The idea of the big paint out is to paint on a big canvas–but that is just a suggestion, not a requirement. ~  Celeste Bergin, Alla Prima Portland

I went to bed last night with two possible plans. Plan A: Stick around the house, do some more painting, possibly break out my new marbling kit. Plan B: Attend the “Big” Paint Out at Sauvie Island hosted by Alla Prima Portland.

Sauvie Island is about an hour an a half from me, and I really thought I would wake up and decide to be lazy. The biggest thing going for the paint out is that my friend, Sandra Pearce, was going to be there. But when I woke up this morning, I knew just where I was going.

Sandra Pearce at the paint out

I threw the painting stuff in the car (I didn’t forget that, but did forget lunch and the requirements to do a small errand while I was in Portland) and hit the road.

I’ve been out to Sauvie Island several times for the Audubon Society of Portland’s Raptor Road Trip in February, so I was familiar with the meet up area. Between you and me, I was a little surprised about the choice of Coon Point (also known as the Sauvie Island dike) for the paint out. In my opinion, there are prettier places. But there is ample parking, portapotties, and handicapped accessible trails. I’m sure that’s why it was chosen.

I was a little surprised by how many painters showed up. I counted 34 at one point, the “official” estimate was 33. The list of artists on Facebook included these names (31 including me, if you’re counting):

• Anna Lancaster
• Becky Land
• Brenda Boylan
• Celeste Bergin
• Chris Wood Rectenwald
• Don Bishop
• Jaqueline Hamer Lukowski
• Joyce Sloan
• Judy John Shaw
• Ken Klos
• Kimberly Kent
• Marti Brandtner
• Michael Lindstrom
• Michael Orwick
• Michele Bufton
• Nancy Smith Klos
• Paul Zegers
• Raphael Schnepf
• Robin Laughlin
• Sandra Pearce
• Sharon Abbott-Furze
• Stephanie Cissna
• Sue Berg
• Tim Young
• Tom Daniels
• Tom Kane
• Vicki Zimmerman
• Ward Jene Stroud
• Yong Hong Zhong
• Za Vue

What I’m trying to make clear is there were a lot of painters.

So with creativity thick in the air, I sat down and looked around. The wind was blowing and it was overcast. This was a change from Salem where it had been bright and sunny; frankly, I was a little under dressed. But I took out my sketchbook and started on a few ideas. I had decided to take the challenge to use a big surface seriously, so I had come prepared with a 1/2 sheet and a full sheet of watercolor paper.

I had put down the first layers on “Coon Point, Sauvie Island” (reference shot 1 above, painting below) and I was just getting started on painting number two. It was scheduled to be the dry marsh in shot 2 above. Then the clouds started going out. For about five minutes the skies were really dramatic. I had made a few light marks on my paper, but I mentally said the heck with it, flipped the painting upside down and painted the sky.

“Clouds Going Out” – 30″x22″ cold press Arches

Wow, looking at that, it’s really light. I need to emphasize this is just one layer of paint.

In fact, this is so light I went into the studio just now and took a second photo in there.

“Clouds Going Out” – 30″x22″ cold press Arches

Huh. Well, that’s not quite right either. But you get the point.

On site, I have difficulty seeing values and adjusting accordingly. I could tell at this point that I liked where this painting was going, but i wasn’t sure where to go next. So I put down my brushes and did a little tour of all the other painters.

I’m never sure just how Facebook groups work, but if you are really interested in seeing the paintings, go to  this album at Alla Prima Portland.

After seeing the amazing paintings other artists were doing, I came back and made a second pass at my first painting. I’m having the same problems with color accuracy here, but I think you can get the idea.

“Coon Point, Sauvie Island” – 15″ x 22″ on cold press

Remember, this painting was started during the cold, overcast morning. Anyway, I’ll figure it out.

The nearby cows featured in many of my fellow artists paintings. I almost borrowed another sheet of paper from Sandra to do my own cow painting, but it was getting late and I hadn’t had lunch.

So after the group did a guided tour of all the other paintings, I packed up and wished the amazing Sandra luck (she’s a painting MACHINE) and headed home.

It was a good day. I’ve been painting pretty small lately, so painting big felt good. In face, I wished for a bigger brush! It’s an interesting point in light of yesterday’s post.

