Tag: landscape views

  • Dateline: Mitchell, Oregon, Day 6, Sept 11, 2011

    Today Jer went to Paulina, Post, and Prineville, where he got milk and cereal and gas. I stayed at Hollyhock Cottage and worked on the three partly finished paintings. Here are the paintings, in the order of today’s workings: JOU, Basalt Formations at Picture Gorge, Sept 2011, 30 x 40″, oil on canvas JOU, The…

  • Dateline: Mitchell, OR, Picturing Picture Gorge, Sept 9, Day 4

    After I posted yesterday’s journal, I decided to work more on the paintings I had started earlier in the day. During the morning session, in addition to working further on the long narrow 12 x 24″ piece, I had hurriedly used up the paints on my palette  as Jer hiked up the trail toward me.…

  • Dateline: Mitchell, Oregon. Canoodling Conundrums on Day 3, Sept 8

    It was cloudy at 8 AM when we started off to the Painted Hills, an earlier day than yesterday. I was ready to finish off an already composed painting. The early start and muted sun turned out to be advantageous for capturing the color of the Hills. And the skies, full of clouds and Moran-like…

  • 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…

  • Paintings from the Sandgren Workshop

    [Ed. note: this is a re-posting from the southeastmain blog] By june I’m finally ready to post the paintings from the Sandgren Workshop, not because they are fascinating and wonderful, but because, well, because it’s time. I did six paintings in three days, and then I reworked them in the studio. Five of the paintings…

  • 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…

  • 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…

  • A Breakthrough — Murals, Collages, and My Art

    “Murals are nothing more than Big Collages with a bit of history/story tossed in.” That’s what entered my brain this afternoon. That’s my insight for the day (week, month, year?). Hence, Thomas Hart Benton: Thomas Hart Benton, City Activities with Subway, 1930, from his  mural at the New School for Social Research, now in the…