Coos Art Museum 25th Annual Maritime Show

It seems that the past few years, when I have been included in this exhibition, I have left late in the evening for the coast and been lucky enough to have found one of my favorite campsites unoccupied; this time was no exception and I pulled into the hidden little spot not far from the highway, about 1:30 AM.  I prefer a late night start to getting up early the next morning to get on the road … those early morning starts never seem to be that early; or perhaps they are, if you consider my late night as an extremely early morning!  I spent the next day and night there, before heading on down to Coos Bay on Friday, 13^th of July for the Artists Private View that evening.  It’s always nice to see friends and acquaintances during this weekend, and meeting new people as well.  Here follows my entry to the show, and is available for sale through the Coos Art Museum (See bottom of page for details).

 C1610

“A Light in the Storm”

(Destruction Island Light, Washington Coast)

Oil on Centurion Oil Primed Linen Panel

12” x 24”

(Close-up Detail)

The Saturday was the actual private view, complete amazing buffet, which is always a highlight being accepted into the show for me.  This was preceded by a ride around the bay on a tugboat for sixteen of the artists, myself included.  The exhibition continues until September 29^th of this year, and I highly recommend that you stop to see it if you are down on the South/Central Oregon Coast before then.

I remained down in the area for the next month, catching up on blog posts (which you now should have been notified about … see last post), and doing paperwork, with only a little bit of reconnaissance, but I looked at the sea a lot in spite of the paperwork drudgery.  The only thing about that coast at that time of the year is the continuous chill northerly wind, and this year it was especially vicious, before slackening off somewhat before I left.  However, I preferred the coolness of the coolness of the coast to the sweltering heat of the rest of Oregon, and which I am now suffering, now that I am back in the Willamette Valley. 

And to remind you again, as I stated in my last posting, I have a couple of commissions to be getting on with, and whatever I can get finished for some Miniature Shows coming up in the Autumn, so I may not have much to be posting for awhile.  You do have nine posts, to be getting on with, that you should now have been notified about, and of course, I know you will be dying to read every word and study every photograph in detail … hell, I would!

Until next time …

Coos Art Museum, 235 Anderson Avenue, Coos Bay, OR   541-267-3901

www.coosart.org/maritime-2018/

Coos Art Museum Maritime Show soon …

… and the commission I’ve been working on so long is finished and will be shipped next week.  I finished the first painting on February 15^th and the second on the 4^th of May, and I’ve been playing catch-up ever since.  No … you can’t see the finished works since part of the contract is no publicity.  The worst thing is that I am paid in British pounds sterling and the pound has been falling in relation to the dollar, thanks to the possibility of Britain exiting Europe. 

I had hoped to finish them a week or two earlier, so I could do a couple of Seascapes to meet the submission deadline for the Coos Art Museum Maritime show, but that was not to be, so I submitted a couple of small Oils done on-site last October (as seen below), and they were accepted into this year’s show.

The Exhibition is open to the general public from July 10, 2016 – September 24, 2016, at the Coos Art Museum, 235 Anderson Avenue Coos Bay, Oregon 97420; Phone: 541-267-3901.

C1605

"Blown before the Storm"

(China Creek, Bandon, Oregon Coast)

Oil Sketch on Centurian Oil Primed Linen Panel

5" x 7"

C1605

"Heavy Seas at Elephant Island

with the Cat and Kittens Beyond"

(Bandon, Oregon Coast)

Oil Sketch on Centurian Oil Primed Linen Panel

5" x 7"

Sold during Exhibition

The first one you have seen before, in a post last Autumn.  I was going to post the second one as well, but I kept looking at it and finally put a few finishing touches on it only in the Spring, so I had it on hand when the submission deadline loomed.  I’m looking forward to the opening weekend in 3 weeks, or so … I need a beer; I haven’t had one since the Artists’ get together, at the Mexican Restaurant & over the road from the Museum, last year!  Maybe I’ll push the boat out and have two this year!!

Early Morning in the Coast Range

(Take Note: for those of you who have signed up to be notified by email of new postings to this blog, you have been receiving not just a notification, but an actual copy of the new blog posting as the email.  As this does not show the images of the paintings in the best possible light, you should click on the title of the latest blog posting at the top of the post, and not the title of the painting itself; this will open up the actual blog itself, and you may then enjoy the paintings at their best.)

