Over the Bearcamp Road.

C1685

“Evening Glow”

(Mount Bachelor, Elk Lake, Oregon Cascades)

Oil on Pannelli Telati fine Cotton  Panel

9” x 12”

Click here to make this your Own

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.

“All Trees are Heroes.”

C1687

“Ode to an Ancient”

(Rogue River-Siskiyou National Forest, Oregon)

Oil Painting on Pannelli Telati fine Cotton Panel

6” x 8”

Click here to make this your Own

I thought about calling this painting “Ode to an Ancient Hero.” I have referred to trees as heros, before, and they are. They offer a place to rest in the shade from Summer Suns, and provide fuel to keep us warm in the cool of the night ... and Winter. They provide the means to build shelter from the storm, and a home in which to reside, and keep ourselves and our belongings safe from those wild things that would do us harm. Trees provide oxygen, and thus we breathe. Many give us sustenance, both for our bodies and aesthetically for our minds ... trees are beautiful ... in short ... trees are Heroes. 

The Drawing

The Block-in

This Ancient Hero is at the place I camped last July, 17 miles down the road from the south entrance to Crater Lake National Park. I was aware of this old stump, mouldering away on the forest floor, as I gradually become familiar with so many things in each of my camps, especially the longer I spend in any one of them. Because of the advanced state of decay, I do not know for sure whether it was a natural fall, or a victim of the logger's saw. I suspect the latter, as there did not seem to be the remnants of the fallen log. I was aware of it, but it was not until this late afternoon shaft of light threw it into high relief, from the darkened forest beyond. I took many reference photos,  and began what I thought would be a sketch, but somewhere in the process, it became, what I would call, a studio painting ... but done outdoors. Sometimes the painting just takes over from your original intent.

And this led to me concentrating on a few studio paintings, including a commission, worked on throughout the Summer and Autumn, and why my blog postings have been sadly lacking. I am continuing work on this type of painting this year, but I hope to more regularly post to the old blog. Blog ... blog ... what a funny word ... where did it come from? ... ‘Oo do Oi get in touch wiv, mate? ... I expect I could find out if I was really desperate. I digress. My intentions for the forthcoming few postings are to fill you in a bit on my travels, since July. Not a blow by blow account as per my year long 2017/2018 Minnesota to Oregon journey, but more on thoughts and observations made while ‘out there.’  I didn't travel all that much, since the order of the day was to get ensconced into a secluded camp and paint away. I did, however, get as far south as Lake Tahoe, and spent a concentrated 40 hours on photo-recon. Beautiful colours, especially Emerald Bay, although not as astonishing as Crater Lake's amazing deep blue.

And as I write, I am ‘out there' ... in the Oregon High Desert, practicing social distancing by about 40 miles! I am tucked into the edge of the Ponderosa Pines, and looking out over miles of Sagebrush & Antelope Bitterbrush, and as usual ... drinking in Nature. Last night's full Moon was so large and so bright that Some colours were actually, although dimly, discernible ... very grey green of the Ponderosa needles, and many of their trunks showed distinctly reddish.

I will forego the comprehensive list of pigments used in the above painting, this time, other than to say the usual suspects. I will mention that the greens are mixed greens. I do have green pigments, but I’ve  almost never use them, in Oil, and only occasionally in Watercolour.

Having said that, I did use Schmincke Green Earth a lot in my Watercolour landscapes for my brighter foliage greens. Michael Wilcox, in his book on Watercolour Pigments, says of most of the Green Earth pigments, but especially Schmincke's, that it's gummy and nasty to work with, and all but impossible to lay a wash with. For me that was a plus, as wetting the foliage area first with water, and floating the colour in left a mottled area of colour, much like the foliage textures I was after ... upon this one could build.

Since I'm out in the Wilds, apologies for how this post, and any that follow, might look while using my phone to make these posts.

Ponderosa Evening.

C1684

“Ponderosa Evening”

(Oregon High Desert)

Oil on Pannelli Telati Canvas  Panel

9” x 12”

Click here to make this Your Own

The 4^th of July was a quite magical day for me, perched as I was, high on the slopes of a mountainside south of Lake Timothy, Oregon Cascades, at 4400’ above sea level, and not a soul to disturb me the entire four days I was there. What made it magical was, that instead of fireworks, I had butterflies … all day … dozens of them flitting all about, and through my car, from one open door and out another, and setting about upon the car itself, sometimes a dozen, or more, on my door frame.  Pure magic!  And they were there the following two days as well, as soon as the Sun warmed them enough to come out from wherever they spent their nights … no doubt in some salubrious Butterfly Pub hidden from human eyes within the forest deeps. One even peed on me! I never knew they did that, having never witnessed that before. But as one was sitting on my sun visor, I happened to see it vibrate a bit and exude a fine spray of droplets onto my knee below. It soon evaporated to nothing. Not gross … a butterfly peeing on me is really the least of my worries. They seem to be mostly a type of Tortoiseshell and a few Painted Ladies … and there were Hummingbirds too!

