Dreamy Summer

                                Minto Brown Marsh oil on canvas 18x36 inches 46x91.5 cm


 I haven`t loved a summer so much since living in New Mexico. This benign, soft, fresh summer is a surprise and a luxurious gift. One sweet day after another. No smoke, cool oceanic mornings followed by clean sunny skies into evening. How did we deserve this? Paris reached 108 degrees! No one knows why we`re so lucky.
 Yet the overwhelmingly green landscape doesn`t inspire working in series. So as in previous summers, I use the season to get to the paintings that have been waiting in the back of my mind. There`s usually a photo to anchor the memory and the emotion. Once I begin, it`s not hard to imagine.
 The wildlife refuge-municipal park-farm which constitutes Minto Brown Island in Salem OR always provokes me. The wetlands in particular in late fall and winter. The painting above is probably still a work in progress, I don`t understand it yet. The color took off in a direction of its own with the composition trailing along. Feeling like a bystander when painting isn`t bad but it takes longer to evaluate the conclusion.

                                                       oil on canvas 24x24 inches 61x61 cm


 Another new painting that is a mystery to me. The inspiration was the maroon leaves decomposing on the forest floor in winter. I was remembering a muddy little woodland I love on Fanno Creek. Somehow it quickly became more about the juxtaposition of Mars violet against teal. Once I figure it out, I`ll probably paint over it.

 I happened upon an ad for Kroma Acrylics on Instagram, I went to the highly educational website and soon realized these might possibly be what I`ve wanted. The problem with acrylics is that they are not oil paints. When I read they had the maximum pigment load the vehicle could accept, I was ready to gamble. I bought the 'classic' set pictured above. All traditional; cadmiums, cobalt, and titanium. All primaries with none of the modern pigments based on dyes in this set. They are a pleasure to work with, very creamy yet dense. In my practice, acrylics come into play to extend or correct watercolor. I rarely use them alone. If they had an equivalent of Gamblin`s Radiant White, I would be tempted to replace my oils. As good as these are, the white is just not opaque enough, and I really don`t like trying to re-paint spontaneous brush strokes. The texture is soft enough though, I don`t think I would need both a tube and fluid version of my colors like I do now. They`re local too and I love that!

                            Into the Shallows oil on prepared paper 24x18 inches 61x46 cm


 I`ve been super busy being famous lately. A Chinese-American website called Our Narratives asked me for an interview and I said of course. Many nice questions and emails later, "Through the Mist-Interview with Oregon Artist Mr. Randall David Tipton" was published. Thanks Adelina!

 Then a French magazine, Practique Arts, asked me.

 Having just done the one, I was less than enthused. I asked what they would want from me? The list was long. I said no, there were several interviews already in existence, my story stayed the same and I just didn`t have the time to give it. She could write something on her own if she wanted to. She did. Thanks Steph!

 I translated some of it through Google Translate with disappointing results.
My bilingual buddy Mitch gave me a much more poetic version. Nice how well the paintings reproduced!



 Have you ever had something you knew intimately become really popular?
As a kid I went to Laguna Beach often as a guest of my close friend Jim. His parents brought me along to keep him entertained. We had so much fun. The same giant house was rented with three or four families occupying it. The adults played cards from morning until bedtime while the kids swam, fished, and hiked. Our favorite place to fish has become a plein air hot spot; the Keyhole. We never called it that but we thought it was cool to walk through. Right beside it was a huge slanting rock we sat on to cast our lines. On the bluff above was a trailer park. Now it is an upscale resort called Montage. Here are some of my painting colleagues views of the Keyhole.

                                                                       David Solomon

                                                                 September McGee

                                                                 Robert Kuester

                                                                   Robert Lemler

   
   Lessons from her father. Anyone who has ever had a job could benefit from these clear principles.

                                                     The Wedding by Zoey Frank


 I was aware of her but not fully. Then I looked closer at Zoey Frank`s astonishing work. Oh my God, just take a look. Such luscious, sensuous realism! Yet completely contemporary. This rarely happens to me but after a half hour or so scanning carefully, I became intimidated. I thought why bother? Let her do it. Stupid, but I was flabbergasted!

                                                      Peter Reading by Zoey Frank

                                                     Bathing Suit by Zoey Frank

I`ve been working on a show to coincide with the new Earth and Ocean Festival in Cannon Beach in September. The industrious artists and merchants on the coast are always thinking of fun ways to attract visitors and celebrate something worthy. Well the dates of the festival were changed and my show became more of a group affair. This is fine though I did feel like a balloon that had popped. I will still have lots of new work on display and I will be giving a watermedia on Yupo demostration on Saturday September 21 at 2 pm at the White Bird Gallery on the north end of town. This is my 34th year with the gallery!

