Early Spring Slough

                                                  Early Spring Slough oil on canvas 20x20


 This is new but comes from a field trip I organized for my painting group in March 2013. Some thought Minto Brown was bleak that day but I continue to do work derived from that moody outing.

                                            Near the Confluence watermedia on Yupo 40x26


 A Sauvie Island painting from nearly ten years ago.

                                                     Near Acoma watercolor 22x15 [1982]


 Here`s another older watercolor from New Mexico. Don`t ask me what that pile is hovering above the mesa, I don`t know. But I liked it and did several paintings where this 'sky' floated above a landscape. For those who aren`t aware of it, Acoma Pueblo is one of the most magical places on earth. A Native American settlement is built on the top of a mesa much like this one. But this is Enchanted Mesa which rises directly across the plain from Acoma. I first visited in 1976 and was allowed to walk around the village freely. The views were spectacular as is the history of this place. An hour from Albuquerque but centuries away. It is the longest continually inhabited place in America.

                                                             Acoma, Sky City


 I`ve written about Romare Bearden a couple of times, I think he was a genius. I found a charming little video of him while looking through the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art online archive.


Here is my last attempt at collage;

                                                               Night Pond 12x12


 The dumbfounding self portrait below is by the late Kent Bellows;

                                                              Kent Bellows

He was truly a visionary, this is not photo-realism. No grids were used. Imagine drawing with such precision and patience for untold hours! This kind of obsession has my deepest respect, I am in awe!


work for sale in my studio

Portland Open Studios Oct. 10 and 11, Oct. 17 and 18

Across the Field[s]

                                          Mt. Hood from the East oil on Yupo 26x20

 From my plein air foray in the Columbia River Gorge in early September.
 It was so refreshing to be in the golden East once again. The transition is swift, within 15 miles the landscape changes from rainforest to arid grasslands. From one side of the Cascades to the other.
 It`s not the mountain, it`s not the trees, it`s the space between them and me. That third dimension expressed with just two. The classic artist`s dilemma from the caves to the present. How do you do it? How, is pretty much the history of art in Western civilization. Probably the most direct method is through scale. Things in the distance are smaller. Learning how to mimic visual reality was one of the great achievements of the Renaissance painters. In time though, exposure to other cultures caused artists to question this. Why not make everything sort of equal?  My hero, Pierre Bonnard, did just that giving the same importance to his wife, her friend, the cat, the bowl of fruit, the floor tiles and the orchard through the window, all in a single painting! Wove it all together through color and pattern. His work ravishes the eyes.
 My own approach is somewhat similar, I usually flatten the space out yet suggest atmosphere through gradations in the paint. Though I can`t say it`s a constant theme in my work, I`ve done quite a few paintings of trees from across a field. Again, the subject is really that distance between. There is just something so healthy to the human spirit to see just 'space', emptiness. A house with a view is often no more than a building without anything close to it. Just that unoccupied air. It makes us feel good, expansive and safe. Worth the higher price!

                                     Across the Meadow watermedia on Yupo 20x20

From last summer, my beloved Bryant Woods.

                                       Deep Summer Field watermedia on paper 10x7

This one was about the smell of damp grass, shadow and dusk.

                                                    Oregon Refuge oil 14x11

The Finley Wildlife Preserve near Corvallis. Created from former farm land and slowly being restored to an original native landscape. The sense of a promise fulfilled for the early settlers is palpable. The place is bursting with life.

                                            Steigerwald Study 4 oil on paper 10x8

                                            Steigerwald Study 5 oil on paper 12x9

                                         Across Steigerwald watermedia on paper 16x12

Until it caught fire a couple of years ago, I spent considerable time at Steigerwald Wildlife Refuge. The burnt fields are coming back. The views from here into the mouth of the Columbia Gorge have a yearning quality. Like you really ought to go there. Now.

                                       Across the Field oil on canvas 36x36

This one from 2006 was painted from memory of a stand of trees at the Storm King Sculpture Park a bit north of NYC.

Come visit me and some other worthy artists this weekend and next during the Portland Open Studios. I have maps.
Randall David Tipton
5373 Lakeview blvd
Lake Oswego OR
97035  [close to I-5]

available work for sale in my studio

Sauvie Island 2001

Watercolors from 2001. These were in a show just prior to the attacks on our country on Sept. 11. What a time.
3 @ 24x18

available work in the studio

Portland Open Studios Tour
Oct. 12 & 13 Oct. 19 & 20
[contact me for more information]

Across the Refuge 2

This was a demonstration painting I began for a class yesterday. It was a new group I was working with so my intention was to show the combination of watercolor and acrylic techniques I use. My personal project was to see if I could create a lively neutral space in support of the sunlit areas in the distance. watermedia on Yupo 23"x16" Available Work