“Painting is easy when you don’t know how, but very difficult when you do.” ~Edgar Degas

“Painting was easy, until I learned how. I have been having such angst about my work. I guess that is a good thing, as it keep me engaged, and growing. But why does it have to be so mentally hard?” ~ Bev Jozwiak

I tend to think of Labor Day weekend as the “real” start of the year. Yes, I make New Year’s Resolutions in January (ad naseum), but fall is when I tend to get a real spurt of inspiration to “Just do it!”

This weekend, partially because I’m dealing with a bad knee, I’ve just kind of puttered around the house. I’ve done some canning, some dog training, some errands. I turned in three paintings to Paint the Town (reception on Wednesday!) and breathed a little sigh of relief that the summer plein air schedule was behind me. Then I did something shocking….

I entered my studio, cleaned off a few surfaces, and whipped out a fresh piece of watercolor paper. After last weekend’s adventure, I had some fresh images just begging to be painted.

That’s when I got into trouble.

In the last several years I have taken about two workshops per year, with 2016 being a very active year. Each one was great, and I would come back all inspired to do new things.

But somewhere along the line, while I learned how to paint, I forgot how to paint like Tara Choate.

As I sat there looking at the blank piece of paper all I could think is, “Should I do this like _____ or _____.”

When Ruth Buchanan came over in August, she made a comment that my work (both actual painting and some planning pieces I showed her) seemed more tentative.

As the joke goes, “I resemble that.

Authentic Voice, Artistic Style… Whatever

I am not the only artist who struggles with finding their authentic voice or style. A quick Google search presents books, videos, and articles on this topic. Some of these articles even suggest STOP searching for your authentic voice.

Most 2-D artists use the term “style” rather than “voice”. Looking at Wikipedia’s entry on “Style (visual arts)“:

In the visual arts, style is a “…distinctive manner which permits the grouping of works into related categories” or “…any distinctive, and therefore recognizable, way in which an act is performed or an artifact made or ought to be performed and made”.

Style is often divided into the general style of a period, country or cultural group, group of artists or art movement, and the individual style of the artist within that group style. Divisions within both types of styles are often made, such as between “early”, “middle” or “late”.

One of my most admired local art goddesses, Margaret Godfrey, recently posted a blog on this subject entitled, “Does and Artist Have to Commit to a Style.” In the blog, she commented on a recent trip to Paris and what she had noted about how many famous painters’ style had evolved. She commented that she felt she was going into a “careful” period.

Personally, I’ve heard artists talk about an artists style being a combination of subjects, themes, forms, lines, color, and texture.

I’ve also heard the theory that an artists style is the mistakes they choose to “lean into”; over time, those mistakes become recognizable choices that everyone can see.

“Real painters do not paint things as they are…They paint them as they themselves feel them to be.” – Vincent van Gogh

Back to that Blank Piece of Paper

So with variation on all of the above (and a few more things) going through my head, I looked an my reference photo (a minor miracle in itself because my printer is… acting up) and thought a version of, “Forget it.” (You might be able to figure out what the real version was.)

I did the drawing and first painting layers on this shot.

I forgot to take a picture at this stage, but I reentered the studio later and added some more layers to produce this.

“Field Landing” – 15″ x 11″ hot press

I’m not all the way done, but it’s at the stage where I need to think a little more.

Today (for the second day in a row!) I reentered the studio. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to tackle another balloon painting (more about that later) so I brought a simple subject with me.

“Intense Blue” 15″ x 11″ hot press

This was deliberately a simple, quick painting. I like it, though I have some more details to do.

This got me going, so I decided to tackle this.

Balloons are hard to do

I don’t know why, but I thought the balloons would be easy to do. Just put down some colors and BAM it’s a balloon.

No. These things are engineered. And when you get in there and start looking, there is a lot that can go long if the lines aren’t just right.

Additionally, I didn’t realize just how hard the color would be; these balloons are shiny, but also translucent, except when they are throwing shade or have wrinkles.

After realizing the difficulties from the first painting, I adjusted the photo to black and white to get an idea about value for the second painting.

Do you see the problem now?

If I was teaching a class I would use this image to teach color mixing and also color value; I guess in a way, it’s my own personal class on those subjects.

“Crown Wrangler” 15″x11″ hot press

As you can see, I’ve changed the light pattern and still have a LONG way to go to darken things up. But I like where it’s going so far.

But is it ME?

I suspect that none of these three paintings are destined for shows. When I look at them, I see a lot of overthinking. A lot of choices that other people would make and then I’ve pulled back and painted like me again or (even worse) a third person altogether.

