Study for Memory/Birds Eye View - progress so far

Toe Island 2001

This image was inspired by the flooding of the Willamette River in 1996. The stretcher I used was built in 1995 at a time when I had no place to work, and it hung in the outbuilding on my property as a spirit guide and inspiration during the transformation of that space into what is now my painting studio.
Toe Island is a tiny sand bar in the Willamette River on the south west side of Ross Island. During the flooding in 1996, the shrubs were all submerged for a prolonged period of time and surprisingly survived the strong current, but were all bent downstream in the wake of the flood. This was the story I wanted to tell here, but the silhouetted trees in the foreground became the inspiration for the bar code paintings that formed the basis for the Andy Warhol Barcode Project five years later. I recently visited the friend in California who owns this painting, and was able to photograph it successfully for the first time.

Wood block re visited

A couple proofs of an image of California savanna woodblock print, with color hand rolled onto a monotype plate and over printed to create second image

From the model

Some more drawing selections

A Birds Eye View

20 x 20
oil on canvas

figurative work 2009

I have been attending an open life drawing class for five weeks now. It has been 28 years since I have done work from a live model, and during that time period I have rarely visited figurative elements in my work, so I have to admit that in the beginning, while rendering competent work during these sessions, i was not quite happy with my approach, and therefore not quite happy with my results. I have finally settled in and loosened up enough to grasp at the kind of drawings that I really want to play around with. Here is the first of what I hope will become a new body of work.

The Watermelon Girl 2009

Well, What can be said? I began work on this in June 2008, but it didn't really take 10 months to paint... I really spent six months meditating in a cave without food or water. Well, I finally emerged to finish this grand essay, and I will tell anybody who wants to know that I am very happy with the results! Hope you feel the wait was a worth while one!

2009
oil on canvas
60 x 50