...

brewery blocks

Brewery blocks c.1864- 2012  acrylic on canvas 11x 14"


This is a view of the Blitz-Weinhard Brewery which is in the Pearl District.  This Brewery operated from1864 -1999 and was renovated during the reconstruction and birth of the Pearl District.  This simple brick building used to have a major presence on Burnside because of its size.  Now surrounded by taller geometric glass, steel, and concrete towers, the entire character of the building has shifted for me.  I have fallen in love with the warm red bricks, the eccentric petite smoke stack, and the clumsy double-hung windows.

Heros of Beauty and Light

Young Woman with a Water Pitcher c. 1664-1665 Oil on Canvas 18x16"
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
JOHANNES VERMEER
 
This painting is from a book that is on my wish list called VERMEER The Complete Works by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr.  .....Many of Vermeers works were of woman posed near a window with the light falling in on them and are described by Mr. Wheelock as depicting a quiet moment of contemplation - when one gazes outward but looks within, a window into an individual's spiritual nature.  Ahhh what a truly extraordinary idea in today's 20th century blur of rush, rush, rush....His work is like a breath of fresh air to me.  The colors and the detail are amazing. He is one of my heros. 

a christmas carol.

a christmas carol.

14x44 oil on canvas 

In December ring

    Every day the chimes;

    Loud the gleemen sing

In the streets their merry rhymes.

        Let us by the fire 

        Ever higher

Sing them till the night expire.

    Shepherds at the grange,

    Where the Babe was born,

    Sang, with many a change,

Christmas carols until morn.

        Let us by the fire

        Ever higher

Sing them till the night expire!

    These good people sang

    Songs devout and sweet;

    While the rafters rang,

There they stood with freezing feet.

        Let us by the fire 

        Ever higher

Sing them till the night expire.

.....A CHRISTMAS CAROL. by Henry W. Longfellow

humility

9"x11" acrylic on canvas

"The masters' works I look upon,
And I can see what they have done:
When looking upon this or that by me,
What I should have done is what I see." (1815)


"Seh ich die Werke der Meister an, 
So seh ich das, was sie getan:
Betrachtich meine Siebensachen,
Seh ich, wa ich hatt sollen machen." 


by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe


Ughhh......there are so many things I still need to learn. It seems like  every small step forward is accompanied by 5 more new things I would like to do better next time.  This painting was done several months ago and I can already see that I am now seeing it in a new way and that if I painted it again it would look different.  Eventually, I want to add a lot more content to my work. Right now, they are mainly about capturing a 'mood', a place, and a time of day.

the requiem

Here is the finished version of 'black friday'. I definitely like the finished surface of this board that is also good with watercolors as a medium.  This is the first time I have painted something that is sad. My in-house critics were not so excited about that.  However, I like the quietness and retrospection here. I think the dark colors and blue-green carpet lends to the somber mood. I am really drawn to the light coming from behind the girl's head and spilling down under the table and over the floor.  For me this and her simple white nightgown represents something spiritual.


I wonder if others see this in the same way?