There is less wildlife in evidence here in the deep forests of the Cascades, comparatively speaking to that which I observed out on the edge of the Ponderosa Pine Forests of the High Desert … I was out there again at the end of May and the first three weeks of June. One of the new dispersed campsites I found had as many as six or eight chipmunks in view at any one time, on occasion. Of course upon observing them with my book of North American Mammals in hand, I discovered that they were not all chipmunks. Some were Golden Mantled Ground Squirrels, which resemble a larger chipmunk, but have only two dark stripes on its back.  There was also another plainer ground squirrel, I did not identify. But the last few days there was only one chipmunk at a time, perhaps the same one, and a pair of Douglas Squirrels. A few Chickadees, a Raven and a couple of other birds (Varied Thrushes I think), were all I saw, again unlike out in the Ponderosas where I spotted many new ones, and there was always something flitting about. But it was good to be up there, these recent days, with the Rhododendrons in their prime as well as the Beargrass. In May out in the High Desert, the sagebrush was in its lovely silvery, with a hint of yellow, Spring greens, and the Antelope Bitterbrush (a type of Cliff Rose), was in bloom, as though a mist of Primrose Yellow coated the landscape (European Primroses, as I am not really familiar with the North American kind).

Beargrass

Close up

Edge of the Clearing where I was camped.

 

Antelope Bitterbrush

Closer ...

... Closer Still.

Pigments used in the painting:

Imprimatura: Rublev Italian Burnt Sienna;

Drawing: Rublev Italian Burnt Sienna;

Pigments: W&N Cobalt and Ultramarine Deep Blues, Cadmiums Orange & Yellow Pale;

Rublev: Blue Ridge Yellow Ochre, French Red Ochre, Italian Burnt Sienna, Lead White #1;

Schmincke: Caput Mortuum;

M. Graham: Cobalt Teal;

Michael Harding: Stack Lead White.

Evening Surf

C1683

“Evening Surf”

(Bandon, Oregon)

Oil on Pannelli Telati Canvas  Panel

6” x 8”

Click here to make this Your Own

Close up of the Painting.

Angled view showing the Red Oxide
on the edge of the floated panel
and lip of the frame.

This painting is being listed for sale through the Daily Paintworks site for one week only as if it remains unsold by the end of the auction, it will be going into a Gallery.  I am also offering it for sale as a framed piece. The painting is floated in its frame so as not to lose any part of it beneath the rabbet of the frame. Once it is floated onto its backing, there is no turning back and it must be sold framed.  I usually frame in a dark frame, as it brings out the colours in the work and makes them sing.

Pigments used in the painting:

Imprimatura: Rublev Italian Burnt Sienna;

Drawing: Rublev Italian Burnt Sienna;

Pigments: W&N Cobalt and Ultramarine Deep Blues, Cadmiums Orange & Yellow Pale, Permanent Rose;

Rublev: Blue Ridge Yellow Ochre, Lead White #1;

Schmincke: Caput Mortuum;

M. Graham: Cobalt Teal;

Michael Harding: Stack Lead White.

Misty Midnight Ride

C1681

“Misty Midnight Ride”

(Bandon, Oregon)

Oil on Pannelli Telati Canvas  Panel

6” x 8”

Click here to make this Your Own

Close up of the Painting.

Angled view showing the Red Oxide
on the edge of the floated panel
and lip of the frame.

This painting is being listed for sale through the Daily Paintworks site for one week only as if it remains unsold by the end of the auction, it will be going into a Gallery.  I am also offering it for sale as a framed piece. The painting is floated in its frame so as not to lose any part of it beneath the rabbet of the frame. Once it is floated onto its backing, there is no turning back and it must be sold framed.  I usually frame in a dark frame, as it brings out the colours in the work and makes them sing.

Pigments used in the painting:

Imprimatura: Rublev Italian Burnt Sienna;

Drawing: Rublev Italian Burnt Sienna;

Pigments: W&N Cobalt and Ultramarine Deep Blues, Cadmium Orange;

Rublev: Blue Ridge Yellow Ochre, Lead White #1;

Schmincke: Caput Mortuum;

Michael Harding: Stack Lead White.

Crap Winter.

Winter 2018 - 2019… and finally out into the Wilds at the end of March.

C1680

“Grazing through a Soft Rain

& Last of the Winter Snows Melting Away”

Oil Study on Centurion Oil Primed Panel

4” x 6”

Click here to make this Your Own

This past Winter was so annoying as I was stuck hanging around civilization for five (COUNT 'EM!) … five months, waiting on things that were out of my control to happen.  After the first four months I was ready to head out by mid-February, but then every few days the weather reports were of heavy snowfalls in the Cascades and Eastern Oregon.  So what, I thought you were a Winter guy?  I hear you enquire.  There is a difference between already being out in the Wilds, before the snows come, and gauging whether you should retreat or stay put, and coming into an already snowy High Desert, without knowing the state of the roads or the dispersed campsites.  And then I came down with the first cold/flu since I don’t know when … certainly before 2010 … it was bugger, as they say in Jolly Old …!

