I fell in love with this sweet face during my last visit to River's Wish. Stormy is a Pygora goat. He is older and arthritic and has been a loner until just last week, when he apparently met his goat soul mate.
Vegan came to River's Wish after being rescued by SCRAPS (Spokane County Regional Animal Protection Service) in a cruelty case. She is a Yorkshire pig, who now lives surrounded by love and hanging out with her friends Valentine and Vincent van Pig.
I'm hoping to get more portrait-style paintings of the pigs soon. I got some reference shots of Valentine with great expressions, but terrible lighting. Then Vegan wandered by in the sunshine, giving me this lovely candid angle.
Here is a time-lapse video of Vegan's painting in progress. It too has terrible light, unfortunately. I must have bumped something as I set it up that caused it to look blown out. Oh, well.
Moxie came to River's Wish as a very young calf. He was taken from his mother, a dairy cow, at two days of age. Because he cannot give milk, he was of no use to the dairy industry and immediately headed for slaughter. His only purpose was to keep his mother giving milk. Fortunately for him and his bestie, Bob, activists rescued the pair and brought them to live their lives in peace at the sanctuary.
Moxie was laying in the dirt and straw while I tried to take his photo, so I sat down with him to get a better angle and share a hug or two. He is such a sweet, happy boy. If only all of the calves could be so lucky.
I haven't learned this shaggy little goat's name yet, but it certainly did a nice job modeling for me. The lighting is so lovely in some of these photos; I've become addicted to painting the animals posing in it. This painting was a struggle despite everything the reference photo had going for it. Maybe it was the shaggy fur of the goat, or maybe I was just tired. It was still fun to capture the mix of warm and cool reflected light on the shadow side of the goat's face.
I will need to go back to River's Wish for more photos soon. I can't get myself to paint anything without this beautiful light.
Watch me struggle in a one-minute time lapse here.
Angel might be the friendliest goose living at River's Wish Animal Sanctuary. He suffers from a malady known as "angel wing," which causes the wings to twist at the wrist and protrude at an odd angle, often with underdeveloped feathers. Angel came to River's Wish when his person died, and now has a permanent home at the shelter.
While I attempted to photograph Angel, he was all about sitting on my lap. Eventually, I gave up getting a regular photo and tried a video instead. I helped him climb up onto my legs as I kneeled in the pen, and he immediately busied himself with nipping at my arm. Meanwhile, a few feet away, a red-faced, apoplectic duck plotted my demise. Angel spotted the duck, jumped off my lap, ran across the pen, and literally goosed him. It was brilliant. That duck had it coming.
One of the things I looked forward to as I headed to River's Wish for my second photo shoot was getting more reference of the sheep with the glorious mane, Precious. It was a warm spring day, I was wearing a little camisole and rolled up jeans, yet somehow it never occurred to me that the sheep would be... shorn.
Precious was only recognizable by her spotted nose and intense gaze. This isn't her—she was sitting back inside a dark barn. This sheep was the only one adventurous enough to go out in the sun naked. Well, not completely naked, exactly. She still had random tufts of fur, reminiscent of one of those sad-looking Chinese Crested dogs. What a good sport she was, to let me take her photo!
Here's a link to the "making of" video for Bad Hair Day.
Petunia came to spend her life at River's Wish after it was spared by a kind family—she was previously destined to become a Thanksgiving dinner. It is both mind-blowing and heartbreaking to think of the millions of turkeys who are not so lucky. But Petunia serves as an ambassador for her kind, showing that turkeys can be loving and sweet (not meat).
She will be featured in the River's Wish benefit show at Kolva-Sullivan Gallery in September. I see a much larger version of this painting in my future!
Another trip to River's Wish Animal Sanctuary resulted in some 750 sunny photos, including this one of a friendly, curious goat. His name may be Bulldog, or it may be Sky. He didn't tell me at the time. What's important right now is the reason for the 750 new photos...
I'm pleased to announce that I have been invited to show my paintings of River's Wish animals at the Kolva Sullivan Gallery this September! The exhibit will benefit the sanctuary, with a percentage of proceeds going to help Kit and Pete continue their essential work for the animals.
