Thursday morning began with a fine misty rain, just right for watercolor painting. The mist drapes the hillsides and makes everything soft. But you can’t paint in the rain — it makes the watercolors run all over the paper.
My solution was to paint from the front seat of my car. A little cramped, but it’s better than nothing. I drove to Sawdust Hill Road, a side road off of Big Valley Road near Poulsbo. There’s a beautiful old barn on the edge of a sloped pasture, just below a ridge of tall trees. It looks like the property owner is making an effort to preserve this fine old structure.
Even though I parked my car as far off the road as possible, there wasn’t much room when the garbage truck came by, and when a loaded logging truck came around the corner, I held my breath until he was past.
The pastures of the Skokomish River valley are bordered by ragged ridges on either side that still show evidence of being clearcut years ago. The barns in the valley seem to hunker below the mountains, especially when the clouds scud by. That’s the feeling I tried to express in this painting.
In my teacher’s critique, he admired the soft edge of the ridgetop, the color in the clouds, the lost edges of the barn, the white space in front of the barns that is left to the viewer’s imagination, and the soft edges of the barn roofs. He suggested running a little blue into the yellow of the grass, and to soften the edge of the silo. I like this painting.
Last week I spent three days painting with members of Plein Air Washington Artists at Lake Crescent in Olympic National Park. I camped at Fairholme Campground and only got rained on the last morning.
One of my favorite places to paint was Salmon Cascades, a series of waterfalls on the Sol Duc River. I lugged my gear below the falls and set up on a rocky shelf with a good view of the falls. By the time I was finished, my legs and back were aching because of the uneven rocks. A number of people came by to see my painting, including a couple of local Indian teenagers, who told me it’s almost time for the Coho salmon to start running. It would be fun to see them leaping up the falls.
It rained intermittently while I painted. I put up my umbrella when I felt raindrops, but inevitably some drops hit the paper anyway.
Salmon Cascades, Sol Duc River, Olympic National Park
Later that day, when the sun came out, I painted Lake Crescent Lodge. This historic structure on the shores of Lake Crescent, with its huge stone fireplace, dark beams and pleasant sun porch, is beloved by many visitors, including Katy and me. I found a place to paint behind the lodge, with the afternoon sun striking the side of the building.
Lake Crescent Lodge, Olympic National Park
On the previous day, I painted the beach in front of the lodge where many people linger on summer afternoons. There are logs to sit on, Adirondack chairs, and couples strolling the shore. Brightly colored kayaks line the beach, and families with kids splash in the water. I even saw a bride and groom getting their wedding photos taken on the dock, all dressed up.
Lake Crescent shore
I made several other watercolors, but they didn’t make the grade. All in all, it was a very pleasant and productive outing.
I love to explore the back roads of the Olympic peninsula to discover the gritty, down-to-earth scenes I like to paint. I often come across scenes of rural poverty, like this shack up the Skokomish River Road. It looks like they started with a small travel trailer and kept adding lean-tos and extensions until they had a poor person’s mansion. Various building materials lean up against the outside walls, and a red tractor rests in the weeds. It’s a rustic way to live, but it makes a great subject.
I was pleased with the way I ran the color of the trees down into the roof, and the way I let the walls merge with the ground. Nice and loose.
Last year I spent a day rambling around the Chimacum area near Port Townsend looking for subjects to paint. I came across a pasture with half a dozen dilapidated pickups parked helter-skelter. It was a pickup cemetery. Maybe some farmer couldn’t bear to sell off his trusty pickups when they wore out, so he put them out to pasture, like old horses.
At any rate, today I arranged them into a composition with clouds and trees in the background and painted this picture.
In April, I removed the old cast iron bathtub in our bathroom and replaced it with a tiled walk-in shower. In other words, I didn’t do any painting at all. However, since then, I’ve been outside painting a slew of plein air paintings. I’ll take painting over plumbing any day!
Big Beef Bay is an estuary that opens onto Hood Canal near Seabeck, WA. There’s a salmon research facility on the creek that leads into the head of the bay, and there are often photographers crowding the beach to photograph the eagles that congregate here.
Big Beef Bay on May 13
Brownsville Marina is about ten minutes from our house. On a gray day, I tried to show the drifting mist coming down on Agate Passage.
Brownsville Marina on May 16
On Fridays, I drive to Bainbridge Island to join my life drawing friends to draw and paint a live model. After our session last Friday I painted the coffee kiosk at the Bainbridge ferry terminal. This is a popular spot to grab a cup of coffee for commuters on the way to work in Seattle.
