Heavy Seas

(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.)

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.

Ospreys in the Afternoon at Elbow Lake

(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.)

C1614

“Ospreys in the Afternoon”

(Elbow Lake, Oregon Coast)

Oil Sketch on Centurian Oil Primed Linen Panel

4" x 6"

All good things must come to an end, they say, and so after eleven nights at my Coast Range Campsite on the end of a spur ridge above an old clear-cut, and thus having a view, and with the clear-cut itself on the slopes below my ridge, so as not to be truly noticeable other than allowing that view, I bid farewell to the creatures and flowers and trees with whom I had shared a home for that little while.  They were sad to see me go, I’m quite sure, as together we had shared pristine warm days and crystal cleared nights and mornings above a sea of fog; a thirty-six hour rain when afterwards the mists arose to blend with the low cloud arising in turn, and with the sun shafts breaking through to finally dissipate the last remnants in a golden end of day; and they had watched me draw and paint, no doubt with bated breath, as they waited to see how they turned out. 

But the time came to leave, and so I thanked them for sharing their space with me, as I slowly headed back along the spur ridge, and down into the valley of the West Fork of the Millicoma River.  I had studied my maps and it appeared that there was a back way through to the Drain/Reedsport road that would allow me to explore new territory.  Alas, t’was not to be, as about 11 miles up the river I came to a locked gate preventing any further progress.  So I retraced my steps, took a different road up and over the ridgeline road that I normally take to my campsite, proceeded down another road I had wondered about, which took me out to Hwy 101, further North; an alternate way in on future trips to this area.

I picked up a couple of necessary supplies in Reedsport, and then up and over the big hill north of there.  At the bottom of that hill Elbow Lake appears on the coastal side (left); the big multi-armed Lake Tahkenitch is hidden off to the east of the highway, and was seen from the top of the hill as I proceeded north from Reedsport.  On the way down 12 days before, I had noticed a hidden pull-in very nearby Elbow Lake.  I passed it by, turned around a bit further on, and approached it from the North and backed into it.  One could easily spend the night here, and few would notice, but it was really close and possibly buggy.  Strolling south to the lake taking photographs, I spotted a short lane down to the lakeside.  I retrieved the SUV and drove down there and discovered a small turnaround and space enough to camp.  After a short exploratory and photographic stroll I set up to paint. 

The purpose of this Oil Study originally was to paint looking into the light and catch the sun sparkles on the water.  But this is a good example of how these little Plein Aire paintings can progress during the course of the work.  While painting away, I noticed an Osprey land in a tree top across the lake, and later circling around to take up different vantage points from which to observe the water.  I dabbed him in landing on the tree in which I had first seen him land; there was a nest there at the top of the tree.  I also added him I flight nearby, and so this painting became not only a study of sun sparkles and light, but also a memory jogger that here there be Osprey(s).  The next morning during a breakfast lengthened by watching the Osprey, I discovered that there were indeed Ospreys, as I eventually realized there were three of them … probably a pair and their juvenile.  I took no photos of the Ospreys as they never were close enough to get a reasonable shot.

Imprimatura: None on this one.  I thought about a pale Yellow Ochre one, but since I was beginning this study in mid afternoon, I decided to forego the time it would take.

Drawing/Block-in: Cobalt Blue.

The Pigments used were:  M. Graham Hansa Yellow Pale; Winsor & Newton Cerulean, Cobalt and Ultramarine Deep Blues, Cremnitz & Titanium Whites; a very small amount of Rublev Blue Ridge Yellow Ochre.