I'll share more details as I have them. Until then, please enjoy the studies I make for the larger works to come, while I try to learn the names of all of my models!
I'd never seen a pileated woodpecker in my life, until about two weeks ago. Now I've seen three.
This guy was digging around in some leaves on my walking route, just off of a busy street. I heard him before I saw him, which is surprising given the astonishing red of his fauxhawk.
He was not bothered in the least by my efforts to photograph him. It was almost impossible to catch a nice pose, though, so I resorted to video. A super-blurry video still became the reference for the painting.
This cutie lives at River's Wish Animal Sanctuary, along with Precious the sheep, Blue the goat, and hundreds of other animals saved from terrible fates and allowed to live out their natural lives. So few animals get to do this. It's heartbreaking. Visiting the shelter always gives me mixed feelings. It's comforting to spend time with the lucky few who make it to the shelter. But I can't help but think about the legions more who don't.
I eventually learned that this gentleman's name is... KEVIN! đ€Ł
This mourning dove appeared inside my festival tent at a midwestern show several years ago. It had clearly spent the night there. When I unzipped the tent in the morning, this guy (or gal) startled the hell out of me by flapping wildly, flying around until it landed atop one of my display walls. Once it calmed down, I managed to get a few so-so photos before shooing it out.
At the time, I was showing botanical pastel paintings and felt lucky for once that I had to frame my work behind glass. It made cleanup a bit easier.
This was the first time I recall having seen one of these birds, but afterward, I noticed them everywhere. There is a pair that lives a block from my house that I've seen for years now. I love their soft, pinkish coloration (enhanced a bit here for the sake of the painting).
Kyra is my first-ever pet portrait commission, and possibly my first painting of a dog. She is a lab-pit bull mix. I never got to meet her. This portrait is a memorial for an obviously sweet and well-loved girl.
Her people posted a photo of the painting next to a container of her ashes, which affected me quite a bit. I have a similar display on my dining room hutch. Mine includes a 6" x 6" oil portrait my friend Kate (Vita) Vander Wende did of my husband Paul and a pepper shaker filled with his ashes.
This photo of Mocha has been calling to me for a while, but somehow kept getting put off. Either I had just painted a cat, I had a commission to do, or someone had requested goats. Anyway, yesterday was the day. It was a fun painting to make, save for the self-inflicted stress of recording it in time lapse. The time-lapse process is oddly addictive. My heart races when I start the painting, all self-conscious and trying to be aware of where I'm standing. Maybe that rush has something to do with the addictiveness, but it's mostly the opportunity to watch the process from afar. The speed of the playback takes away the insecurity and mistakes and frustrations, making the progression seem almost magical. (See the video here.)
The title refers primarily to the magnificence and placement of my dorky cat. However, some research into the origin and of the Wordsworth's phrase "splendour in the grass" revealed unexpected appropriateness. Long story short, it's about finding beauty and meaning in ordinary things when we might otherwise be bitter and grieving. Pretty fitting and inspirational, but for now I'm going to have to settle for a bit of both.
Blue the Goat lives at River's Wish Animal Sanctuary with Precious, the sheep. Although he seems to have the run of the place generally, I found them hiding from the rain in the same shelter the day of my most recent visit. He was every bit as happy to pose for me as Precious, just a lot more squirmy and challenging to photograph.
His underbite gives him a sort of goofy, permanent smile. Hopefully, I captured the most dignified version of that possible.
Oliver the tabby makes a much more engaging painting subject than one might expect. He is a garden variety grey-brown tabby with a lopsided white mustache (see above). However, he has a few qualities that make him a blast to tackle in a quick oil study: his dramatically slanted eyes that never look the same color twice, and his natural aptitude for striking a pose.
He even has a knack for picking a good background (or lack thereof).
Another thing that added to the excitement of making this painting was the time lapse capture going on slightly behind the easel. No pressure there at all! Time lapse painting videos have always been a personal favorite, so inevitably I started making them. It has an interesting side effect of fresher paintings. This is probably due to either feeling rushed, or just wanting to get done so I can look at the video. So far it's a good thing.