Coffee kiosk at the Bainbridge Island ferry terminal. May 17
Last Sunday, Katy and I drove to Aberdeen to do research for the cozy mystery novel she’s writing. We stayed in a grand old bed-and-breakfast in Aberdeen, and, fortified with a hearty breakfast, explored Preacher’s Slough near Aberdeen.
The slough got its name in 1859 when a Rev. Douglas rowed his rowboat up the Chehalis River from Aberdeen to Montesano to visit some parishioners who were preparing a chicken dinner for his arrival. Unfortunately, he took a wrong turn up one of the sloughs that branch off the river and got lost. He was so late he had to eat cold chicken long after everyone else had finished, and for the rest of his career he was known as “that damn fool preacher who got lost.” The slough was used to store log rafts during the heyday of logging, and the pilings used to moor the rafts are still in place.
Preacher’s Slough, May 20
On Tuesday, I had a church meeting in Hoodsport, and afterward I went to the beach for this moody painting of beach houses.
Hoodsport, WA, May 21
In the afternoon, I drove up the Skokomish River road. This road meanders up a lovely valley with old farms nestled between the logged-over hills above. It was a damp, misty afternoon, so I sat in my car and made this painting of an abandoned barn.
In 2019, I backpacked over La Crosse Pass in Olympic National Park. It’s remote; no matter how you approach the pass, it takes two days of hiking just to get there. Because my goal is to hike every trail in the park, I needed to cross this pass off my list.
As I approached the pass from Honeymoon Meadows, the clouds were swirling on the peaks above. At the pass itself, the fog moved in and softened the outline of trees and rocks just before the rain began. I took a photo to commemorate the moment.
I painted this scene three times, trying to get the effect of the jagged rocks against the misty background. I’ll let you decide which one you prefer.
Spring is coming to our area, and it’s time for plein air painting!
Today I explored the hayfields at Hunter Farms next to the Skokomish River estuary. Walking through the wet grass, I found a wide view of the barns, greenhouses and sheds at Hunter Farms. At first there was a cold breeze, but it eased up as I painted and the sun made a brief appearance.
Lilliwaup Bay
After our church service on Good Friday, I drove about five minutes north of Hoodsport to Lilliwaup Bay. A gravel road winds up the side of the estuary, which is almost untouched by humans. There’s a few old buildings on the far side of the creek that look suitably dIlapidated, so I set my easel on the side of the road to paint them. The sun was warm and the day was cheerful. What better way to spend an hour?
As Katy and I drive to Hoodsport and back every Sunday, I always keep a watch for interesting art subjects. I especially like the odd clutch of shacks and sheds among the trees that you see in rural Washington. One Sunday near Shelton I spotted this cluster of small one-bedroom houses that I just had to paint. In my imagination they were built in the 1940s as housing for Shelton millworkers, or maybe they were tourist cabins that sprang up along Highway 101 in the 1930s.
Last October I agreed to do some art work for the Very Rev. Steve Thomason, Dean of St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral in Seattle. He commissioned me to make a few watercolors and ink sketches of the cathedral. He’ll reproduce these and use the prints as thank you gifts for the donors of their fund drive this Spring. Great idea!
I accepted the commission not knowing how burdensome it would be. The cathedral itself is a huge block, a big monolith, with few features to paint. I made a few watercolors that you can see in an earlier post here, but then I got “artist’s block.” How could I make this interesting? I let it rest for a few weeks but when I got back to it, I was still stumped.
Since it was a commission I had agreed to do (and I’d already cashed the check!), I couldn’t give up. In February Steve emailed me and asked how it was coming along. That jolted me into action, so I buckled down and started to work. I searched the cathedral website and Facebook page and found numerous photos that piqued my interest. I especially liked a photo of three acolytes and a robed minister, so I put them in front of the massive cathedral in an ink sketch. I liked that.
Then I made an ink drawing of the front of the cathedral with cross-hatching for the shadows and painted a light wash of ink over the drawing. Because the ink lines were still slightly wet, the ink smeared and created a striking profile of the building.
I like this sketch a lot, but I think it’s too messy for a thank you gift. Plus it’s on flimsy paper. So I decided to do it again on better paper and not quite so messy. It took two attempts, but here’s what I came up with.
Then I made an ink sketch of the interior of the building. It was difficult to get the angles correct and to find the right shading, but I think the result is satisfactory.
Finally, I made one more watercolor of the South side of the cathedral, trying to get a feel for the light on the big mass of the building. I made many other sketches and paintings that didn’t make the grade and I spent a lot of time on this commission, way more than I planned. I’m thankful for the commission (and the income) and I’m grateful that my art work will be seen by the donors recognized by the Dean, but I had no idea this commission would commandeer several weeks of my life. The next time I’m asked to do a commission, I think I’ll politely decline!