I recently joined three groups on Facebook: American Watercolor Society, Transparent Watercolor Society of American, and Northwest Watercolor Society Members. The lists are active. There is some very good art shown, a lot of very earnest art, and a little bad art (yes, for the record, I believe some art is just bad.) I’ve been studying the entries trying to figure out what I’d label each piece the way I (internally) do.

For very good art, my first reaction is, “Wow!” My next thought is usually along the lines of questioning if I’d hang the piece in my home. If yes, I check my bank balance (always too low). As I usually can’t afford it, I look at what attracts me to the piece. Is it something I want to do myself? Is is something that expresses a feeling I’ve had? Is it just really pretty? If the answer is “No, I don’t want it for my own,” I ponder why not. Sometimes it’s a taste thing. Sometimes it’s a flaw I just can’t live with. Either way, I try to identify if it’s something the artist did deliberately and whether or not that taste or flaw detracts from the piece or if its necessary.

For the earnest art, my reaction tends to be, “I’ve seen it before.” A lot of the pieces I have been seeing art literally without flaw, but they leave me cold. For example, today I studied a painting of an American flag on a porch that was very nicely done. The darks and lights were attractive, the paint well handled, the drawing accurate. I mentally compared that to LaVonne Tarbox-Crone‘s painting, “State of The Nation”; it’s an extremely tattered American flag against an absolutely stark white background. AND IT’S STUNNING. Earnest art tends to have no edge. It’s seen and quickly forgotten.  Almost all art has something going for it (the exception are later), but earnest art tends to be well done but safe.

As for bad art, well… my definition is that it’s “art” done without thought. Ikea prints of Audrey Hepburn. Lowe’s canvases of flowers. Anything that’s got blood and guts (or poop) on it. And a shark preserved in formaldehyde is also not art.

All this is to say that I suspect I am in the “earnest” stage after a brief flirtation with the good stage. Rarely does progress come in a straight line.

On the other hand… maybe Calvin is onto something!

Next Saturday I need to take three paintings, finished and framed, to the Paint the Town drop off.  You know me… there is nothing like a deadline to get me into the studio!

After some evaluation, I decided on finishing these three paintings. On the left is the “almost” version, on the right the “done” version. Let me know what you think!

Because I had some time waiting for paint to try, I decided to play.

For Ruth Buchanan’s workshop, you will remember, we had a long life drawing session. Even though it was not my best effort, this drawing was on my mind because I found working with the negative shapes so difficult.

I was envisioning something with a lot of texture and not in my usual style (not with horses or any other animal). So, I literally started playing with some old aqua board that I had some failed paintings on.

This is the kind of painting I call “intuitive painting” because you don’t really start out with a plan, you just keep doing things that you feel might work! It’s a lot of fun and a pure right-brain activity.

However, my studio ends up getting pretty trashed.

After that, I decided to take out some marbled papers and do a “more traditional” painting of another drawing I liked.

I’m imagining adding some ground and trees and emphasizing the “moon” somehow and calling it “Moon Dance.”

I’d like to report that I’m back in the studio today, working on paintings from yesterday’s adventure, but I’m not. It’s Sunday so I’m getting things in order to make the week go well. But there is no AquaZumba on Tuesday so I think I’m going to try to go to life drawing, if that’s any comfort!

Paint on my friends!

P.S. Would anyone like to accompany me to the Paint the Town opening on Wednesday, September 5? Let me know.

As I have mentioned (lol) I spent last Saturday-Monday taking a drawing workshop with Ruth Buchanan at the Oregon Society of Artists. Recently the Artists Network published a GREAT article on this same topic: 10 Approaches to Drawing. My post will focus on my own development; please see the article for the details of the techniques described. Additionally, Ruth published two great articles in The Artist (UK) magazine on drawing horses that I recommend.)

The title of this post is one of the first things Ruth asked the class. I’ll see if I can answer it.

(Note: This is a “PG” post; we did “life drawing” on Monday.)

Saturday – Maquette and Keyline

After some initial introduction, Ruth started us off with the “maquette” technique (some may recognize it from anime or traditional drawing books.)

As you can see, the technique starts off with some basic structure and works outward from there. I have done this method many times, but I liked that Ruth allowed us to use it without lecturing unduly on correct proportion.

Because I am “that person” I worked on some other drawings using this technique in the slow times.

Next we moved to the key line approach. I have heard of this method, but I have never understood it. I understand it more now, but I clearly have some work to do (as you’ll see by my attempts).

I also took advantage of the time to work on my sketchbook. I think a few of these might become something.

