Progress Report

Time for painting is always at a premium these days with a busy schedule and short, dim days where there is little decent light. The photo above is a small part of the painting that I am currently working on. I am lucky to find more than a few hours a week for painting. That is fine with me. It satisfies my creative drive without getting me burned out.

The painting is based on my visit to the Pribilof Islands this past Summer. The photo above is a small research station at the far end of St. Paul Island.

This photo is the village of St. Paul on the opposite side of the island from the research station. The weather is always bleak. I would have a hard time living on the island. It's bad enough here in Anchorage. We are experiencing a nasty blizzard here today.

Most of the shorebirds on the Pribilofs are Rock Sandpipers.

I like this photograph of Northern Fur Seals. Especially the one in front that is scratching its neck with a hind flipper.

Now back to the painting. This is to be a Tufted Puffin.

This photograph is the main inspiration for the new painting.

This is the painting as it looks so far. It is 12x24".  It is still in a very rough stage, but I have some ideas for it. Who knows how it will turn out.

Owls Move South

Lemmings and voles are cyclical, like many rodents, Their populations fluctuate according to food abundance. It typically works like this; A relatively small rodent population feels heavy pressure from the local predators, however there tends to be an abundance of edible vegetation. The rodents breed prolifically and soon overwhelm the predators by sheer force of numbers. Predator populations rise along with the rodents, lagging behind by a year or two.

The rodent populations stay ahead of predator populations because they reproduce faster than the predators can eat them. The local vegetation cannot keep up with rodent populations and every five or so years the rodents start to go hungry.

Lemmings especially are known for forming large groups that move out, looking for something to eat. The predators have an orgy of feasting on lemmings until the lemming population crashes. Followed by a crash in predator populations a short time later. 

The pressure on the local vegetation is lifted and there is a short period of luxuriant plant growth. The cycle starts over. Similar cycles happen all over the world but they are easily recognized in the far North.

Predators often do what the lemmings tried to do, they disperse to new areas in search of food. Raptors have the advantage of flight, so they can travel much farther than four legged predators.

These photos of two different Snowy Owls were taken in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, by Gary's brother Doug Lyons. He is a much better photographer than Gary is. His superior camera equipment surely has a lot to do with that.

Right now there is an owl invasion into the Northeastern USA.

This heavily marked individual is a sub-adult female.

The same individual. The top two photos are of an adult female. Males tend to be all white with few markings or none at all. Many of the owls that head south on invasion years do not survive the journey. Hopefully these owls will make it.

Cat Walk

A golden bush with tiny white flowers set among some salmon colored rocks. This is one small  part of the painting that has occupied my attention for the last several weeks. My last painting was the Coyote which also had a similar color theme. I knew from the first few brush strokes that this painting was destined to be better. It just felt right.

This painting certainly did not come without its challenges. I knew that I wanted to paint a Southwestern theme with dramatic, glowing rocks and sweeping vistas. That is easy to conceive but difficult to translate into natural looking shapes. I felt that I was a little lost while I sketched it out. Just a bunch of random shapes without a strong concept of how it would look when I painted it. Would there any any balance or accurate perspective? I was not at all sure about that.

I had one minor flash of inspiration when I decided to put a window in the rocks.

A cat's paw.

A lovely mouth.

Because I had no reference photos of Cougars in the position that I chose for this painting, I had to do many minor adjustments to the cat's anatomy to make it look right to my eyes.

A vertical look at a horizontal painting.

Hopefully it all comes together when you see the entire painting. The actual painting looks much different. For some reason when I photograph a painting it always comes out over-exposed. I adjust the brightness in photoshop, but when I put it up on the blog, my adjustments sometimes go away.

The shadows of this painting are much stronger than the photo indicates, especially on the left hand side.

This painting, Cat Walk, 18x24" is one of the best things that I have done in a long time.

Fun Without Color

Several years ago my nephew Dan and I had this idea to produce and market a series of small prints in black and white. We assumed that quality black and white prints would be much cheaper to produce, so we would be able to sell them at a low cost.

The photo above is a tight close up of a larger piece.

The complete painting. I enjoyed doing the series of black and white paintings. It was an interesting change of pace from my normal work. I forget the name of this one and the rest as well.

Another close up of the next painting. 

The complete painting of the wolf family.

So our intention was to do a series of small prints of popular Alaskan wildlife and sell them at art shows and in local gift shops that cater to tourists. We quickly found out that we would not save all that much money doing these paintings in black and white as opposed to color.

