January Light

Acrylic on board, 5" x 7"
$125 plus $6 shipping in U.S.
Email don@dailyartwest.com for purchase


Ragged clouds form restless patterns above the valley. Sunlight sneaks through breaks in the layer, laying itself across the land in long, flickering swaths. A ridge of mud-brown foothills suddenly lights up, dried grasses glowing the tawny color of a cougar's fur.

Shady Side

Acrylic on board, 6" x 6"
$125 plus $6 shipping in U.S.
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50% of the sale of this painting will be donated to Doctors Without Borders, to aid in Haitian earthquake relief.

More Crazy Signs

I got such great feedback on the road sign post, that I just had to do a follow-up. Dana Cunningham Anderson of Artlight Media sent this photo. I kinda think a left turn would be the correct decision here, wouldn't it?:


photo copyright Dana Cunningham Anderson

And my longtime friend, artist Rachel Wilson sent these delightful paintings, with this description: "I started a collection of photos of my favorite signs when we were in New Zealand last, and some of them found their way into a silly series of paintings. I was also charmed by the native birds (a fairly weird group) and was imagining what it would be like if they were giant again and were loose on the roads."


acrylic, 15" x 15" copyright 2008 Rachel Wilson



acrylic, 15" x 15" copyright 2008 Rachel Wilson

Artist Deb Pero writes: "When we lived in Los Alamos, NM, home of the National Lab (where the first nuclear bomb was developed) there were all kinds of security gates, and various sections of the lab complex all over town. For one particular testing area, a sign read: Explosive Trucks, Next Left. Yes! Please exit now!"

Deb also noted this homemade sign along a rural road:

Old Dog
Young Dog
Several Stupid Dogs
Please drive slow.

My friend Jim came up with this: "Survey Party Ahead. I don’t think they use this particular wording any more. I always pictured, when rounding a corner, a group of surveyors in dinner jackets, holding drinks and making small talk.

''Slow Children At Play. Identifying particular groups of children as being slow is just wrong."

Here's one that brings up vivid mind-pictures for my friend Liz: Primitive Road.

Artist Susan Roux wonders why anyone would sell this important part of their home: Yard Sale.

Last, not least--cousin Diane writes: "I always remember Mom getting a big laugh out of a sign on the highway toward Wallowa -- Worms, turn right. Advertisements are also a great source -- Meier & Frank in Portland was always having a Baby Sale. I always expected babies to be lined up for the picking."

No Outlet

Acrylic on board, 5" x 7"
$125 plus $6 shipping in U.S.
Email don@dailyartwest.com for purchase


"Abandon all hope ye who enter here"--there's No Outlet!! I guess "No Outlet" is better than the more common "Dead End"...how depressing is that?!

I love the abbreviated language of road signs. One that always sparks my imagination and warped sense of humor is "Men Working in Trees;" I always picture guys in suits trying to balance their office chairs on swaying limbs. Another sign you'll see along some of the mountain passes around here is "Use Right Shoulder to Put On Tire Chains"...ever tried to put on chains using only your shoulder?

One of my all-time faves would draw a chuckle every time we passed it along a freeway in San Diego. The big green sign says "Cruise Ships Use Airport Exit." Imagine seeing a cruise ship bearing down in your rear-view window!

Anyone else have some favorites?

Crow in the Forest

Acrylic on board, 7 5/8" x 8"
$190 plus $8 shipping in U.S.
SOLD


In this painting I began with a broad brush and created a loose, rapid block-in of the large forms and light/dark values, using regular acrylic. Over this underpainting (which dried quickly) I began layering glazes and scumbling with the Golden Open acrylic, which stays wet longer and handles a little more like oil paint. Open is also more transparent, so it is well-suited to this technique. I'm having fun exploring the properties of this paint, and learning new ways to use it.

Click the image for a larger view.

Windbreak

Watercolor on archival paper, 6" x 10"
$190 plus $7 shipping in U.S.
SOLD

We are waiting for the other shoe to drop. The weather lately in eastern Oregon has been unseasonably mild. It's hard to believe we're in the heart of January; daytime highs have been reaching into the 50's. I barbecued steaks outside this evening and didn't even wear a coat!

The source images for today's painting actually came from photos I took last winter, on a day when howling wind blew snow flurries horizontal to the ground and cattle huddled behind rows of windbreak willows. It can look pretty stark and austere around here in winter, but I love the subdued, graphic beauty of it all.

