More Landscapes - Works in Progress

This Sunday morning. I am trying to get myself organized and put together to get back into painting. It's been a few days while I get some things reorganized, evaluate inventory, works in progress, paints, brushes etc. All around feeding, milking and caring in general for the critters around here. The goats are yelling to be fed and milked while I type this as a matter of fact :-) 

This last week I have been going through all of my works in progress and trying to just get more organized once again. The cleaning out and rearranging of the studio is coming along pretty well, just a little slow now that the rains have come back. It's just not real fun tromping back and forth from the house to the studio through 4 German Shepherds who are excited to see you, as if they have never seen you, each time you go back and forth. Did I mention the mud? Anyway, not a lot of fun and rather messy so the process has slowed a bit. Not entirely, just not the super rate I was going after at the start of this endeavor.

I have several landscapes that are in the pipeline and thought I'd share the early stages of the pieces, at least so we can see a reference point by the time they are finished up. I have found that this is actually an excellent learning experience and when I can I will be doing this more often. These pieces in progress range in size, medium to small. At some point I will be able to share the larger canvas's I have as work in progress as well. They just happened to be packed away at the moment while I'm getting the studio cleaned out and organized. 30x40" of the Miami House (see the study below) up next!

12x16" on paper

12x16 on paper

5x7" on canvas

9x12" on paper

6x12" on canvas

6x12" on canvas

6x12" on canvas

Completed Study of the Miami House in AZ - Study for a Commissioned piece. Oil Pastel.

The latest installment to my Colorado Landscape Painting. As yet untitled. This image is one that I gathered while traveling to southern Colorado last summer to visit my Mom's final resting place in Alamosa in the San Luis Valley. I was fortunate to be able to spend a good weekend doing some traveling around the area taking pictures so that I could paint to my hearts content when I got back to Washington State.

This piece is from an area around La Veta (not quite that far, further east) east of the Spanish Peaks) more toward the area that has the caldera fields in almost extreme southeast Colorado and extreme northeast New Mexico (north and east of Angel Fire) The mountain in the background is a Caldera, meaning a large, basinlike depression resulting from the explosion or collapse of the center of a volcano. The whole area is covered in them. For one with an amateur interest in geology, this is a fun place to pick around in. A whole ton of little cider cones too. While on I-25, check out a perfect little specimen out just before Walsenburg.

Back to the latest installment of the progress of this piece. I've reintroduced shadows in the bushes at the fore, worked some shadows and highlights in all the rest of the trees and the road, a bit more on the house and toned down the gold in the field to the right. I've also started developing the wildflowers on the other side of the wooden fence. 

Getting close! Will be tackling the caldera and the sky again here directly and adding some scrubby bushes to the mid-line hills as well. 05-10-13

If you would like to see all the images in the progress of this painting you can visit my art page at Face Book, and while you are there I would love a "like" if you are so inclined. :-) Here is the link directly to the art folder: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.354138881330352.80958.197207013690207&type=3

Save 25% off your order! Sale going on at Imagekind where I have many of my paintings available for print. Three different galleries, Florals, Lanscapes and Abstracts to choose from! ------ Use code HAPPYMOM25 - Visit the store for details!

http://www.imagekind.com/High-Mountain-Mission_art?IMID=20849866-1611-4654-b6e6-9d8131aed261

I painted these two paintings in December but this evening decided I needed to play with them a little more. It's interesting how a little time can make you change your mind on some things. I thought they were fine back then, didn't really have any color issues, depth...none of that.

This evening I took them back out again as part of my inventory process and decided, wow, they are rather...boring. I'm a color fanatic so I had to fix this problem. I pounced on them with just the answer, jazzing up as it were and here are the results.

Now, in order to appreciate the difference you actually have to see what they were like when I initially posted them.You can check that out here if you would like: Pears 

In the meantime, here are the jazzed up and revamped Pears Part Deux.

They are both 4.5 x 6.5"
Acrylic Mixed Media Collage on watercolor paper

Kiln dried alder boards as canvas!

I have started a new project (for me) because I have come into a large and rather constant, if I ask for it, supply of kiln dried alder from a local flooring mill. 

When they are making the boards ready for production they have to cut off the ends, some are bad, some are very interesting (for incorporating natural abstract design) and some have not one thing wrong with them. I can't bear the thought of these being tossed out, so I'm playing around with them. 

This set is more floral, another set I'll share later is abstract collage (expressionism) and I suspect I will also be painting some landscapes on these as well. The fun!! These boards are all around an inch or so thick. I'm really excited so far with some of the techniques I've been able to employ, including sanding, even with paint on it already. Really fun effects. 

 To start off, I have these floral pieces that I have started. One is actually a little more abstract, but we'll see where it takes me.

I am really tickled this painting is finally starting to come together. I started last summer, right around August or so and I just can't believe it's actually taken me this long to get to the finish line.

