Eugene Hills

Driving south on I-5, just before Eugene, there are a series of round hills to the east with the Cascades behind them. They`ve fascinated me for years but I`ve always been going somewhere else and only managed one quick sketch and photos from the speeding car.
They were the subject of my last demonstration where I painted from memory. Nine painters were in attendance and everyone knew exactly which hills I was talking about. One had an obsession with them that eclipsed my interest. I thought they may have been formed by the Missoula Floods, but learned they were volcanic plugs like Mt. Tabor and Powell Butte in Portland. I shouldn`t have been surprised landscape painters could talk geology. I thought, these are my people!
The bottom image is the painting when I stopped working on it to pick up another. The middle one was my effort to finish it in my studio. I kept it in view and soon realized it wasn`t working at all. What was I was trying say? The 'memory' I wanted to make visible was of a storm cloud hanging off the mountains, hovering over these green grassy hills.



mixed watermedia on Yupo 20"x13"