New and Used #5

Acrylic on board, 6" x 6"
$125 plus $6 shipping in U.S.
SOLD

There's something satisfying to me about doing paintings of my paintbrushes. Simple things amuse me--like the irony of using a brush to simulate...a brush!

Last Glow

Acrylic on board, 5" x 7"
$125 plus $6 shipping in U.S.
Email don@dailyartwest.com for purchase

Winter Woods

Watercolor, 10" x 7"

$190 plus $7 shipping in U.S.

SOLD

A larger painting today--snow blankets the mixed woods of the Catherine Creek valley.

I'll be back next week with more paintings. Meanwhile, here's something you might enjoy: my muralist friend Art Mortimer sent me this link to an astonishing film shot from a streetcar in San Francisco in 1906, purportedly just days before the great earthquake and fire. Here's what Art writes about the film:

"I have been doing historical murals and looking at old photos for many years and it is amazing to see it come to life-- to get a sense of what the daily life was like: Peoples' movement, traffic, clothing-- the rhythms of life. You don't get that just looking at the still photos. Amazing."

http://www.flixxy.com/san-francisco-1905-historical-footage.htm

Bagged #3

Oil on board, 5" x 7"
$125 plus $6 shipping in U.S.
Email don@dailyartwest.com for purchase


Life has made other plans for me this week, so I haven't had a lot of time to paint. Here's a painting first posted in May of 2008.

New and Used 4

Acrylic on board, 7" x 5"
$125 plus $6 shipping in U.S.
SOLD

I have hundreds of brushes. Many are never used anymore and should have been tossed long ago, but I can't bring myself to do it...I get attached to them. I'm just a sentimental old fool.

Semi-Retired

Acrylic on board, 7" x 5"

$125 plus $6 shipping in U.S.
SOLD

This distinguished fellow had a long and hard-working career in the mural business, but he's semi-retired now. He spends most of his days now in the studio, doing odd jobs like priming panels and canvases.

Peeking Through

Acrylic on board, 5" x 7"
$125 plus $6 shipping in U.S.
Email don@dailyartwest.com for purchase


Here's another piece done with Golden Open acrylic.

Backyard Snow

Acrylic on board, 5" x 7"
$125 plus $6 shipping in U.S.
SOLD

You've had this experience: you're trying to learn something, you're struggling along and it's just not coming, so you drop it. You put it out of your mind for awhile. Later you come back to it again and it is suddenly so much easier that you wonder what the problem was in the first place. Somehow you were learning, even while you weren't doing.

That's what happened with this piece. It is painted with Golden Open acrylics, a new formulation that stays wet longer than regular acrylics. When I first got the paints a few months back, I did several paintings with it. I felt the paint was promising, but it didn't quite handle like any other paint, so it was always a struggle. Finally, I stopped using it altogether.

I picked it up again for this painting, and immediately felt right at home with the medium--it just clicked and I seemed to have a newfound understanding of how to handle the paint. It was so much fun!

I love it when that happens.

Heaven and Earth series (click image to enlarge)
Charcoal on paper, each vertical pair 46" x 27"
Not for sale at this time




Heaven and Earth 1
Charcoal on 2 sheets paper, 46" x 27"




Heaven and Earth 4
Charcoal on two sheets paper, 46" x 27"


Still got rocks in my head. My ongoing Stone series continues to grow. I received an order of about 100 sheets of beautiful Fabriano and Canson papers, so have been doing drawings in charcoal and mixed media lately. I like the look of all these drawings as a group, but they take up about 11 feet of wall, so will likely be offered for sale as vertical pairs.

The video I shot in December of clouds on Craig Mountain has inspired these cloud images. There is something elemental that I am drawn to with the pairing of sky and stone.

Time's Passage

Watercolor on archival paper, 6" x 6"
$125 plus $6 shipping in U.S.
SOLD


Union, Oregon, the small town where I live, has some lovely old Victorian era homes. Some have been beautifully restored. This one could use a little TLC, but she's still a beauty.

An Amazing Evening

Watercolor on archival paper, 6" x 6"
$125 plus $6 shipping in U.S.
Email don@dailyartwest.com for purchase


It's interesting sometimes to paint the same subject in different media. I did a version of this scene in oil last year, and decided to try it in watercolor. It really was an amazing evening, with this phenomenal yellow sky.

Since I'm in a video mood, here's Winslow and I on a walk yesterday morning. Background guitar is a piece from the album "Dedication," by Andres Segovia.

I shot a little video of some birds on the wires outside our daughter's home over Christmas. I messed around with it a little in Windows Movie Maker, and here's the result. The music is a piece from Ólafur Arnald's Found Songs.