Tollgate Farm Cow
9" x 12", acrylic on board

This was done on top of an older, unsuccessful painting so it had quite a lot of texture already built up.
I've been meaning to try working with cows. I like their bony structures and heavy masses.

This was difficult to photograph with the surface reflection and the green pigment. I can't seem to get the colors to show accurately- they aren't as saturated as this implies, and leans more yellow than it really looks.

Indiana Farmhouse

 

Indiana Farmhouse
12" x 16", acrylic on board

My friend Nancy shared photos she took around her area and I was drawn to this shot- as was she. We both ended up painting it, and this is what I ended up with. It was done over an extremely bad painting on Masonite board from 10 years ago and I had since sanded the surface down.
I liked the simplicity of the composition and value masses. I also wanted to push myself to using more visual texture. This was a good start.

Snoqualmie River at Fall City

Snoqualmie River at Fall City
acrylic on board, 12" x 12"

   I dusted off my collection of oil paints from the 1970's, and spent a considerable amount of time prying lids off the tubes and cleaning up the threads and caps. Most of the tubes were not salvageable, especially the ones where the lids had popped off over time, but a few were still pliable after all these years. I'm baffled as to how the lids had come off, as they would have to be unscrewed. I have some suspicions of sabotage.

My first mistake was to set up inside to work from a digital photo taken at the river on the old IBM computer. After applying a thin wash over the board, the fumes from the "odorless" mineral spirits and lavender spike oil drove everyone out of the house.
After moving all my supplies outside to the covered porch, I returned to open windows and set up a box fan to clear out the fumes. Oops.
I continued working on it outside by using a small printout of the photo for reference.

Mistake Number 2: I picked up a couple more tubes of paint from a local inexpensive craft store. The low end paint had very little pigment, and excess oil, making it very difficult to mix successfully with the older but better quality paint.

The oils have more resonance - for lack of a better term. The seem richer and deeper in color than the acrylics. If the solvents weren't so overwhelming, I would switch to using this medium in a heartbeat. But for now, I will have to limit them to outside only. Or try using them without any thinners.

Raging River Bridge No.1008E, version 4

Raging River Bridge No. 1008E, version 4.
Acrylic on canvas. 16" x 20".
(sold)

I thought this was not finished, but I needed to hand it over to fill a space on a wall for a while and hoped to return to it later and make some adjustments.That never happened.

A winter view of the bridge, standing upstream on the southeast bank, with the bridge framed by moss covered maples and a western red cedar. The river is running fast and full, with most of the interesting rocks submerged.
I was interested in working with the different textures, and getting more practice on trees. The trees are still not coming across to me. They all feel stiff, awkward and a little cartoonish, so its clear I am still not interpreting the forms correctly.

When I cover the stand of maples on the left, I like the painting better. The perspective and sense of depth improves. The problem may be that the mossy maples are the same color and intensity as the trees further back, which flattens the visual plane.
So either the distant trees need to be adjusted by toning down the contrast and intensity, or the maples in front need to be changed. Maybe shifting to a more blue-based green relating to the sword ferns would pull them forward more.

Raging River Bridge No.1008E, version 3

Raging River Bridge No. 1008E, version 3.
Acrylic on canvas. 16" x 20".

Another view of the bridge, standing downstream on the north west shore, looking up at the bridge with a lot of interesting reflections bouncing off the water, illuminating the underside of the bridge. To get this shot I had to slide down a steep clay hillside off the end of the bridge, and walk through a dry creek bed. Later I discovered I had been tramping on private property. Oops.

This time I tried drawing my guidelines on the canvas using a medium blue dry pastel, and this worked well. Any lines I didn't want were "erased" by brushing over them with a dry brush. The rest of the lines disappeared as I applied thin washes of paint.

I thought my focus would continue to be the trees, but the reflections bouncing all over were too enticing.
I will probably fiddle with this a bit more after I step away from it for a while. There are areas I think are weak and need to be resolved- some of the reflections around the large boulders aren't reading correctly to me; some of the boulders need to be tweeked and the stand of alders in the distance are disappointing.  They are just too vague.

Raging River Bridge No.1008E, version 2

Raging River Bridge No. 1008E, version 2.
Acrylic on canvas. 11" x 14".

Another view of the bridge, standing on the south upstream side, down on the river bed. The water level is very low this time of year, exposing rocks. Some of the rocks were clearly cut and set in place, others are naturally occurring, worn smooth from the action of the water.

On this painting I made a point of putting away all the smaller detail brushes I normally reach for, and started with relatively large, coarse brushes. I had a couple objectives. I want to improve my skill rendering trees and foliage in a more convincing manner, and push to work "looser", making use of directional brush strokes.

While the photo I took looked fine, I found this a difficult composition to work with. The centered bridge immediately dominated the canvas. At one point I had a lot of detail on the bridge mass, but found that created a discord with the rest of the image. It did not make sense to have extreme detail on an object further back. In the end I scrubbed most of it out and let it go soft focus again. I'm afraid I ended up overworking everything, and it lost some spontaneity.

I am pleased with the handling of the trees and foliage. These are looking softer and more impressionistic than previous attempts.
I'm dissapointed with how I handled the rocks in the foreground, but at a loss at what to change.

Raging River Bridge No.1008E

Raging River Bridge No. 1008E
Acrylic on canvas. 11" x 14".

This bridge is about a mile and a half down the road from my place. I stopped by the other day and toured around it with my camera. Ended up becoming obsessed with the bridge and had to paint it.

The bridge was completed in 1915 on was was then called the Sunset Highway, the road from Seattle over Snoqualmie Pass and all points east. It was also referred to as "the Yellowstone Trail" by early promoters in the area, although following the road east did not directly end up at Yellowstone.
Years later this two lane circuitous road to the pass was replaced by a straighter route a few miles to the south; interstate 90 in use today.

After 1940, this section of the former Sunset Highway became a local access road between two small towns. The road was straightened at some point, leaving the old bridge marooned on what became a side road which dead ends shortly after the bridge. A road and bridge to nowhere.
It doesn't look like much from the road bed, but has a very elegant early art-deco look from the side, standing below by the river.