Category: City-Scapes

  • PSF Residency: Post #4

    These posts come slow and slower. I hope not to have to record slowest. I spent one day down on the res last week. I did one plein air painting. The temperature hovered at about 44 degrees, but the sun mostly shone. In that plein air day, I began the study of the buildings that…

  • PSF Residency: Post #3

    I didn’t get back to the Portland Store Fixtures studio until Friday of the second week of this residency. I have excuses, not real good ones, but hey — it’s January and the street-ponds have risen. However, I did work in my warm studio at home, continuing with the painting that started me searching for…

  • Benton, Pollock, and, um, Underwood

    As I explored in previous posts (here, here, and here), I’m continuing my quest for compositional methods and ways of seeing that can give me a framework for my mostly intuitive working. Thomas Hart Benton and scholars discussing his work have dissected his use of vertical spirals, collage-like murals, and falling-into-your-lap figuration. Thomas Hart Benton,…

  • Wonky PDX Cityscapes — a Review by Sam Underwood

    [Ed. note: The following are the images from and a commentary about the wonky cityscapes exhibit shown at the Full Circle Gallery, May, 2011. Sam Underwood is a Portland-born, long-time observer of the city as well as an intelligent observer of paintings. Disclaimer: he’s also related to me. The paintings have been grouped by the…

  • Wonky-Scapes, a truncated history

    I was prevented from hanging my upcoming exhibit Wednesday afternoon by construction issues, so I decided my spare time could be spent rummaging around in my brain, thinking about how I got to doing wonky plein air and studio city-scapes. The exhibit is Wonky PDX: City-Scapes by Yours Truly, showing at the Full Circle Gallery,…