Over the Bearcamp Road.

C1685

“Evening Glow”

(Mount Bachelor, Elk Lake, Oregon Cascades)

Oil on Pannelli Telati fine Cotton  Panel

9” x 12”

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Back in 2009, at the end of May, I first encountered this view of Mount Bachelor from Elk Lake. I hoped and waited for an evening glow, such as this, but it turned out to be a relatively colorless and grey Sunset. Nevertheless, I made a Sepia wash drawing heightened with white on Turner’s blue-grey paper. Over the years, periodically looking at that drawing, in conjunction with the uninspiring photographs taken at the time, I finally decided to paint the evening I had hoped for, all those years ago … that is why, for me, painting is so much more enjoyable than photography. I get to create those moments, not only seen, but those hoped for. I did use the cloud formations, in the bland reference photos taken then, as a starting point, but the colour comes from years of experiencing evening skies, both through actual seeing and remembering, and of photos taken.

An aside here is that the above image looks perfect on my computer, is a bit too colorful on my tablet, and downright garish on my phone. So if you are thinking that you are looking at a caricature of an evening, I guarantee you that, although a colourful & bright painting, it is more natural than you might be looking at on whatever screen you have in front of you. This goes for any of the images of my paintings you might be viewing … past, present or future.

The Underdrawing 

Last July, after the opening weekend of the Coos Art Museum Maritime Show, I headed out for the Crater Lake area, to meet up with an old friend of mine that I had not seen since 1976. That was also the last time we had been in contact until sometime in 2018. The younger generation does not recall the days when it was so easy to lose track of people, especially in the transient bedsitter land of London in the 1970s, where phones were either public call-boxes or, if you were lucky, a payphone in the common hallway of the house your bedside was in.

I decided to take the small roads through the Coast Range. I'm not sure when the Coast Range becomes the Klamath Range, or for that matter, the Siskiyous, but I believe I touched on all three ranges. As I was dropping down towards the Rogue River crossing on Forest road 33, north of Agness, I spotted my second Oregon black bear. Only a little cub, and no I didn't stop to spot it's Mom. The other bear I spotted, in a similar situation, was back in 2010, also in southwestern Oregon. About a mile back up the road I had had a conversation with a guy, who was pushing his heavily loaded bicycle up the hill. He was going to camp soon. Hope the bears left him alone.

My plan was to cross the Rogue and climb up the Bearcamp Road (coincidentally aptly named) onto the ridge that it follows, and find a camp on one of the few logging side roads up there; which I did. I camped at 3340', thinking I was near the top, but I had over another thousand feet of altitude to go, before the descent began, the next day. For you British, that's like driving up over Ben Nevis.

Bearcamp Road was where that young family from the Bay area was stranded in the snow after Thanksgiving 2006 … it doesn't seem that long ago. In actual fact they took a logging road off the Bearcamp Road, the 34-8-36 road, and were stranded 22 winding miles down that.  The thing is, that if they had continued on the Bearcamp Road, instead of inadvertently following the logging road, would the snow rapidly increasing with altitude have caused them to turn around sooner than when they attempted it at the lower altitude they were at? Now having been on the Bearcamp Road in mid-Summer, it would be Hell in the snow. I kept imagining sliding off the road in the slippery snow, and disappearing down into the extremely steep sided ravines … that could happen in Summer if you did not pay full attention to your driving on that ‘single track with turnouts road’ that the Bearcamp Road is. For those of you not familiar with the story, after 9 days the mother and two young girls were rescued, but James Kim, who had left for help 2 days earlier was found dead, after walking 20 miles for help. A tragic, but very heroic, attempt to save his family.

Even though I will be updating about last year, I will also be mentioning this year. I am camping at present, where I was last year at this time. Spring was about a month early, back in the Yamhill Valley … the first bank of wild Daffodils were spotted on 9^th February, whereas in the previous several years, that same bank brought forth their Daffs on or about the 7^th of March. When I arrived out here in the wilds on April 1^st, it was colder than last year, and the vegetation didn't seem so far along … I arrived in camp in a driving snow, for the last 20 miles (although it wasn't sticking), at about 21:00 hours, and then it immediately stopped and the Moon came out … must've just been testing me.  Three days later it lightly snowed all day, but amounted to only a dusting, until at 19:00 a deposit of 2 inches was left in about ten minutes. The next day was a snowy magical morning; gone by midafternoon.

