I’m back from two wonderful weeks in Oregon and Washington State. We were in Lincoln City, on the Oregon coast for 5 nights in a house that accommodated 16 members of John’s family, from ages 1 to 89! It was predictably very cold, windy, and sometimes foggy. But I did get some great beach photos one calm morning that I will be using in upcoming paintings. A highlight was a day spent painting with Margaret Bradburn, who lives in Medford, OR. She and her husband Larry came up and we painted all day. I found a place on the Salmon River that was more protected, but even so, there was a lot of wind, blowing over easels and making life difficult! I’m sharing these 3 plein air paintings with you, untouched since I did them and unsigned. I brought 2 small plastic boxes of pastels with me. Since I was working on Belgian mist, I began with a dry underpainting using hard pastels in blues, red violets, orangey browns and aquas. I had some Blue Earth blues for the sky and a whole box of Giraults for everything else. By starting out what was a pretty green landscape with no greens, I found I was able to focus on shapes and values and forget the color. Then I tried to be a little more realistic with the softer pastels. The second, horizontal painting has nothing but hard pastel in the sky and background. I rather liked the abstract shape and colors and decided to leave it. I began each painting with a dark blue hard pastel, identifying the darks and the flow of shapes and worked very quickly. Even so, our husbands showed up before I’d really had time to finish the second one and the third one was a challenge due to the increasing afternoon wind. In the third one, the upper right represents fog on a mountain and a white cloud; not sure this is very clear. After Oregon, we were in Washington State on our own, exploring the Olympic Penninsula along the Strait of Juan de Fuca, then spending 1.5 days in Seattle–one of my favorite cities. Chihuly Museum, Panama Hotel, and Smith tower were highlights. Now home in Maryland where it is remarkably cool and pleasant! Hope you are all enjoying your summer.
Salmon river #1, 9 x 12, Wallis Belgian mist
Approaching Fog, 9 x 12, Belgian Mist
Margaret Bradburn
Painting with Jean was a highlight for me! After buying her book, I emailed Jean with a question. She graciously responded and I then subscribed to her blog. I never expected to meet her. Observing Jean paint was a great learning experience. Successful artists say any color can be used in a painting as long as the values are correct. Jean demonstrated this in her three paintings. I’ve also gone back to using more hard pastel after seeing her results. I confess my paintings that day were disasters. That is why she is the teacher and I am a student! I came away with a warm feeling after spending the day talking and painting with Jean. I also feel more enthusiastic than ever about painting. Thank you Jean!
Margaret–your paintings were far from disasters–they were quite lovely. You were just paying more attention to reality than I was! I get bored with a lot of green and go for other colors. I don’t consider any of my paintings very good! But it was a lot of fun meeting you and painting together.