Bill Fulton

Plein air paintings

4 Comments / May 15, 2023

I’ve been busy traveling and haven’t had a chance to paint lately. But summer is almost here and it’s time to paint outdoors in the fresh air. This is known as plein air painting, a well-loved practice of painters who like to paint on location. There’s a freshness and spontaneity that come from painting outdoors. These two paintings were made on location. My goal is to do a lot of plein air painting this summer.

The first painting is of The Tides, a cozy restaurant located about 5 miles North of Hoodsport, WA, right next to Highway 101. I got a great cup of clam chowder there. I like the shadows from the building and the lovely tall Douglas-fir tree next to it.

The second painting is a ramshackle house in Bremerton, WA, on a steep street. I particularly like it because of the odd angles and bold colors.

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Barn on Big Valley Road

5 Comments / April 21, 2023

In my imagination this barn was built many years ago by a frugal hardworking farmer as he and his family carved out a homestead on Big Valley Road. He built the main barn first, then added to it over the years, patching shed to shed, until it became this sprawling structure backed up to the fir trees.

In our last watercolor class, Eric Wiegardt challenged me to paint on a bigger scale. So I painted the barn as a quarter sheet (11 x 15 inches), followed by a half sheet (15 x 20 inches). You have to use a big brush and lots of paint and water to cover so much paper. For the barn and the meadow I painted three different colored washes on top of each other to produce variation in the color. I was undecided about the large expanse of grass in front of the barn. It seems like it needs something. Texture, maybe? Shadows? A piece of farm equipment or a pickup truck? Or maybe it’s fine as it is.

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Sasby Island in Southeast Alaska

6 Comments / April 17, 2023

Last summer when I visited friends on Kupreanof Island in Southeast Alaska, I took a photo of nearby Sasby Island. It lies just across the Wrangell Narrows from the town of Petersburg, and has exactly one house on it, complete with a dock and boatshed. The dock is tucked in behind a small point so that it’s completely protected.

I made a series of watercolors to see how best to capture this scene.

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Willapa Bay estuary

2 Comments / April 5, 2023

At high tide, the creeks that run up into Willapa Bay come right up into the trees. In our watercolor class last week, Eric Wiegardt made a demonstration painting of one of these creeks, and today I made a copy of his painting. First I did a black and white version, then I did a color version.

The goal is to create a painting that draws the eye to the area of dominance, in this case the point where the trees and the water meet. I put in the most detail in the edges of the trees, and I painted a red slash of brush below the trees to draw the eye there. I de-emphasized the lower portion, especially the lower corners, to not distract from the area of dominance above. Eric’s watercolor was much more lively because he painted without stopping, letting the washes flow into one another, and he kept his brush strokes loose. I was only partially successful in copying him.

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Fort Flagler bluff

4 Comments / March 31, 2023

Walking on the beach with someone you love is a favorite pastime in the Pacific Northwest. The pungent smells of salt air, sea water and marine life make for good memories. I painted this watercolor series from a photo of a beach at Fort Flagler, not too far from here. It was in an article explaining how the silt and dirt from bluffs in Puget Sound fall into the water and feed the shoreline with material for new beaches that become habitat for marine life.

I made a watercolor from the photo, then remembered that my class assignment is to do a black-and-white version. So I painted the black and white watercolor, which is probably better than the color version. The next day I painted a second version of the scene in color. You can decide which one you like better.

First version. I like the softness and looseness, especially the way the skies, the beach, the line of the bluff, and the beach log all point to the center of interest, the figures.

Black and white version. This seems a little more free.

Second watercolor version. I think the colors are better than the first version, but the top line of the bluff is too hard and jagged.

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Cabin on the bay

Trailer on Big Valley road

2 Comments / March 20, 2023

Big Valley, just north of Poulsbo, was once a bustling community of small farms and pastures strung along the valley with fir trees on the ridges above. Because of its iconic beauty, the County has spared it the plague of modern development so it retains the character of early Kitsap County. It’s a great place for watercolor painting.

I particularly like this trailer along the road. It’s a little run-down, but it’s homey, and in my imagination the family who lives there has a real sense of ownership of their piece of the valley.

I made a black and white painting to get the values right, then I made several watercolors.

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Rainy day on Tracyton Boulevard

9 Comments / March 8, 2023

On a rainy day last week, I took a drive down Tracyton Boulevard. It’s a winding road along the shores of Dye’s Inlet, and it has some great views. I took a photo of a car on a curve of the road, and made a painting of it when I got back in my studio.

The assignment for my watercolor class is to paint a one-color version of a scene, then paint a three-color version of the same scene. So I made a one-color painting with Payne’s Gray, then I made a three-color painting using Ultramarine Blue, Burnt Umber, and Quinacridone Gold. My goal was to paint the background trees wet-in-wet to capture the feeling of a foggy, rainy day.