Sunday – I can draw without looking at the paper

Sunday dawned and I was excited to get back.

We started out with a surprisingly difficult exercise: drawing the negative. This is something I have heard people talk about. I thought it would be easy. Ah… no.

This exercise made my head hurt. I kept wanting to cheat and draw the interior. And these were just tables!

From here we had a talk on composition, the six-lights approach, and artistic “intention” before moving on to (what I know to be) Ruth’s trademarked trick: impossibly short timed exercises.

From there we worked on our catch-phrase activity of the day: contour drawing a pineapple.

Finally we took all this and drew a very small object VERY large. The instructions were to fill up the paper.

And then we painted some very big flowers very small (these appear much larger than they are.)

The thumbtack was the exercise I asked the class to pose with for the newsletter article I will have to write to thank the Watercolor Society of Oregon for sponsoring Ruth coming over again!

In between all this, I worked on my sketchbook some more, mainly developing an idea for a painting.

Monday – FASTER!

As with all true performances, Monday was the crescendo. We had a model come in during the morning so we could practice these techniques and more. The lovely Gaby did a fabulous job, but if you can tell it’s her from these drawings, I would be SHOCKED!

Ruth started us out with another series of timed poses.

At this point, I lost a little bit of focus on what Ruth was trying to teach us with the effort of just keeping up. The next set of drawings are when we were working on… something (possibly looking at negative space and adding emphasis.)

Then tricky Ruth made us STOP drawing the model and draw around her. In the second, we were told we could draw everything BUT the model.

I can see either one as a painting, but my head still hurts.

Not to let us rest on our laurels, Ruth then had the model “walk through” poses so we could look for movement and line.

The first drawing here is my favorite of the day. I like the way I caught her foot and the hinted-at hands. Ruth pointed out that this method could be used on horses. A light bulb went out for me!

Next, Ruth had us draw tones, not lines.

Finally, devious Ruth made us select five tools and called out to us to change them at timed intervals. And then she made us change paintings with each other!

Final exercise, not all my work.

Ruth finished the day with a wrap up; I was not too tired to do a sketch in my book. Frankly, even after this marathon I was ready to go!

So what does drawing mean to me?

I was hoping I would have an answer to this at the end of the workshop. I was hoping that I would come up with an answer when I finished this post.

But I don’t.

What I got out of this workshop was something that I feel like I needed: Confidence in my own abilities. One of the things I like about Ruth as an instructor is, in her own words, she is not interested in turning the class into “mini me’s”; she is interested in passing on skills to help each of us find a way to express our own art. Doing all these exercises, some that I had done before, some that were new, I realized that I was doing them all well. Not “perfectly”, if such a thing exists, but my own lines and proportional mistakes lent a certain charm that my drawings MINE… and charming for it.

I draw big.

I draw fast.

I draw bold.

I sometimes go off the page.

I don’t catch every detail.

I don’t get it right the first time.

I can choose to work on the things that I think will lead me down the path to the artist I want to become, but I don’t have to “master” anything. Anything I work on becomes a stronger part of my repertoire, but there is no formula you must learn before you are allowed to draw with confidence.

And that’s knowledge worth workshop attendance!

Yesterday, my friend Sandra Pearce came down to Salem and we scoped out a spot for her to demo when she does a paint out for the Watercolor Society of Oregon fall convention in October.

We had listed Minto Brown as the site, but we hadn’t yet nailed down the specifics. The specifics needed to include not just a great view, but access to potties, parking, out-of-the-way painting spots, and other important features.

After a little hiking around, we settled a spot and got down to producing a sample for the demo. Well, Sandra produced  a sample, I just painted a spot I had been wanting to paint for a while.

unfinished – “Frolicking Field”

I don’t think this is done. The background trees need a few tweaks and I think the foreground needs some dark touches.

I wish I could show you Sandra’s piece. She painted the same view (literally) but it is SO different. She chose a completely different composition and focus.

I told Sandra she only had an hour to paint, because I would want lunch. So we dashed through our paintings and headed to Konditorei (my go-to restaurant).

Next we headed out to Red Hawk Winery for the day’s Paint the Town event.

Wow, what a view. There were so many possibilities. You could even see a bend in the river. I initially was interested in the gathering clouds on the horizon.

unfinished – “Gathering Clouds”

I LOVE the way the sky turned out, but the lower area needs some work.

I couldn’t go any further on site with this, so I tried another painting, though I kept it as simple as possible because were were running out of time (the winery was closing).

unfinished – “Haying Trails”

I hope you can tell what interested me here. I still have some values to work on.