C1596

"Early Morning in the Coast Range"

(Oregon)

Oil on Raymar Portrait Quality Linen Panel

6" x 8"

Click here to make this your Own

And the mists gathered in the valleys and folds of the Oregon Coast Range and rolled over the high ridges as the sun arose in the northeast.  Another beautiful morning and I stayed put and worked on this painting on the 4^th of July, attempting to capture the feel of what I had seen for two consecutive mornings.  There were elk feeding in the valley immediately below, although to see them I had to walk past the stump on the left in this painting and look over the edge; I doubt they remained there during the day … wouldn't know ... I was busy painting. 

The fireworks I had seen on the evening of the 3^rd were observed in the saddle of the far ridge.  I was surprised by another display the evening of the 4^th, when they appeared to the left of the left-hand hill of the far ridge saddle.  I found out later in the week, when I attended the private view of the Coos Art Museum Maritime Show, that one evening the fireworks were at the casino and the other evening on the harbour front at Coos Bay.  Again, being nine or ten miles away, they were perfect through my binoculars, after a fine leisurely meal and interspersed with watching Venus & Jupiter sliding into the west and the Moon rising in the east.

You might think that in this painting I may have used a split palette as mentioned in the previous post of the Evening in the Coast Range, but no … it is my usual palette of earth pigments and the blues; it shows what can be done with coloured muds.  Of course the foxgloves and yellow flowers are dabbed in with the brighter pigments (W& N Cobalt Violet, Rose Madder Genuine, Cadmium Yellow Pale), but since they are incidentals to the main body of the painting, I don’t list them in my pigments information below.  Incidentally, even though I posted the Evening in the Coast Range before this painting, I actually did that one a day later … It took awhile for my signature to dry on this one before I could scan it. 

Imprimatura: Venetian Red, over the whole surface, not only where the ground is as I did in the last posted work.

The Pigments used were:  Rublev Blue Ridge Yellow Ochre, Italian Burnt Sienna, with Winsor & Newton Cobalt, Cerulean & French Ultramarine Blues, Venetian Red, and Cremnitz & Titanium Whites.

Evening in the Coast Range

(Take Note: for those of you who have signed up to be notified by email of new postings to this blog, you have been receiving not just a notification, but an actual copy of the new blog posting as the email.  As this does not show the images of the paintings in the best possible light, you should click on the title of the latest blog posting at the top of the post, and not the title of the painting itself; this will open up the actual blog itself, and you may then enjoy the paintings at their best.)

C1597

"Evening in the Coast Range"

(Oregon)

Oil on RayMar Portrait Quality Linen Panel

6" x 8"

Click here to make this your Own

At the beginning of July I downed tools on the two large commissioned Oils I’ve been working on and headed down to the coast to deliver the three paintings that are included in the Coos Art Museum 22^nd Annual Maritime Show (here).  I usually camp on private property outside of Bandon, 25 miles further on than is Coos Bay, but as I approached Coos Bay, I decided there was no point in going further, just to retrace my steps in the morning to make my delivery; thus I headed up into the Coast Range and found a likely spot a few miles in.  After supper I enjoyed the Sunset, and later in the gloaming I watched Venus and Jupiter sinking into the west, while the full Moon rose to my left in the east, and a few bats flitted about enjoying their insectoid suppers.  I had been much taken by the evening colours as the sun fell through the trees and especially after it had set, so I thought I might delay my week of painting on the Bandon Coast, and return up here in the Coast Range to paint after I delivered the paintings to the Coos Art Museum.  Watching the mist rising in the valleys in the morning confirmed my decision.

I drove a roundabout route to the Museum, via Silver & Golden Falls State Park, as I had never been there before, although I had thought about it from time to time; well worth it, even though one has to walk further these days to view the two falls, since one must park much further away nowadays.  Silver & Golden Falls are not easily photographed, but I managed to get enough working shots, for future reference.  The views I would most like to paint are also footpath blocking spaces, so I will have to work from photos for these at some point; there would be several places to paint sections of the base of the falls, and maybe I will sometime.  I had to do some desperate bushwhacking scrambles around Golden Falls to get some of views I photographed, but that is many times de rigueur in my game, both for taking reference photos and for painting.  There will come a time when I will not be able to do this … but not yet.