Never has there been a greater love affair between camera and sheep than the one I witnessed last week at River's Wish Animal Sanctuary. This beauty could not get enough of posing for me.
She was hanging out just at the edge of a shelter, avoiding the rain while catching perfect light on her pale green eyes. Although the sheep was pure white save a few spots on her face, the depth of color occurring in the shadows of its glorious mane was fun to catch and exaggerate.
This is no doubt only the first in a series on Precious the sheep. I mean, just look at that face!
It's amazing she is so friendly, considering her history. When Precious was a baby she was brutally attacked by a so-called human, and her leg was broken. After her rescue, she lived in a shelter in Montana. When the owner of that sanctuary died in 2014, Precious found her forever home at River's Wish.
Last week I got the opportunity to spend a few hours taking photos at River's Wish Animal Sanctuary, one of my favorite places! Hundreds of rescued animals make River's Wish their home, including but not limited to: horses, cows, goats, sheep, pigs, ducks, geese, cats, dogs, rabbits, donkeys, miniature horses, miniature donkeys, and of course, chickens.
This girl was a stunner, all black except for a bunch of deep maroon feathers below her chin. I don't think I've ever seen feathers that color before, almost identical to that funky purplish-red color some women dye their hair.
She was a good model, although, like many of the lucky souls at the sanctuary, she was almost too friendly! My biggest struggle photographing that day was getting far enough away from the curious creatures to focus. Everybody settled down eventually, though, so many more River's Wish residents will appear here soon.
This young gentleman appeared one day in the yard of the studio. He was maybe five or six months old and very friendly. He let me pick him up, which was how I got him to be still enough for me to take his photo. I love how he looks like a wild baby panther.
I had never seen him before, and have not seen him since. I hope he's doing all right out in the world.
I think these red pigeons are the most beautiful things. I've only seen four of them that I can recall. The first two were a few years ago at Alki beach in Seattle. I couldn't get close enough to photograph them, and upon trying to google them later, found very little information on them.
This Portland city pigeon was far less shy. It and another red-headed friend were mucking about doing pigeon things with the usual flock (or flight or kit) of standard grey pigeons.
My photo still came out a bit blurry (not a wildlife photographer!), and I was a bit concerned about the harsh shadows on the concrete in the background. All those things combined to make an interesting challenge, however, and a painting I genuinely like.
Lily the Studio Cat is a very sweet girl when she's not an absolute raging bitch. She's one of those psycho kitties that can't get enough snuggles and attention until she randomly decides to hiss and claw you.
Last week when I brought a gentle, cat-friendly dog by the studio, Lily invented a move I like to call the Flying Halloween Sixteen Claw Ricochet. She somehow, while holding that classic arched-back Halloween-kitty pose, managed to fly at the dog, claws bared, and make contact with all four feet before bouncing off and tearing across the porch.
Anyway, I'm quite happy with this painting because it says all there is to say about Lily's personality.
Oliver very much wanted outside yesterday, which gave me an excellent opportunity to photograph him in dramatic light. He sat in the dark entryway looking out the all-glass storm door, very intent and still. I love the way the sun caught his eyes and ear, and how his whiskers contrasted with the dark wall behind him.
This is my first-ever painting of Oliver, and my first time using an app that grids off photos on the iPad. The grid made the drawing process much more pleasant! Working from photos has gotten so much better in the years I've been painting. From the luck of the draw getting reference photos printed, to printing them at home, often multiple times (using expensive inks!) to get the colors right, to just cropping and gridding them off on an iPad. I could probably take them with the iPad and save another step, but the phone is a bit easier to manage (and still more convenient than a camera).
Yes, he is real. This is my really, really, ridiculously good looking cat, Mocha. It's only the second time I have painted him, which in retrospect seems weird.
He's all fluff, so concentrating on his face seemed like the way to go. At first, I was frustrated with the whiskers, but I started to like the messy look of them—much like Mocha's whiskers IRL.
He has his own Instagram account, although he's pretty lazy about posting to it.
