Tag: Ideas & Perception

  • Playa, September 17, 2013

    Sept 17, Tuesday I had an exciting morning. Went out with Rachel at 6:30 A.M. — this meant getting up at 5:30 because I’m a nervous nelly –  and I needed to heat up a cup of coffee so I could pretend to be human. We walked up to the bone yard, where Pepper looked…

  • Playa: September 15 & 16, 2013

    Sunday morning, Sept. 15 I am outside on the Commons deck, where the lawn and ponds and playa are quite beautiful and the laptop is almost readable in the sun. It’s only 11 AM but I’ve already worked on a large painting on-site up by cabin 1. Cabin 1 from the front. The back looks…

  • Dateline: Mitchell, Oregon, Sept. 15, Day 10

    I am aweary this evening. But I tromped again today to the back of the outback and did another medium sized painting (18 x 24).  I also worked some more on yesterday’s painting from that same spot. So here is the photo of the space I concentrated on today: And here’s the 18 x 24″…

  • Dateline: Mitchell, Oregon, Day 5, Sept 10, 2011

    We zoomed out to Picture Gorge extra early today, hoping to catch the shadows and avoid the heat. We were carrying the large canvases in the carrier Neighbor Jim made for me; the carrier protects the car from oil paint, and me from sorrowful looks by Jer, who loves his 1994 Honda and can’t bear…

  • Dateline: Mitchell Oregon, Sept. 7, Day 2

    The Painted Hills, 10 miles from Mitchell, Oregon, are basically unpaintable — or perhaps they have painted themselves so well, it’s foolish to emulate. I did produce a series trying to show the power that they embody (shown in this post on paintings from the John Day Fossil Beds), but I had to lean out…

  • The John Day Fossil Beds, Further Explorations

    In 2006, I spent a month at the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument. At the time I was a long-time textile artist but a newbie painter.  My intent was to do studies in oils and watercolor and then transform these into textile art when I returned home. It was an exciting adventure, providing an…

  • 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,…

  • Thomas Hart Benton: Vertical Composition, Energy Fields, and Space through Size

    Thomas Hart Benton  seems to hold one or more of the keys to my attempts to consciously understand my own painting processes. Thomas Hart Benton, Boomtown, 1927 –1928* As I noted here and here, I am concerned to find that sweet spot, the riparian zone of visual art, where space becomes place, but is not…