Another close up of another in the series, a Dall Ram.

Another Dall Ram from the same painting.

The complete painting.

Anyway we worked out the cost of printing, and the costs of matting, foam core backing, and shrink wrap. Then we figured that we could sell each print for $15, or $20 dollars. The gift shops take half of that leaving us with a thin profit margin.

Every tourist who comes to Alaska wants to see a Moose. Every hunter dreams of bagging a giant Moose like these.

The painting is set in Denali National Park. No hunter will be able to get these guys.

A close up of Trumpeter Swans.

The funny thing about this painting is that the leaves look to me like they have a trace of color although I only used black and white acrylic paint.

From the experience of doing many art shows together, Dan and I knew that we would only be able to sell a limited number of prints in a given show. We realized that it would take years for us to recoup out initial investment in making these prints. So we dropped the idea for now.

A grizzly cub.

Mama Grizzly.

The complete painting with Mt. McKinley in the background. There was another painting in the series that was far superior to any of these but I sold it before I could photograph it.

Building Upon Ideas For Paintings

The sky in this rough study of Caribou reminds me of one of Cezanne's paintings; I forget the name of it, but it was a landscape dominated by a big mountain in France.. This study was inspired by a looming thunderstorm that I observed in Eagle River several years ago. At the rime I was noticing that there were greenish tones within the purple clouds.

In the past I used to make many studies for possible paintings. Over time my enthusiasm has waned and I have gotten lazy. Now I usually just work out a painting directly on the final surface. This idea for a Caribou painting is perfectly fine. I do not know why I have never tried to do a refined version of it.

Many things used to spark ideas for paintings like seeing alpenglow turning snow into a pleasing shade of pink. When I would come up with a mental image such as this, I would rush to duplicate it on any available scrap of paper. I never painted a finalized version of this one either.

This black and white sketch was made using a pencil, a ball point pen, and a Sharpie. I like the perspective and I hope that one day I get around to painting it. All of these little studies were dome some years ago: I stuck them in a box and forgot about them. A few days ago I stumbled upon them. There were hundreds more sketches like this that have been thrown out over time.

This quick raptor doodle was done on the menu of a take-out restaurant.

I had the urge to do a seascape of some sort.

I found out that seascapes are not so easy to paint. this one got recycled. It could have been reworked but I did not have the patience.

Another version that went away also. There was a third version that came out fairly well. I gave that one away before I ever photographed it.

I had an idea for a Goshawk in an old snag. There were many variations on this theme.

The version that eventually got painted is called, Grandfather Tree. It is an 18x24" canvas. Unfortunately it got a hole poked through the canvas. It can be repaired but it lessens the value of the painting. I should do one more variation on this theme with more background.

What inspired this idea was the miniature waterfall between the two foreground rocks. The Dipper is more of an accent to compliment the setting.

The completed version was slightly surreal but it sold easily. The photo of this 16x20' painting is also slightly askew, and washed out.

On the more recent artwork front, the Cougar painting that I have been working on for the past few weeks is progressing nicely. I think that it will be a good one.

In Gary's Yard & A New Painting

Gary Lyon from Homer set up a game cam in his yard to see what was around when he and his wife were not watching. He has a nice sized pond on his property that often has a Moose in it.

The game cam captured this shot of a Grizzly Bear. It was chasing a Moose. See the agitated water at the far left of the photo.

The Moose got away.

Gary got this night time shot of another Grizzly Bear from much closer. Notice the Fish & Game collar around its neck. That means that it is a nuisance bear that has gotten into mischief before.

It must be a little unnerving to know that there are multiple bears wandering around your property.

I cannot remember if I posted this photo before of a Saw-whet Owl that spent weeks in Gary's shed a few Winters ago.

It did not go hungry. I believe that the prey is a redpoll.

This is a poor photo of my latest painting. This 11x14" Coyote is a commission but I'm not sure how serious the couple is that wanted a Coyote painting. I finished the painting it a few weeks ago but I wanted to sit on it for awhile before I decided if it was finished. Personally I am not too impressed with this painting but I have sold much worse artwork than this.

A slightly out of focus close up.

Today I started applying paint to an 18x24" Cougar sketch that is another iffy commission. The new painting is already looking much better than this one. I have high hopes for it, and I hope that I did'nt jinx it by saying that.