Lost Artwork on a Barn Door.....

A painting that I did on a barn door for a customer. I had the photo of this stowed away and just found it yesterday as I was sorting photos. It must have been twenty years ago when I painted it. I have moved now to a different town and live about four miles away from the person who bought it. This kind of painting is similar and yet the surface makes it difficult. The surface is so rough that it you can't paint smoothly without doing many coats of oil paint. I do know that I am a better artist now and I kind of grin to the artificial landscape.

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.

Golden Oldie.....

I ran into this acrylic painting in one of my old art folders.  It had to have been done at least 35 years ago. It looks like I was spreading my wings into the style of impressionism. I know that it had to have been done in Minnesota.

Grand Portage, Minnesota

This is an oil pastel done on site along the shore of Lake Superior.  The area is a park near the Fort that was recreated to show the ways of the fur  trading business of a long time ago in northern Minnesota.  The area of land is where the Indians and trappers had to pick up their canoes and goods and carry them on land to get to the next set of waters that were inland. The building is one of the fort's buildings where the captain of the fort lived.

Spanish Church Tower.......

Small Reference Source.......

When I was starting out to paint in my early years I would find the oddest things to inspire me.  This was a small photograph in a National Geographic Magazine. I really liked the composition with the three boats moored while the tide was out.  The two guys in the photo and the seagulls helped to show the size of the fishing boats in the scene in comparison. The whole scene was a great photograph taken by a magazine contributor.

I did try to duplicate all of the colors with the water and shoreline of rocks and clay.   I bet I could paint better seagulls now than back when I did this painting. I liked seeing the poles that helped to stay the boats and all the rigging was fun to portray.  I did name the one boat after my wife.

Two Geese......

This was painted a long time ago when I was young.  I really am not a wildlife painter but I took a stab at it. I really did get into the real and not so real foliage.  I a not sure if I was doing real things but at the time I probably thought that I was.   The black and white shown below the colored painting has no purpose other than to show the value contrast in the painting.

The Minnesota shoreline of some lake is pretty much authentic looking as I have painted many times the shores of the lakes in the state. The sky also seems to be one that I have studied for many different kinds of paintings.  I think I have done more watercolor paintings as well as pastel paintings creating this same sky.

Artists sometimes says that they will return to a painting but it really is not a good idea..  Maybe a newer pose of some Canada geese on the water would be worth a try instead.