Pigments:

Imprimatura: Rublev’s Ercolano Red;

Drawing: Schminke’s Caput Mortuum;

Painting: W&N’s Cobalt & French Ultramarine Blues, Cadmiums Orange & Yellow Pale, and Cremnitz White; Gamblin’s Permanent Magenta; Rublev's Blue Ridge Yellow Ochre, French Red Ochre; M. Graham’s Cobalt Teal.

Morning Clouds

C1527

“Sky Study … Moon Setting just before the Sun Rises”

(Oregon Coast Range)

Oil Sketch on Ampersand Gesso Panel

5” x 7”

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Last November after leaving Bandon, Oregon where I’d been painting for a couple of weeks I drifted north and found a clearing in the National Forest up in the Coast Range, and a few miles inland from Cape Perpetua; here I spent a couple of days.  One morning I saw this wonderful pink cloudscape and put it down while it was fresh in my mind.  It’s always worth turning to the sky opposite from where the Sun I rising or setting; you may just see the Moon doing the opposite of the Sun, as well as catching some colour schemes not seen in any other way.  I have seen similar morning clouds before, both before and shortly after the sun rises, and these wonderful soft clouds fill the sky and seem to promise, and usually does, a fine day; this day was no exception.  This work is a Study and as such I could have left the forested mountains out, but I added them so that there would be an anchor to show where the clouds were in relation to the ground and to remind me that this was in the Oregon Coast Range and a few miles from the Sea; I didn’t actually have a view, but only glimpses of the mountains and the Sea through the grove of Red Alders. 

After I completed the study I explored the area, driving a few miles further inland down into the valleys searching for a couple of covered bridges; I found one, but there was nowhere to set up to paint it, nor to really take good photos, although I did take some average, informational ones.  The valleys were frosty and cold with frost building up thickly on the north facing slopes, while up at 2000 feet where I camped remained much warmer, even at night; camp at altitude, boys, and stay warm! 

I’ve always been good at painting my skies in Watercolour, but since I never liked working outdoors in that medium I never did a series of cloud studies, as Constable did throughout his life; with these small Oils I expect there to be more to come.  I reckon Constable would have taken photos for reference material as well as his small sky studies … yes, he would have … don’t argue!

Over the imprimatura of Venetian Red I used the following pigments, Cobalt Blue, Cadmium Red, Yellow Ochre & Titanium White (all by Winsor & Newton), as well as Caput Mortuum (by Schmincke), a lovely purply Earth Red. 

Into the Coast Range, Mark-II

C1547

“The Forest Clearing … Oregon Irises & Daisies”

(Oregon Coast Range)

Oil Painting on Sundalea Panel

with an additional Priming Coat of Rublev Lead White in Oil

5” x 7”

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In June the wild Oregon Irises were in their prime, and I determined to have them in a painting; not as a floral portrait, but as part of the landscape.  These Iris are and almost white lilac colour with a yellow center; quite nicely subtle.  I also wanted to paint the little forest clearing, in which I frequently camp on these long weekends away from town.  It is a young forest surrounding this clearing growing up after formerly being logged, perhaps 20 or 30 years ago.  There’s nothing particularly special about it, except that it is nicely secluded, just off a forest road, and if anyone else turns to come into it they can see my SUV 50 yards up into the, allowing them to reverse out with no difficulty, thus preserving my solitude; this is a plus come hunting season.  I chose a corner with taller grasses coming in, with a few of the Irises here and there, Manzanita shrubs to the right with their little urn-shaped flowers being worked over by the Bees, and the first Daisies opening out.  The week after, the Irises were pretty much gone and the Daisies which had been a myriad of little buds, had opened and become a myriad of blossoms; but that was in the future.  You can see that the young forest forms pretty much a wall which surrounds the clearing, impenetrable, save for the wild creatures which either live here or pass through.  Bambi and his Mom passed through early one morning, rabbits came out at dawn and dusk, and the resident chipmunk scolded me periodically; various birds visited throughout the day, including one Hummingbird that several times a day would buzz down and closely inspect the red of my truck’s tail lights before deciding that there would be no nectar found there!

