Invites

So.... arts and crafts, man. 

Last summer a really old and dear friend of mine was married in Portland. My mom hosted her bridal shower and I hated that I couldn't make it.* The best way I knew to help out was to take care of the invitations:

It's not really "art," exactly, but certainly a creative project that I enjoyed. Just a 50-pack of plain brown cards and envelopes (I sliced each notecard in half and rounded the corners using a corner-cutting stamp) and a few silver paint pens from A.C. Moore. My hand was pretty tired by the end of the night, but I like how they turned out.

*to her shower, I mean. I was a bridesmaid at her wedding and - I'd like to be very clear here - we rocked PDX that weekend.

Next post: 2013 Europe trip!!!!!

I'm Back!

Oh man... so I don't even know where to start. I've been gone for more than a year. I have so much stuff to post!

Maybe we can start with Hawaii? Christmas 2012 was spent in Kona, Hawaii with my awesome family. It was a good halfway point since David was (still is!) in Japan. We had a really amazing time.

Aren't they a handsome bunch?

For Mother's Day, I sent Mom a simple pen and watercolor of one of our favorites - Hapuna Beach, along the northwest coast of the big island.

 Here's the ink drawing, taped off for watercolors:

And the final product:

"Hapuna Beach" Ink and watercolor on paper, 5x7  

There's something simple and low-pressure about watercolors... it makes sense that so many children's books are illustrated like this. 

Stay tuned for more!

A Christmas Post

Let's pretend this blog post is dated, oh, a month ago. Work with me here.

The first year we were married, it was all I could do to get Christmas cards in the mail. I mean, we're talking thirty-some cards written, addressed, stamped, and mailed. I know.

I bought some cheap mediocre Christmas cards at a local buyout store and called it a day. Needless to say, there are no pictures of the cards from 2008.

Anyway, the year after that I really got with the program and produced these:

(front)

(back)

(Josh turned an extra card into a Christmas ornament, ergo the leather trimmings.)

Then the year after that I made these:

(envelope front)

(card front)

(back)

And this year I continued with the green theme and made these:

I have a hard time pinpointing my One Favorite Color, but if I had to choose, it would be green. In fact I'm secretly proud of my longstanding, unwavering loyalty to green - very few of my favorite things stay favorites for long. Anyway, it was pretty simple to decide on a color scheme for my Christmas cards, and I think this year I really got it right, what with the brown recycled cardstock and matching envelopes. Handmade; simple. Primitive, almost.

The quote is from what may be my favorite Christmas song ever - I Believe in Father Christmas by British prog rock band Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. The music video's somethin else, too:

Merry Christmas everyone!!

Vast Dark Forests of Towering Evergreens

The great thing about being a painter is that you can commission yourself to paint whatever you want and you always sometimes, usually, ideally get just what you were hoping for.

One of the things I really miss about the PNW is vast dark forests of towering evergreens, and the soft hazy filtered light that envelops them. So I decided I would have it for myself, every day, in my house.

Somehow I lost some photos from my phone, including the photos of the first stages of this painting. Oh well. Here it is maybe three-fourths finished:

And the finished product:

Trees and Filtered light, oil on canvas, 24"x36"

This one is not for sale, because 1) I want it, and 2) It's based loosely off an image that does not belong to me, so...

Eventually I'll try my hand at a floating frame DIY. I think a thin warm wooden frame would complement this painting nicely. Maybe it will replace the map above our sofa. I used to have this rule about not showing my own work in my own house, because every painting has mistakes, even if no one else can see them, and it's not nice to be reminded of your mistakes on a daily basis. But in this case, trees trump mistakes. 

Oregon Painting No. 3

Here's the last painting from our Oregon summer vacation. It was a lazy afternoon near the end of our trip, and I decided to walk around the lake to Gini's dock, straight across from Mom and Dad's beautiful home. Still weird that I can't call it my home, anymore.

This is about where I got before I decided to go back inside due to the late afternoon sun/heat.

Working later on the dining room table from a photo. I don't usually mind working from small grainy photos (such as the ones produced by my lame phone) because even though it's frustrating, it's good practice. It's so much simpler to paint quickly and loosely when you're not bogged down by details.

               

"Lake House" Oil on canvas board, 8x10

There are still things I'd like to change and fix, per the usual, but I'm loving the various trees, shapes, shades of green. It's a blurry memory of home. 

P.S. Sold a painting this week (!) to a dear friend from church. It's at the framer's now. :)

Oregon Painting No. 2

When I decided to bring my art stuff on our trip, I knew exactly where I would go for one of my paintings: 

This is the view from the Pittock Mansion in the West Hills of Portland. You can see like, four different mountains from the West Hills, but one of the most spectacular views is this one over the city with pristine Mt. Hood in the background.

If you paint Oregon, your hands are going to get green.

    

Anyway, I worked on this for about an hour. I'm starting to see that while I can paint for long periods of time in a studio setting, an hour is the right amount of time for painting outdoors without an easel.

The mountain was veiled in clouds, so I had to fudge that part. I felt sort of guilty and considered painting exactly what was there, but then I just made like two strokes and it was there and I decided to leave it.

Mt. Hood from Pittock Mansion, oil on canvas board, 9"x12"

I was nervous that the city in the middle ground didn't provide much in the way of interest, but as soon as I was finished I stepped back and liked it a LOT. There's probably too much going on in the middle-right-ish of the painting, where city buildings turn into wildflowers - not enough distinction. I'll change that. Everything else is great, which is good, because this one is for me. I need more Oregon paintings in my life.

Oregon Painting No. 1

Things have been busy, but I haven't left my painting by the wayside, no sir. I present to you exhibit A:

Not quite finished, but evidence nonetheless. It's the first of three small paintings that I worked on this summer when Josh and I headed to Portland for our annual anniversary trip. Since Southwest lets you check free bags, I decided to bring my painting stuff along - a test run for Europe, if you will. 

On the first Wednesday of our trip we headed straight to the Columbia Gorge, Portland's wild, lush backyard. I took lots of pictures that should keep me busy painting for months. It's the most beautiful place in the world.

We took the Eagle Creek Trail about 3 miles in, to Punchbowl Falls, and spent the afternoon there. Here's a portion of my trip log describing the experience:

"We started from the trailhead about 11, I think and it took us maybe an hour to get to Punchbowl Falls, about 3 miles away. The hike is mostly uphill, but the scenery is so beautiful you don't notice you're getting tired.

The day was warm, so more people at the falls than usual. The water was SO COLD!! Josh and I took of our shoes and waded to the little cove across the river and unpacked sandwiches and apples.

"It was just... the best. The best to sit and eat a sweet crisp apple, and squint in the light and listen to the thundering waterfall and watch kids squeal and swim in the cold water. Perfect. After we ate and relaxed, Josh hiked up a small hill overlooking the falls where there were some trees to string up his hammock (...) I hadn't really thought about the logistics of lugging my painting stuff across a river - it was a while before I got settled with a good composition in front of me. Things went pretty well, but I've got to learn to paint faster - to fill in my canvas faster. I was very careful to keep my turpentine close and not let it spill into the stream - more because of the looks I'd get from people and less because of environmental concerns (turps are potent, but all-natural). I painted for about an hour and a half, until my backend was good and numb from sitting on rocks. Then came the distinct challenge of maneuvering across the river with a WET painting... I had really not thought this through."

It was a really perfect day. Like I mentioned above, though, I am really going to have to start painting faster. I'll be pretty disappointed if all the paintings I bring home from Europe look like this. I'm hoping the diffiult logistics of wet paintings and of painting in awkward places will be solved by a good wet panel storage box... I should get on that.

More to come!