The rest of my weekend was all about prepping for the upcoming workshop with Ruth Buchanan (1 more spot left…) She had a great article in “Artists Network” this week that even mentions our workshop! I’m really excited about the workshop, but as she is also staying with me, I’ve done a lot of house cleaning to get read (can’t let anyone know I’m a slob).

Only four more days!

A little over a year ago, I took a workshop with English equestrian artist Ruth Buchanan that I cannot say enough nice things about. After a few weeks had passed and I had recovered my composure (it’s hard work learning new things and having an idol come to stay with you), I asked if Ruth might be interested in coming back to do a second workshop.

Ledove sketch by Ruth Buchanan

Now, honestly, I was thinking she might come back in a couple of years. But she told me that she would be coming back to the states next summer for a family wedding and that she wanted to do a workshop about drawing because so many people had asked her about it.

Sketches by Ruth Buchanan

After polling the participants of the last workshop, 60% of whom said they were in, Ruth and I worked up a plan. The first workshop had been in the Salem/Keiser area, which is a populated area, but not as populated at Portland. So I contacted the Oregon Society of Artists (Portland, Oregon) and they were excited about the possibility of having Ruth come.

“Cobalt Greys” by Ruth Buchanan

As I said, we thought a drawing workshop would be well received. And Ruth had just published an article in The Artist magazine entitled “10  Approaches to Drawing”. Additionally, Ruth had just done a series of workshops in the UK with this title, so we felt like this would work out great.

How to turn a sketch into a painting by Ruth Buchanan

We settled on a date (August 11-13, 2018), settled on a price ($295), created the flyers… and waited.

Sketch and sketch with color added by Ruth Buchanan

A few registrations came in, but the workshop wasn’t filling up the way we had hoped it would.

We promoted some more. And waited.

Finally, we got our heads together and talked about how to rebrand the workshop without changing the focus. The focus of the workshop had always been improving an artists drawing with the idea of taking those drawings on to become paintings. So, we thought, we needed to focus on that. Thus, we changed the workshop title to “Strong Drawings, Dramatic Paintings.”

Value painting in one color by Ruth Buchanan

That seemed to do the trick because registrations started to come in. But it’s been slower than I hoped.

Sketch to painting “Gathering” by Ruth Buchanan

Now we’re two weeks away and we’ve met our minimum, but we still have a few spots left. Two, to be precise.

I’d really like those spots to fill. Ruth is an amazing artist and her techniques are universal, horses just happen to be her subject.

Here is a description of her class, straight from Ruth. I’ve also attached her planned daily schedule. As I’ve said, I’d really like to get a couple more registrations.

Let me know if you are interested and feel free to share this post!

“In the Wings” by Ruth Buchanan

“Strong Drawings, Dramatic Paintings: 10 Approaches to Drawing” by Ruth Buchanan

Strong Drawings, Dramatic Paintings

A three-day course on drawing/sketching techniques, drawing approaches and drawing to support and strengthen painting taught by professional artist Ruth Buchanan. The workshop includes demonstrations and drawing exercises with supported free working sessions where artists may bring reference photos and painting supplies.

Working with ten approaches/techniques to drawing a subject, the workshop expands on Ruth’s article in ‘The Artist’ Magazine on drawing Horses (UK January 2018), which in turn was based on a Ruth’s drawing workshop. The aim is to strengthen your natural drawing style and confidence through considering other approaches to looking at and rendering various subjects. During the three days we will also consider drawing as a preparation towards making your paintings have more impact by looking at values, composition and focus.

Ruth Buchanan has worked as a professional artist for 17 years. Whilst best known for her equestrian paintings, Ruth paints a variety of subjects and has many years experience in Life Drawing. The workshop will include some equine and animal drawing alongside drawing other subjects. The skills and techniques are applicable to all drawing regardless of subject.

Previous to her current profession, Ruth worked as a Graphic Designer and Illustrator where she specialized in watercolors of architecture and still life for lifestyle publications. She also taught Print based Media (design) and Film Studies at A level and Diploma level in the intervening five years.

Materials required:

• Sketchbook – A4 (8.5” x 11”) minimum please. Ideally A3 (11”x14”) (Note: This is different than a notebook or journal)
  • Paper for 10 exercises. You may want to bring some toned/tinted paper and something strong enough to work on in charcoal and/or ink.
• A board and clips or tape if you wish to work at an easel (recommended)
• A notebook or journal
• Graphite Pencils
• Eraser
• Some sort of sharpening device
• Charcoal
• White or pale blue pastel or chalk
• A couple of colored pencils
• A biro (ballpoint pen) and/or dip pen and ink
• Optional: Reference to work from in the supported free work time
• An open mind and a willingness to have a go!