I laid down and imprimatura with Winsor & Newton Burnt Sienna (Alkyd), so that it would set up quicker, and proceeded to block in the lights and shades with a mixture of W&N Ultramarine Blue, & a touch of Burnt Sienna (Alkyd).  I mixed a variety of greens from W&N Cerulean Blue & Cadmium Yellow & Cadmium Yellow Pale, and Ultramarine Blue in the place of the Cerulean for the darker more transparent greens, and went over the block-in with these greens.  You can see the tips of the Douglas Firs have the lightest, yellowest greens depicting the new growth.  With such a green painting it is essential to have a variety of mixed greens, and to add touches of earth reds here and there to keep all that green from overwhelming.  The Irises were mostly Cremnitz White with a touch of Indian Red.

The complete Palette is Cerulean & Ultramarine Blues, Burnt Sienna, Cadmium Yellow & Cadmium Yellow Pale, Cremnitz White (all W&N), and a little Roberson’s Indian Red; a very little W&N Cobalt Blue also got worked in.

Into the Coast Range

C1546

“The Trout Pool below the Beaver Dam”

(Oregon Coast Range)

Oil Painting on Centurion Oil Primed Panel

with an additional Priming Coat of Lead White in Oil by Rublev

7” x 5”

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Back in May of this year, I started getting out for long weekends into the Oregon Coast Range above McMinnville, taking a break from the long preparations for this Blog.  I had finally realized that the weekend hours at the Library were not long enough to do any meaningful work, and I wished I had realized this back in March; before that I was busy getting a new engine in my SUV & readying my accounts for the fiscal year’s end, as well as there was just too much snow up there on the forest roads that I like to frequent.  But it was refreshing to at last be out there and refresh my mind as to what this Odyssey is all about.

I came upon this scene in the Autumn of 2012, but this Springtime Idyll grabbed my attention at first sight this year, shouting “Paint me!”  It is an example of how I want to approach my more complete Oils; that is to be somewhere between the fine detail of my Studio Watercolours, and the looseness of my Oil Sketches, and that is why it is signed as I do my more complete work, as you are no doubt aware since you all have obviously clicked & read every tab of my Blog, especially in this case the “Stuff” tab.  

I laid down and imprimatura with Winsor & Newton Burnt Sienna (Alkyd), so that it would set up quicker, and proceeded to block in and draw the composition with a mixture of W&N Ultramarine Blue, & Rublev Italian Burnt Sienna.  Then I began on the colouring, again blocking in the big shapes of the sky, distant forest covered hills, trees, foreground water, etc. and then going over it all again refining the shapes and super-imposing the detail with finer brushes.  I mixed a variety of greens from W&N Ultramarine Blue and Rublev Blue Ridge Yellow Ochre for the darker greens (especially in the shadows of the tree on the left), W&N Cobalt Blue & the Yellow Ochre for the more subdued greens and Cerulean Blue and Cadmium Yellow Pale (both W&N) for the brighter greens found in the foreground.  The complete Palette is Rublev Blue Ridge Yellow Ochre &  Rublev Italian Burnt Sienna (both wonderful colour from Natural Pigments), Venetian Red, Cobalt, Ultramarine & Cerulean Blue (all W&N), W&N Cadmium Yellow Pale & Rublev Flemish Lead White. 

Throughout the painting sessions over two successive afternoons Trout were leaping for the occasional insect or now & again darting here and there; I watched a Bald Eagle come and go, and a Heron, as well as Dragonflies hunting, and listened to a few busy Bees working the flower nearby; only a few of the delights witnessed. Only one or two vehicles traversed the bridge I was lurking under while I painted away.