Welcome. These paintings are in watermedia on wood panels, canvas board, aquaboard, clayboard and paper. They are done, depending on the painting, in acrylic, acrylic and casein, watercolor, watercolor and gouache. I consider them all works-in-progress although some feel very done! They are all of places in the truly great state of Washington.
“Dawn Fishing” Acrylic on wood, 9” x 12” Bainbridge Island,
“The Golden Hour” Casein on canvas panel. 9” x 12” My first attempts using casein. Bainbridge Island, from the crescent curve of land at Pt. Monroe, the place the locals call the Spit, or the Sandspit.
“Tacobet at Sunset” Acrylic on wood panel. 10” x 10” View from Bainbridge Island.
In the 1890’s it was agreed by the Tacoma Academy of Science that the true name of Mt. Rainier at the very least was Tacoma, although the Tribal peoples’ name for the mountain was Tacobet. In 1792, Captain George Vancouver, who tended to name and claim a lot of places, named Rainier for his friend Rear Admiral Peter Rainier of the British Royal Navy who fought against the United States in the Revolutionary War. To me, the mountain is and always will be Tacobet.
“June Thaw” Acrylic and casein on wood panel. 10” x 20” Reflection Lake in June. My daughter and I had spent the day in Mt. Rainier National Park… at the lower altitudes it was warm and sunny but as we got higher up, the ice on the lake was just beginning to thaw. That is Tacobet behind the trees. Clouds were moving in and although it was the first week of June, it would snow all that week.
“Dan’s Boat” Acrylic and casein on wood. 9” x 12” Bainbridge Island, “The Spit”
“Tacobet through the Trees” Acrylic and casein on wood panel. 10” x 20” That soft cloud to the left was just the beginning of what was to come.
Acrylic and casein on wood panel. 12” x 16” This painting doesn’t actually exist any more! Or it does, but in a new form… See the one below. I wasn’t happy with it and abruptly I changed the weather, just as the weather had changed on the mountain that day.
“Tacobet in Snow” Acrylic and casein on wood panel. 12” x 16” I am kind of wildly in love with this painting because it took such a turn and a twist on me. I just scumbled the white and grey into it, over the surface of the bright sunny blue above, pulled and pushed the paint for maybe five minutes, and bam! It was done! It is exactly what we experienced on the mountain that day. Tacobet does this - appears and disappears.
“Waterfall for my Daughter”
As we drove up the flanks of Tacobet that June day, we saw waterfalls spilling down the mountainside.
Watermedia on paper. Watercolor, Derwent watercolor pencils, white Sakura gelly roll pen. Probably about 5” x 7” This is part of the book I made for my daughter.
“Nurse Log” Colored pencil on paper. 8” x 10” The only piece which is pure color pencil, Derwent color pencils. You can see bits of paperclips on the corners. I was trying to keep the paper flat! In “Rainier” National Park, there is very old growth forest, thousands of years old. In the Grove of the Patriarchs, which my daughter renamed The Grove of the Elders, we saw these enormous fallen trees out of which huge new trees and young saplings were growing. The fallen trees that give life to new forest are called Nurse Logs. The roots at the base, twining around the Nurse Log, are up to six inches in diameter.
“Fallen Giant”
Acrylic on wood panel. 9” x 12” The beach on Bainbridge Island, Fay Bainbridge Park. I first saw this huge fallen tree in 2011. Already deeply embedded, it had to be forty feet long. Since then, another tree, seventy feet long, rolled up alongside it. I may paint them both sometime. But this is how I originally saw the great pine. That is Tacobet in the distance, appearing through cloud and haze. Often, from this place, the mountain is invisible.
“The Path” Casein on canvas panel. 9” x 12” Another of my early attempts in casein. In May and June, on Bainbridge Island, there are masses of wldflowers. The clouds come and go. This is a view from “The Spit.”
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