Pond

– Jer

Industrial Rhythms

Wandering around the lower east side industrial district on Alder Street, I didn’t find a lot to paint but I got intrigued by the rhythms I could see in buildings and trash and street furnishings.

Of course, there are the weird one-of-a-kind places:

And I thought this one was a bit like jazz:

–June

Four trilliums

Trilliums, who are often seen hanging out with ferns. — Jer

The Buckman Mural, Branch Library Ornamentation, and some tree bark

I have been painting. I now have five (5!) paintings of the East Portland Branch Library,  but nothing new worth showing yet (if ever). I have notions about painting a much bigger canvas dealing with the library, but notions are too airy to coalesce if exposed to blogging. And so…

On my way to Alder and 11th to paint, I always pass the Buckman Mural on the side of the Plaid Pantry.  It’s looking better and better:

This mural somehow passed Portland’s interim rules for murals. Draconian rules were installed after an advertising company got called out for its blinking neon signs and claimed that, legally, they were nothing more than murals. The City Commission forbade all such activities but the outcry made them reconsider, so they then drafted something that insisted that big signs be “art.” Apparently that didn’t go over well either, so they’ve made further concessions to “Bidness” (as they say in Texas). In the meantime, however, the Buckman Neighborhood snuck a real mural-as-art into the system where it’s been grandfathered in. It’s been sketched on the wall for a couple of years, in various states of painted completion, but I see now the artist is down to adding humans to the scene. Joe Cotter is the artist and here’s a set of nice photos to check out the artist and earlier stages.

Beyond (diagonally behind) the mural/Plaid Pantry is that East Portland Branch Public Library that I’ve been working plein air. Here’s a bit of ornamentation that decorates the window boxes under each of the old library windows.

I’m a sucker for these kinds of things. The cement is soft and wearing in places and the windows have been cut into parts by the division of the room horizontally to make two floors, but the window boxes are still kept up. The building was designed by A.E.Doyle, who designed the downtown Public Library, and will be 100 years old in 2011. I figure by that time, I may have finished this series.

Oh yes, here’s a classic Portland sight:

That bicycle is inside the room, leaning against the glass while sitting on the “new” flooring which truncates the window glass. The leaves are reflected from the trees outside — horse chestnut trees in this case.  I like imagining this building as full of people who ride bikes to work, but in fact, I saw one of them loading batches of stuff into a Zip Car and another on a little red motor scooter which matched her helmet.

Today was the last day I’ll spend looking at the Library as I paint it — the rest is to be done in the studio. I’m going to miss the place. I got to know a number of the workers there — they kept an eye on me and would wander out occasionally, just to check on the progress.  If I ever get any painting from those days that is worth showing, I might have to go back with it. They invited me in often enough. –June

Giraffe

Giraffe and admirers at the Albuquerque, New Mexico, zoo. The photo is from Mike Thomsen, a friend from Mesa, Arizona. — Jer

Color studies: Lucia Salemme — & Jan

Jan and I continue our explorations of color (Color Exercises for the Painter by Lucias Salemme), and, glory be, we have reached Exercise 4. Exercise 4 calls for a painting rather than samples (see the photo above) of what you can do with various pigments. Because Jan (daughter) and I figure this is a good 5 year project and excellent for mother-daughter bonding as well as gathering of gossip, we make slow progress — we work only on Sundays when both of us are available and we don’t try to do too much in any one session.

So Sunday the 28th of June, we got to paint a landscape in “earth” colors. One of Salemme’s charms is that the book was published in 1970 (smells sort of musty) and uses concepts and language current during that period. My more hip artist friends have been a trifle critical of its drawbacks, but I, being ancient, see them as historical artifacts which might actually contain bits of truth.

At any rate, in Exercise 4, we were to use the “earth colors” and make an actual landscape: the paints “allowed” are raw umber, burnt umber, raw sienna, burnt sienna, yellow ochre, Indian Red, and terre verte (which Salemme call “green earth”, which I couldn’t find anywhere and am assuming that for artistes, the French has come to serve the same purpose).

Here’s Jan, excited about the prospect of painting and practicing her measuring skills. Or something:

Note that there’s nothing on the boards on her easel. She’s holding the instructions, which tend to be the opposite of Betty Edwards, our last artist companion. Edwards spelled everything out in such detail that we were left gasping; Salemme is pretty cavalier about what to do. “Paint a landscape. Use a rag to wipe out the light spots. Don’t use anything but earth colors until you near the end of the process.” OK, we can do that.

I disliked my painting, and so won’t make it visible, but Jan, who worked from the cover of a book about painting landscapes by John Carlson, did beautifully. You didn’t know that genes worked backwards through the family structure, did you?

Already her sense of color seems to exceed mine. I’m going out today and copy what she did — but hush, don’t tell her. After all, I am her mother and supposed to be the expert in all things. I wouldn’t want her to know otherwise. –June

By the way, Comcast shut down totally last night and is incredibly slow this AM, so my daily post, which normally is set to appear at 5 AM Pacific time, is now going to upload now, at 9:30. Or so I hope.

Obie’s Bridge

Obie’s Bridge crosses Tryon Creek in Tryon Creek State Natural Area.  The park is mostly in Portland and partly in the city of Lake Oswego. — Jer