More Art from my Past.....

There are so m any areas along the shoreline of Lake Superior that look just like this. This is a watercolor that I started on location and then finished it in the studio. In the studio, I am able to rewet areas and blot off any excess paint areas.  Blotting it helps to add values that show light better. I see by the painting’s signature that I painted this in 1989 or our very first trip around the lake and also Lake Michigan.

Along Superior there is a state park called Gooseberry Falls.  The falls are wonderful but if you head further down the road in the park you get to see wonderful rock cliffs.  My wife and I sat along here many different years to paint pictures.  This one painting was done in oil pastel.  The seagulls were difficult for me and I think I ended up painting them on there with acrylic paint. I wasn’t so good at capturing the seagull.  I can see that this was created in 1993.

Shovel Point also is along the north shore road next to Lake Superior.  The area in which we painted was a difficult location for us to navigate. We could sit down there to work but we had to step from one large rock to another.  This was painted in oil pastel also like the one painting above.  The projection of rock is a beautiful one and is so much larger that what I depicted.  As a person, you can follow a trail out to that larger point.  The trees are proportions to the size of the rock formation. Today I am probably too old to be able to get down to the location in which to paint at the spot again. I didn’t sign it as oil pastel is hard to use when writing the name.

Digging out old stuff.....

Grand Marias has a natural harbor with two light houses it. The oil pastel painting is one that I did many years ago. Probably 20 years or more.  It reality, it is an unfinished painting by me.  The thing that bothers me is the cropping of it after the photograph real does make it have a more finished quality. We would work along the shoreline for a week and then have to head back to Iowa.  I have a lot of work the just never got the refined finish that I would do if I could. Summer vacation never lasted long enough and the work that wasn’t finished is still in portfolios as if they were vacation photos of the week.

Pastel or watercolor is better for plain air work for me.  I like to capture all the light that is projected because of the sun and Lake Superior. It can almost be too bright for painting as the colors look different than with strong light. I like seeing the pastel washed out colors of what was really seen along the shore line.

This paintings looks good enough to frame. I know that it was done in oil pastel. a stick of oil color that reminds me of a grease pencil. The area is near Split Rock light house where there is a park ground area adjacent to the shoreline of Lake Superior.

As I continue to explore paintings of my past, I am thinking it will inspire to get back to painting new works now.  I am retired from teaching now but still have lots of odds and ends to do because we recently moved to a newer home.