So, what does a chicken have to do with cocktails, you might ask?
Surprisingly, there is a connection. This particular chicken, whose name is Flo, loves to sit in a chair with her people on the front porch during cocktail hour. She was doing just that when I took the photo I used for painting reference.
I had so much fun painting her, I suspect she and her animal friends will begin to take over this blog. I've apparently become kind of a lightweight when it comes to painting cocktails. I need to mix in some other things to avoid getting sick of them!
Here's Flo with me after getting her ear infection treated:
The Brooklyn Manhattan is apparently a hot trend in drinks right now. Or maybe three years ago; it's hard to tell with things you find on The Interwebs anymore. Anyway, I don't care, I just want one most of the time. It's a delicious combination of rye whiskey, dry vermouth, maraschino liqueur, Ramazzotti Amaro, and two kinds of orange bitters.
This is my first attempt at painting this lovely mixing pitcher. My loose approach doesn't do justice to the three cut bands around the top. I'm sure it will get another chance to show off soon, though, so no worries.
On a recent trip to Portland, Rick and I visited a favorite cocktail spot from when he lived in the city. It's a hotel bar with a perfectly preserved mid-century vibe, called the Driftwood Room. Everything is spot on, down to the original(?) menu covers. The walls, made of hundreds of strips of interwoven dark wood, had recently been taken down, steam cleaned and replaced in their exact spots from before.
The Driftwood Room is a place where it appears nothing will change, ever. Yet, when we arrived, the bartenders were more than a little excited to show off a new addition to their repertoire: an absinthe fountain which they carried from customer to customer, enthusiastically explaining the correct process of serving and consuming absinthe.
Of course, we tried it. Neither of us is much into licorice, so the flavor was challenging. This in no way stopped me from buying my own absinthe fountain, just to paint. It's almost like the one at the Driftwood Room, except mine has wings.
I've noticed that sometimes when I order a drink that has cherries for garnish, the first drink will come with one cherry and the second drink with two. Although I don't always stop at two, I'm pretty sure I have never received a cocktail with three cherries. Three-cherry drinks appear only to exist on Pinterest. Too bad, that is.
Let's pretend this drink came from some mythical Pinterest bar.
This is the time of year when the golden hour and cocktail hour happen at the same time. And here in eastern Washington, it is finally warm enough to enjoy the beautiful, slanting golden light while enjoying a cocktail outside on the porch.
I love how the olives and the briny tones of the dirty martini mimic that warm, afternoon sunlight color, and turn the burgundy background orange. Sometimes these simple compositions are the most fun to paint.
This one was fun! When I was in the thick of making the Mixology with a Twist book, tiki drinks started to make a comeback in some of the on-trend bars where I got my recipes. There is such a wealth of tiki drinks (and great props) out there, I toyed with the idea of making a third, strictly tiki book. By the time I was done making the book, I was ready to stop making books.
But, there were still tiki things to hoard. This glass is new and has been waiting to model for a painting for almost two years. The little jade tiki god picks are mid-century and were a perfectly thoughtful gift from an old friend. The drink is a Mai Tai.
I loved painting the face on this guy. His little whiskers(?) were especially fun. I'm sure we will be seeing him again in the future.
This beautiful book has been laying around the house for years, and it never occurred to me to paint it. Then once I started painting it, of course, I wondered what the hell I was thinking. The cover is so busy! But in the end, that helped rather than hurt. After struggling with the title lettering, I started putting in all the frilly green stuff, and it seemed to come together.
The drink happens to be a Corpse Reviver 2. It's a favorite classic recipe included in my own first illustrated cocktail book, which is not nearly so fancy as the one in the painting.
I'd forgotten how fun olives are to paint. Not that I've painted a lot of them. I rarely paint martinis, even though people love them. They don't have any color! For some reason, it hadn't occurred to me until now to make a dirty martini. That little bit of brine adds just enough haze to the gin* to give it some contrast.
It's been fun the past several days to see how my painting has progressed. Back at the beginning of the Mixology project, it took months for my painting style to simplify and loosen up. This time, the abstraction settled in far more quickly. I'm sure it will come and go depending on the subject matter. But the looseness of this piece works for me. Especially in the olives and cocktail pick.