End of the Day from the western rim
of Hole in the Ground.

Evening light … Ponderosa Pines.

Anyway I finally got out to the Hole in the Ground area at the end of March, camping at the actual rim of the Hole, for a couple of days, and a mile back down the road for a few more.  I believe I have talked about Hole in the Ground before, so to just refresh your memory, it is a crater in the ground about half a mile across.  It is a volcanic maar, which is formed when basaltic magma rising close to the surface comes into contact with groundwater resulting in a steam or gas explosion.  They are shallow circular craters, that usually fill with water, but not these maars out here in the Fort Rock Valley, where there are to be found upwards of forty of them, so I am informed.  These may have had water once, but no more, although a small, shallow waterhole is to be found in Hole in the Ground. Big Hole and Fort Rock are two others.

The road to Hole in the Ground was icy in spots and the smaller roads were snow covered and probably impassible in many spots, so it was probably good that I hadn’t come out earlier.  Many of these roads were also closed for deer regeneration, until March 31^st as well.  My second camp was a bit rainy for several days, so I did the small work above while there.  Deer came grazing through every couple of days, so there was nothing for it but to dab them into the painting; look closely … there are seven of them.  The rains were soft and quiet, for the most part, only blustery for a couple of stretches, and after three or four days of this the icy patches on the roads were reduced to almost nothing.

Storm crossing Fort Rock.

Largest Western Juniper in Oregon …

… da Bark of da tree.

Wary on his stump.

I moved a few miles after this a few miles to past Cabin Lake (no lake … no more), and had views forty miles across the desert towards Winter Ridge, above Summer Lake, the Connley Hills (separating Christmas Valley and Silver Lake), and Hager Mountain, south beyond them, and subsequently thus beyond Silver Lake. Here I watched snow showers ripping across the desert for a couple of days, rarely getting hit myself, and then settled into another more secluded camp about a mile from that camp.  Here I remained for a goodly period, as some camper had constructed a solid picnic table out of split logs, and there was a convenient stump upon which to place my camp stove!  The Forest Service would not have built this table, especially in a dispersed campsite.  On a nearby tree was a memorial wreath … I am guessing those responsible for the wreath were also responsible for said table.

Nine years ago, at Easter-time, my alternator went out as I arrived at Derrick Cave, about 20 miles northeast of Fort Rock.  Lucky for me it was Easter Saturday, so there were a couple of cars there.  One of them gave me a jump and on the way back to Fort Rock, jump-started me three more times!  I had cell connection there and rang up AAA, and long story short, I was back out at Derrick Cave by the next afternoon with a new alternator.  This time was less eventful, and I had my headlamp and so made it down into the depths of the lava tube, that is the cave, to where there is ice; sometimes all Summer long.

The lava tube known as Derrick Cave.

Sand dunes on the way
to the Lost Forest.

I had toyed with the idea of making it out to the Lost Forest, another 30 miles east from there, back in 2010, but it was not until this trek that I made it.  Not so difficult to get there, but rocky rough roads once you’re in there. The Lost Forest is a Ponderosa Pine forest separated from any other Pondies by 40 miles, and endures the driest conditions of any Pondies in Oregon.  They are also genetically different from the normal Pondies and the young trees grow more rapidly than others, according to an inter-agency biologist I ran into while leaving the forest.  I had all 9000 acres to myself for two nights.

Last light on the Junipers.

Ponderosas in the Lost Forest.

Morning on the edge of the Lost Forest.

Sand dunes upon leaving the Lost Forest …
a different day.

Mt. Washington beyond Suttle Lake
... in the Cascades.

The painting at the beginning is the only one I did on the spot, as I needed to prepare several for a Marine Art Show.  I also needed to return on the 1^st of May to civilization, but I am headed back out to the Wild tomorrow … Yaaaaaaaay!!!

Pigments used in the painting:

Imprimatura: Rublev Italian Burnt Sienna;

Drawing: Rublev Italian Burnt Sienna;

Pigments: W&N Cobalt and Ultramarine Deep Blues, Cadmiums Orange;

Rublev: Red Ochre, Blue Ridge Yellow Ochre, Italian Burnt Sienna, Lead White #1;

Gamblin: Titanium Buff;

Michael Harding: Stack Lead White.

And A Happy New Year to You All!!!

"December Snowfall over the Ponderosas & Sage"

(Oregon High Desert)

Oil Sketch

5" x 7"

This Oil Sketch is from December 2014, and was posted on this blog [& sold], in early 2015.  Just to say I will be getting back to publishing more regular posts in the next few weeks, once I get out into the snowy wastes of the Oregon High Desert, and get some more works done.  Several commissions are almost complete, and a lot of other 'catching-up' work has been done since arriving back in Oregon in June ... and now the nights are drawing out, and the darkest day of the Winter has come and gone, and the lighter days mean more painting time!  All the best to you all for the coming year!!!