After dropping off the works, in Coos Bay (the town), I drove back north through North Bend (not Bend across the Cascades in the High Desert 200 miles distant), and across Coos Bay (the water) over the big bridge, turned right onto North Bay Road, and before again turning right and heading back on the forest roads into the mountains, I stopped to take a few photos of North Bay in the late afternoon light; North Bay is an arm of Coos Bay.  I enjoyed another evening similar to the night before, but this time I got to see distant fireworks through a notch in the hills across the valley.  This was quite unexpected as it was only the 3^rd of July, but I enjoyed the display, and they were seen best through my binoculars, and heard a lot of their thunder, even though they were about 9 or 10 miles distant.  Of course I only saw those that were shot into the sky, but I always prefer those to any those that are at ground level anyway.

With this painting I used a split palette, painting the evening sky with the more modern and brighter colours and darkened ground vegetation with the earth palette I’ve been using most of this past year.  I also applied my imprimatura only to the lower half of the panel, thus reserving the white of the ground to reflect the brighter pigments used in the evening sky.

Imprimatura: Venetian Red.

The Pigments used in the sky were: Winsor & Newton Cerulean & Cobalt Blues, Cadmiums Yellow Pale, Orange, & Red, Rose Madder Genuine, Cremnitz and Titanium Whites, and a bit of Venetian Red to mix with Cobalt Blue for the subtle pale purply greys in the clouds.

And for the ground Rublev Blue Ridge Yellow Ochre, Italian Burnt Sienna, with Winsor & Newton Cobalt & French Ultramarine Blues, Venetian Red, and Cremnitz White were the usual suspects.

The Beginning

Hello, and welcome to my new Blog, “Not Quite a Painting a Day.”  I suppose one should begin at ‘The Beginning,’ and if one has read the essay under the tab above, “The Journey,” one might very well take that to be ‘The Beginning;’ or was ‘The Beginning’ really the earliest of those extended sketching journeys near the start of my Art career; or was it when one of my earliest Watercolour won a 2^nd Place Ribbon at the Tri-State Fair at age seven?  Perhaps it was the sunrise seen at age five that inspired that early Watercolour; or maybe it goes back to one of my earliest outdoor memories of sunlight sparkling on the water at a picnic at age two or so?  It might be said that all Beginnings on the thread of life are one Beginning.  Philosophical musings aside, this is the first posting on my first Blog, therefore let us consider this as the beginning; at least of this new Journey.  And so again I bid you welcome.

At present I am on the south-central coast of Oregon and attended the opening of the “21^st Maritime Art Exhibition,” at the Coos Art Museum in Coos Bay last weekend, and in which I had two small and highly detailed Watercolours.  These were painted several years ago, before this present Journey had begun, and I had them available for submission to the show.  They represent my labor-intensive studio Watercolours, and not the Oil Sketches & Studies that will be mostly presented on this Odyssey.  They are presented below.

C1328

“Day’s End on Indian Beach”

(Ecola State Park, Oregon Coast)

Watercolour

3” x 9”

C1349

“Blustery Afternoon at Shore Acres with Simpson Reef Beyond”

(Shore Acres State Park, Oregon Coast)

Watercolour

5½” x 11”

I will be camping on private land in the Bandon area for the next few days, courtesy of friends of mine, and will be painting the coast hereabouts before moving on and painting further south along the Oregon Coast.  While here I hope to finalize the coordination between this Blog and Daily Paintworks, and should have the first of my Oil Sketches up for sale on my next posting.  In the meantime I will leave you with one more image; this time of one of my small Oil Paintings, which is at the Rip Caswell Gallery in Troutdale, Oregon.  Please do come back and enjoy this Journey into the Wild.

C1545

“Spring Run-off”

(Lower Lewis Falls, Gifford Pinchot, National Forest, Washington Cascades)

Oil on Panel

5” x 10”

Cheers for now … and see you soon.