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There are places that I return to again and again. This lone abandoned farm house is one of them. I wonder, who lived there? Why did they leave? The ghost echos are quite strong here.

First, this is only 90% done...taking a break from painting today...and the photo is not accurate...waaaay too saturated...but I do love these distant places.
Will finish this and the prior painting tomorrow and re-post.

I suppose I am not alone in questioning sometimes, "where am I going?" But my art group members, many who are dealing with this same issue agree that you have to paint your heart...and my heart is definitely the desert, and specifically the Oregon desert. So back from my recent trip to the Warner Valley, I have started a Warner Valley series...sorry mountains and lakes, you will have to wait!
These two paintings are both only 90% done and the color saturation is not exactly right (in the photo)...but I really am in the moment when I paint these hauntingly distant and vast places.

Yes, it is the golden hour. Two afternoons ago, I decided (after a miserable attempt the prior day) to attempt a plein air painting near Sparks Lake. Unfortunately, I realized too late that Sparks Lake is best at dawn..but across the highway I found a little park with all I wished for..great autumn light, a stream and no bugs!

Yesterday, I was painting with some Plein Air Painters of Oregon painters. We discussed how we deal with the huge number of paintings that we will either not show, have shown and no longer want to show, or are simply excess. Some throw them away (especially those who use fairly inexpensive canvas board)...I don't do this. I generally paint on oil primed linen board...so it is expensive, and I have found that when a painting is no longer something I want to show, display or sell, it is fit for the sander. I have a small sander and I simply sand over old paiantings. On the linen board this results in having a wonderful substrate...a really fine oil primed surface with no tooth. You can use quite a bit of pressure to sand the surface clean. However, on a stretched linen...be careful. I discovered I had a painting that was wasting a really nice stretched linen...so I carefully sanded it...applied a coat of cad orange and burnt sienna and let it partially dry before painting. I really recommend letting it fully dry, but I was impatient...so what I found was that the paintwhich was applied in thin coats mixed with the undercoat and a surprise very WPA color was produced. It also helped me with my tendency to be too high chroma. I am letting this blocked in under-painting dry for a week before I really go in and finish it...but it was great fun.

I have heard other artists say that they "hate" commissions. I have heard myself say that they are difficult...you can't really get inside the head of the customer. However, I do have a customer who herself is an art director and she has commissioned a painting. She was clear on the size and where she wanted it to go...a simply wonderful updated mid-century modern home. She herself did not have a scene that she wanted me to paint (that is often difficult)..but rather looked at some of my photo reference. She chose one of my favorite areas...so this was a real pleasure to paint. This commissioned landscape is of one of my favorite areas...Summer Lake in Central Oregon. Summer Lake is a "dead" lake, with no outlet the lake itself is very alkaline. However, as it is in a very remote area of Oregon the vistas are immense and in late afternoon the setting sun casts a vermilion glow over everything. Being either here or in the Warner Valley...even more remote, is Heaven to me. So obviously I enjoyed this commission!

Yesterday I thought I had completed the cloudscape of Mt. Hood, as viewed from the Warm Springs Reservation. However, in the studio today it seemed to yell at me: "Ignore the photo...paint those clouds as you know them." I realized that despite the fact that I had a wonderful photo, it was not translating into a painting I wanted. So I went back and studied the clouds and studied the clouds out my studio window over the Three Sisters Mountains (part of the Cascade chain of mountains)...and decided to rework the clouds. I am much happier now and maybe that painting won't yell at me tomorrow.

After several shows this summer, where people stopped me to say that they love to view my "cloud" paintings I resolved to not fall into a predictable niche...however, here I am in the clouds again. I just couldn't resist this late afternoon scene of some amazing clouds over Mt. Hood. This is a rather unusual view of Mt. Hood, as most paintings are from the western side..the "valley" side...and fewer from the high desert.