Not because it takes me that long to paint mind you but because I am well and swamped with life on the farm type business. Which in itself is wonderful, rewarding and yep, time consuming. A painting like this might be finished up in a few days, maybe a week at most back when I was doing this as a full on, full time living.

So I whipped it back out again this evening because I was at an impasse with some of the other paintings I have going at the moment. You know, design decision, color decisions, DRYING decisions, those sorts of things. I'm fiddling around in my stuff and I run across this sweet painting, just sitting there and quietly pleading with me to pull it out and start finishing it up.

f the lords a willin' and the creek don't rise I will have this piece listed by the end of the week. I sure do hope so, it's been a bit too long and this place is a special one for me.

You can also see some images I took as a work in progress for this piece in a folder dedicated to this piece at my FaceBook art page: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.354138881330352.80958.197207013690207&type=3




Speaking of store, here is my new store, and this is right where this new piece and all other landscapes I have planned will be living. Come on in and check it out!

Visit christine-wasankari's ArtFire Shop

Wow...to lose a companion, friend...

Nicki and Cheyenne at Ship Wreck Point

I know I have a lot of dogs. I do love them all...but my Nicki, my sweet Nicki was my angel girl. That special pound dog. That dog that is so much more than just a dog. She is a companion, truly my best friend. An angel. Pet? No, family member. She was everything we could ever love and hope for.

My sweet Nicki girl had a stroke last Saturday night. And the once proud and independent girl (who marked with the best of the boys) was brought down to being full of embarrassment and humiliation. Poor sweet girl. She didn't realize I didn't mind cleaning up after her. She didn't realize I would try to help her outside. Nope, she insisted on trying to do it herself. She couldn't.

Strokes are horrific for both people and animals.

Miss Nicki was going to be 15 years old on May 2nd.

You know what I keep seeing? That sweet dog running toward me in her fun wiggly way when she was full of life and playing at the beach at mach II. Big smile on her face as she whizzed by with an air of "catch me if you can"

I love my sweet Nicki girl...I will always miss you baby.

Painful Melancholy Beauty

So I'm sitting here late at night, thinking I should go to bed. But I just can't seem to drag my sorry butt into it. I'm tired, losing concentration This means I'm not able to do the typical graphic stuff I typically do at or around this time. Graphic stuff includes preparing images for web, for print blah blah blah.

So why the heck can't I just give up??? Not sure I know at the moment, but I do know I'm suffering some sort of depression or anger issues. Everything is pissing me off and that isn't even remotely my nature! I'm almost always easy going and nice. Love nature, love people (well, some of them anyway) love my family...all my damned animals.

Maybe I'm just getting overwhelmed. Maybe it was hearing that we are in for a colder, wetter winter up here in the pacific northwest. Now that will depress the Pope I tell you! I'm not religious, certainly not Catholic (no offense whatever meant to Catholics) But he seems like a stand up guy who handle just about anything. Try 10 years up here on the northern coast of Washington. I'm getting fussy about it. Love the summers, but the winters...ugh. Rain, rain and more rain.

And don't even tell me or consider Seattle part of the mix. It does not rain Seattle. It's all a myth perpetuated by who ever perpetuates these things. Probably the same person who convinced everyone it snows all winter in Denver. No. Try upstate NY for that one I guess. But anyway, Seattle gets nowhere near the rain we do. In fact, speaking of NY, New York City gets a smidge more rain than Seattle does!

So there. Nope. I live out in the actual rain forest. Yes. There is a real rain forest in the US. A rarity actually as it is only one of a few temperate rain forests in the world. Tell me about it. I live in it and while it is fantastically beautiful (and I hear vampires and werewolves live out here close by, very close by) it is rough trying to make it through late fall, winter and spring while keeping one's head on straight.

Here are some links to how pretty it is: (I'm trying to make myself deal with it better, can you tell?-- What can I say? I'm from Colorado)

http://www.forkswa.com
http://www.clallambay.com
http://www.portangeles.org
Actually, the Port Angeles link is a great one but it's 55 miles away from me over in the sun belt. They get about 18-20 inches of rain a year. If they are lucky. Nope. I get about 100-175" depending on the year. Some parts out here get up 200 plus. The actual rain
forest.

I have to laugh at the visitors that come out here. Not to their face of course. But in general. They fuss and complain or are disheartened because they come out to visit the rain forests of Olympic National Park in the summer! And they get upset because it isn't raining! It doesn't rain here in the summer! (The whole 8 days we get) Very rarely does it rain in the summer! Let us locals have a little time of no rain. Eh? Just a little?

Come on up here in late October through May. You'll get all the melancholy, sweet beauty and sadness type whatever you are looking for in the rain forest then. And it is beautiful I do have to say. But it does get old after 8 or more long months.

Ok, so I'm getting a little cranky again. That's because it's now 2 am and I reckon it's really time to give it up and heave the night owl off my shoulder. He'll be back on me tomorrow I'm sure. And besides, I still have some fussing to do to make myself feel better about living in such a painfully beautiful place.