I think this martini might star in more than one painting this week.
*don't worry, no actual gin was wasted in the making of this painting.
While I may have stopped painting drinks for a few years, I never stopped hoarding props. After the second book printed, a pub in my neighborhood started serving drinks in these cool vintage Luminarc coupes, a set of which they found at a garage sale for a dollar or something. This never happens to me for some reason, maybe because I don't go to garage sales? I think that might be part of it.
Anyway, with a little research, I found my own set on Etsy. They were more than a dollar. But I love them! And at last, one has starred in a painting. It made a great subject, with its graceful shape and just enough detail in the cut glass to be interesting. The Prohibition cocktail was the perfect color to go with the backdrop I randomly collected a year ago, also while not painting cocktails.
My mom always found the coolest stuff. I could never help but hang on to even the littlest scraps of paper, the cards, the gift bags, and pieces of ribbon. Now, all of those things have taken on an extra level of preciousness. Case in point: the six-inch-wide piece of tissue paper with block-printed green swallows. For months I've carefully protected it from harm, with no actual idea what to do with it.
Paul also found cool stuff, but instead of buying it, a lot of the time he would just point it out. "Here's a link to a website with some cool cocktail glasses/vintage sewing machine/etc." After he was gone, part of my extensive retail therapy was to buy those things for myself and pretend he sent them.
When I put this still life together, I didn't even think about the combination of glass and background until after it was done. I just liked the combo of mom's tissue birds, and Paul's cocktail coupe find. I guess I made a subconscious tribute to my people. Or at the very least, my hoarding paid off.
I can't say I've always wanted one of these old art deco shakers with the beautiful translucent bakelite handle and knob, but I've definitely coveted them for a few years. Trouble was, they are spendy. Not that this always deters me, but I have my limits.
Everybody's grieving process is different. Retail therapy is a big part of mine, so I spend a goodish amount of time looking online at things I don't need. Sometimes it pays off, like when I found this magnificent specimen at about a third of the usual price. The reason: his hat was perched at a jaunty angle, which was not its original condition.
Within about two minutes of the shaker's arrival, the knob was off, and the lid was upside down on a folded dish towel, being lovingly tended to with a hammer. Weirdly, it worked.
I couldn't wait to tackle this new challenge. Before painting, I tried every background I had at my disposal and landed on the same one I used yesterday. Go figure. I'm really pleased with how it turned out. Feels like I'm getting my groove back a bit.
It doesn't help that I chose to paint the most complicated new pieces in my prop cabinet, I suppose. But anyway, being that this is the first post in my new blog, I probably should explain a bit.
In 2016, I stopped painting cocktails after finishing my second book, Mixology With a Twist. Then I did something completely different: I switched mediums and subject matter, creating large-scale enamel works of animals. I got into a gallery I'd wanted to be part of for years, the enamels sold, and I got a two-person show scheduled for November 2017.
In August of 2017, everything came crashing down.
My husband and best friend Paul was diagnosed with stage four colon cancer. His first chemo treatment landed him in the hospital for three weeks. He never got to have a second chemo treatment. I lost him on the last day of September 2017. His world ended, and so did mine.
Somehow, probably just to make him proud, I managed to get into the studio and make a few new pieces for the show. But circumstances required that I start working at the brewery where we were part owners, and that's all I had in me. Widowhood is not a good source of inspiration or energy. Getting up in the morning is a win.
Then, in February, my mom had a stroke. She had just worked out at the gym, then gone home and shoveled snow. The next morning, she was gone. I lost two of the three most important people in my life in five months. My amazing dad and I now had the worst possible kind of bond. We've helped each other muddle through the best we can.
Still, everything is upside down. The brewery takes up my days, and the enameling studio is slowly turning into an Airbnb. But little by little, with the help of a sweet new man in my life, a spare bedroom in the house has been turned back into a tiny painting studio. And today I finished my first tiny painting. Right now, that's all I have space for. And I'm a bit rusty.