Whilst this is a drawing workshop but there will be some supported free work time so you are welcome to bring paints as well.

Brief timetable outline

Day 1 – 9.30 to 3.30

• Three of the approaches – demonstration, ‘draw along’ and exercises.
• Ruth’s sketchbooks – what sketchbooks mean to Ruth and a chance to have a flick through!
• Shading with attention to light source. Identifying lights in a composition
• Supported free working time with a discussion on working from life and working from photographs.

Day 2 – 9.30 to 3.30

• Three more approaches – demonstration, ‘draw along’ and exercises
• Tool holds and how this can influence your work
• Working in a more immediate way
• Drawing and painting from memory
• Shading – mapping and simplifying tones for key impact
• Composition – strengthening your drawing and your painting
• Supported plein air drawing

Day 3 – 9.30 to 3.30

• Working from a model: exercises on previous approaches and the other approaches not so far covered
• Drawing in other media and with other tools
• Mark making in drawing and painting
• Review of all work
• Feedback and critique

This has been a weekend that turned out nothing like I expected it to. First, my plans for Saturday fell through not once but three times! Second, my small cold of last week has morphed into a sinus infection that is just not friendly. And third, I painted. A lot.

Probably because I have been doing a lot of realistic painting, something with lots of texture and color was calling my name. When I reorganized the studio a couple of week ago, I was able to put some paintings where I could actually look at them and ponder them. Yesterday they called my name and I decided to stop pussy-footing around and DO SOMETHING!

Teal Horse

Have you ever felt like you just needed a teal horse? After looking at this painting for the last two weeks, I decided teal was the only appropriate solution.

Now, this painting has been hanging around since 2016. In fact, it had ice painting applied to it (unsuccessfully) in late 2016.

Since then, I have had no ideas about what to do with it. I just kept thinking that I wished I could add some teal. So, on Saturday, I decided to use “gesso juice” (2 parts gesso, 1 part matte medium, 1 part water) to add some texture and white that I could then work on.

Well, at least it’s not the same. So, today I added a wash of teal to the dried gesso juice.

As I said… at least it’s not the same.

What are moons?

Again, harkening back to 2016, I got in a mood and started an abstract background. I didn’t manage to get a very good picture of this start.

Forgive the shadow…

At some point I drew a series of circles, intending to create moons and painted them with white gouache. I don’t have a picture of this step (add another painting to my unfinished total (I said 31, but it’s actually 33)), but the planets were not distinct enough, so I decided to use the leftover gesso juice to pop out those planets.

On NPR sometime in the last week, there was a story about how they had discovered 12 new moons on Juniper. Therefore, these are now moons, not planets.

The color was added with a combination of watercolor and acrylic with Gelli plate printing and also salt. I’m still not done, but I’m kind of digging it. And it’s different than it was.

Charge

Once again, I have done a terrible job of keeping track of progress. This painting started out with ice painting in 2016.

After my Ruth Ellen Hoag workshop, I know I drew and painted this on it.

I really like this, but I’ve been pondering (occasionally) how to get that lead horse to really pop out.

As we know, I can’t be left along with any sort of extra paint, so I decided to use the last of the gesso juice and see what happened.

Again… now it’s different. Some color might help.

I admit, I lost some streaks that I found appealing. But I’m not sure that this won’t work with some tweaking.

At least it’s different.

For better or worse, the Willamette Valley Lavender Festival painting fest is over. A few artists (those who don’t have to report to work on Monday) may continue to paint for a few days, but for this toiling artist, lavender painting days are over.

On Saturday, I once again joined friend Sandra Pearce to go to my final destination: Red Ridge Farms. While they had a lovely lavender patch, it’s the view over the Yamhill wine country that will take your breath away.

Because I wanted to paint this, and there was no lavender in site, I decided to use my imagination and used artistic license to add some lavender to the scene.

On Sunday, I deliberately did not paint. Instead, I spent time in the studio tweaking and finishing my paintings before finally choosing the best three to frame to take to the show.

For example, I added gouache to finish out this painting.

I also adjusted the “bloom” on this painting.

As a recap, here is the list of possibles.

So, which ones did I choose?

Do you think I made the right choices?