Winter Hawaii paintings

Since it's December, what better time to post a few new Hawaii paintings and dream of beaches and palm trees. I'm planning on moving to the Big Island of Hawaii in 2015 so pulled out a few of my photos to work from. I was also the demo artist at a recent Evergreen Association of Fine Arts gallery reception, and of course, for the second time in a year, forgot my brushes. So, I had to resort to my palette knife which turned out to work great for bright beach scenes. I've often done palette knife paintings in the past so about time to refresh my technique. Here are the results after a few touchups back home. I've also included small palm tree work done with brushes, just for variety. You can really see the texture in the two palette knife works. 

The top two are 8x10, the palm tree is 5x7. 

New Plein Air Work

I have been busy painting and working for my art groups so haven't posted as regularly as I want. Here are some new summer works from  the last few outdoor painting sessions. These are all 8x10 as I am moving up in size for outdoor work after last years mainly 6x8 and 5x7 work.

 

Tolt River Plein Air

Here are two works, from the same location. The bigger one, 10x20, I did in my studio from images I'd taken last year at the Tolt River. The smaller work, 8x10, I painted on site Tuesday at the location. When I work on site, and the smaller I work, the looser and more pleasing my style is to me. I've also tossed in a small, 3x5 sketch of the Snoqualmie Railroad Days fair.

New Plein Air Work

Continuing my outdoor painting on Tuesdays with our Evergreen Association of Fine Arts group. 

This work is an 8x10 created at Marymoor Park, in Redmond, Washington and is 8x10. 

The next work is a 16x20 done from reference photos taken at Olallie State Park where the Green River meanders through. 

  

Latest Plein Air Paintings

We've had some decent weather for outdoor painting lately. A little fog last week at Edmonds though that surprised us as it was sunny all around except at the ferry terminal where the cold water caused the fog.

Here are a couple of paintings from my first visit to Olallie State Park. The Snoqualmie River flows through the park and the rocks in the water have iron ore or some other reason for an orange tint which works great against the background of green trees. I exaggerated the color of the water but didn't think you'd know unless you were there. LOL. I also painted a double waterfall a little further into the park. That one is 16x20 while the two painted on site are 8x10. 

       

Plein Air Paintings

It's been a busy spring with my EAFA President's duties and managing the local racewalk competitions. Outdoor painting started with our EAFA (Evergreen Assoc. of Fine Arts) group on Tuesdays but seems that's always the cloudiest day of the week so light is a little too even versus the shadows we like to spice up our paintings. Here are the works I've done so far at a few local places. These are all 8x10 as I'm working a little larger this season, versus the 6x8 and 5x7's I did last season. 

At the top is the Snoqualmie Railroad Station, which still has an active tourist run of a few miles to North Bend and back.  

Below is a waterfall at the Bellevue Botanical Gardens.

The next two below are from the Bassetti Gardens in Woodinville.

This last one is from Gasworks Park in Seattle, looking west toward the I-99 Bridge.  

  

Large painting in Abstract Show

Here I am in front of my large "grid" abstract in the Evergreen Association of Fine Arts juried abstract exhibit, at the Seattle Design Center. Show will run for two months starting March 3rd. I had two smaller works juried into the show but this wall is the executive wall for the group's board members. It's a perk for all the hours of work we put into making the group a success. This work is the largest in the current show at 4' by 5' and barely fit into my car. I should have a new luggage rack by the time I need to take the painting home (unless someone buys it in the meantime) so trip home should be easier.  

Cold and Hot

Here are a few small recent paintings. One is a Northwest snow mountain scene. In contrast, I've added a couple of warm Caribbean scenes from a recent cruise. Must be an 80 degree temperature difference shown. 

The Caribbean trip was great but not as many scenic spots this time around, so fewer works will result. The ship is the Eurodam, from Holland America, as seen from Half Moon Cay beach. The other is the beach itself from across the bay.  

    

New grid abstract painting

I've been busy with my EAFA art group duties as president but did complete a 4 foot by 5 foot work shown below. A photo doesn't do it justice as it looks like a pixelated image that needs better resolution. This was an old painting that was part of a group painting project for fun, and had various colored abstract shapes all over it. Rather than throw it out or just gesso over it, I decided to repurpose it and reuse it. 

I had done some grid projects in the past so I divided the canvas into 1 inch squares, 2880 of them, and then filled in many squares but left the underlying textures, and some underlying colors, and also the black and white pencil lines of the grids. The squares filled in are not perfect as they look in this small image but rather have a "rough" feel to them that adds variety to the surface as the colors underneath often show through. It must be seen in person to be appreciated and I hope to show it at the Seattle Design Center abstract show starting in late February. Will post details at that time.  

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