Heavy Seas

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C1609

“Heavy Seas”

(Elephant Island with the Cat and Kittens beyond, Oregon Coast)

Oil Sketch on Raymar Triple Acrylic Primed Cotton Panel

8" x 16"

After I had finished breakfast and watched the Ospreys at Elbow Lake, I headed north up Hwy 101, fully intending to fit in another painting or two before returning to my main base of operations in McMinnville by the Sunday night, two days hence. However, in the end I spent that day driving slowly, stopping at every pond and small lake that I had always passed by over the many times I had passed by over the years.  I was looking for secluded woodland pools, perhaps with lily pads and fallen trees, notwithstanding the fact that they were all hard by the highway and therefore by definition not so secluded.  It was the idea, not the fact I was hunting.  And so I stopped many times, sometimes within a hundred yards from the previous stop.  There may be some that will be acceptable for a future work or two, but the main thing is that I now need not wonder about them in future as I drive past, and some do merit future stops to capture them in different lights and time of the year.  I also stopped into every National Forest and State Park Campground for future reference as well.  I don’t normally camp in these campgrounds, since they are too much like a camp-ground suburbia, especially in the Summer, but in the off-season, they can be fairly quiet and convenient.  This took all day from Elbow Lake to near Heceta Head Light, where I found my little secluded forest clearing safely empty, allowing me to spend the night. 

The next day just a few miles up the road, I approached Yachats, crossed the bridge at beginning to the town, and turned right onto a county road, drove several miles to find and explore a forest road I had spotted while studying the map at breakfast.  I think I was still a bit miffed that I hadn’t been able to complete the West Fork of the Millicoma River road drive I had tried two days before, and was looking for new forest road experiences.  I found the forest road, which wound steeply up the hill out of the river valley, and when it began to level out on the ridge I found myself in a delightful grove of Western Hemlocks for about a half a mile.  Here I had my lunch in a wide spot in the road.  After that several branching smaller forest roads were explored to see what presented themselves for future campsites.  It was a delightful exploration with several future possibilities marked on the map, and I eventually came out on the river road a short distance east of Waldport.  From here I continued north through Newport (stopping to take a shower at South Beach Campground), Lincoln City, on through Hebo and eventually turned right off Hwy 101 to take the Nestucca River Scenic Bi-way which 32 miles later brought me to an old and favoured campsite in the Coast Range above Yamhill, Carlton & McMinnville.  It was in good shape, and someone had cleaned up some of the rubbish that human pigs that purport to be outdoorsmen had left there in the past; sadly there are too many of those about I have found.  A year ago I had burned all the paper I had found there.  This year it appeared no one had been there all Summer, and there was a profusion of daisies in pristine shape.  It was here I had done a small Oil two years ago when the Oregon Iris’ were in bloom and when the daisies were just about come into their own (see here).  I spent the night and in the morning proceeded down to McMinnville and my dental appointment.

The above painting is one of those I had wanted to be ready for the Coos Art Museum Maritime Show, but I had no time to meet the submission deadline, so the small study of the subject was submitted instead (see here).  It will soon be in one of my galleries; I know where I intend it to go, but where I will actually go depends on what I finish for elsewhere in the next 10 days; I may need it elsewhere.

Imprimatura: Vasari Terra Rosa.

Drawing/Block-in: Vasari Terra Rosa & W&N Ultramarine Blue Deep.

The Pigments used were:  Winsor & Newton Cerulean, Cobalt and Ultramarine Deep Blues, Cremnitz White; Rublev Blue Ridge Yellow Ochre, Italian Burnt Sienna, Lead white #2 & Flemish White; Vasari Terra Rosa; a tiny amount of mixed green using M. Graham Hansa Yellow Light for a bit of foliage on the cliff.