                                                                    by Daniel Collins



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Early Summer Field

                                                 Early Summer Field watermedia on Yupo 12x9


 From two weeks ago, a beautiful morning in the meadow at Bryant Woods.
A week later we began to paint under an overcast sky and we were deluged within a half hour. I was a deer in the headlights but the intrepid founder of Las LOPAS*, Mitch Burrell, came prepared with a canopy! We struggled in the downpour, but up it went and I began my second painting. The first had literally melted off the Yupo [plastic paper] in the rain. Then the wind started gusting and the storm turned sideways. We were beat.

                                                                     Mitch


 This outdoor work has been extremely therapeutic after being inside all winter.

A couple of days later, John and I went to southern California to visit my brother Tom and my extended family there. The weather was perfect and his community quite interesting. Irvine consists of mostly planned neighborhoods which are thoughtful and new. As I was growing up, the area was all orange groves. Its schools have an excellent reputation which have attracted an international population. Nearly everyone on their block was from another country. Walking the artfully designed streets, we saw a racial blend that was amazing. I love California for this. It is what can be.
Like all my brothers, Tom has a big collection of my work, many from 2004. At that time, I was living in deep southeast Portland. The subject of my work was the nearby Johnson Creek Nature Park;

 He also has a giant seascape I did in 1974;

 The Futurists were my inspiration then, with their interest in depicting motion.
There were other paintings that tortured me during the visit. Many painters suffer when they return to their families and temporarily live again with work decades old. Unfortunately, these have become 'treasures' and the suggestion to throw them out is not taken kindly.


 Last week, Nicole Serratore wrote a fascinating op-ed for the New York Times entitled "James Comey and the Predator in Chief". She drew parallels with the president`s interactions with the FBI director and the sexual harassment of women in the workplace. There seems to be a pattern in such behavior that I had never realized. I thought these incidents were mostly spontaneous, not the sickening calculated moves of men in authority. Well worth reading.

                                                        painting by Elizabeth Cummings


 I`ve written about her before but praising Elizabeth Cummings is always deserved. Now in her 80s, she continues to produce paintings of great complexity and power. Though I`ll probably never visit Australia, if I did, I would recognize it because of her. The work can be completely abstract yet the scorching light and gritty texture of the continent`s interior is foundational. You can feel the heat, the paintings  make you thirsty. And she is generous in her compositions, there is much to explore.


June of course, is Pride month. All over the world!

                                                          photo by Leonce Raphael Agbodjelou



* Lake Oswego Plein Air Society

work for sale, mostly in my studio

Slow Summer Water - video - Nozkowski

                                               Slow Summer Water oil on canvas 56x44

This is new but comes from some studies of Tryon Creek painted in 2011. Heat, coolness and the smell of watery green things was what I was after.

                                                              Over the Sea I-pad 2016

 My friend, the photographer Eddie Greenly, has begun a project of interviewing artists in their studios while making a video. I was his first and it`s on YouTube. I think because it seemed like an experiment, I was relaxed. After initial mortification, I was surprised how coherent I was and by the skill in Eddie`s technique. It has one blooper. The editor must have taken some images off of Google and he included two of my buddy Jo`s. She did them in a workshop I gave and then blogged about and now we are forever linked. I`ll gladly accept the credit.


 Somehow earlier in the week I got into a Thomas Nozkowski obsession. He is revered as an abstractionist of great invention and integrity. The work is so utterly original and odd I am often flummoxed.  Yet I want to keep looking. See what you think;

Interesting guy too. He studied with abstract expressionists who rigorously believed that one just begins painting. No preconceptions allowed!
Nozkowski holds to that too. I would love to be the fly on his studio wall and watch him. Here and here are a couple of terrific interviews.


The legendary singer Nina Simone is being remembered because of a new movie and a controversy regarding the casting. Ta-Nehisi Coates explains exactly why this matters in the Atlantic.
Listen to her commanding performance of "Don`t Let Me Be Misunderstood".


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Understory

                                                             Understory oil on canvas 36x60


 I`ve been locked in mortal combat with this painting the last 10 days. This is the second painting on this canvas and the process made me wonder if it ever got easier? Doesn`t experience count? I`m so sick of it, it will just have to be 'good enough' for now. Elizabeth Gilbert makes the point that perfectionism will make us crazy and that sometimes it`s best just to accept the work when it isn`t our best. Move on to the next good idea. All I wanted was to create an intimate sense of summer. Maybe I did...       No more green for a while!


Unknown works of Richard Diebenkorn have come into view at the Van Doren Waxler Gallery in New York! Look at this beauty;

                                                             Richard Diebenkorn work on paper


 And his sketchbooks were donated by his wife to Cantor Arts Center at Stanford and every single page is online! There is no better way to know what an artist thinks than by perusing their sketchbooks. They are the thing I grab when the house catches fire.


 Good news, bad news. Your spouses were right. There is enough research now to confirm that creative individuals have very high levels of psychopathology. But they also test extremely high for psychological health. It seems that contradiction and paradox are the norm. As if we need to be told! The coexistence of opposites is the engine of creativity.

                                                          Silver Sand oil on canvas 5x5

The Johnstone Financial Advisors give great advice, like good art, drink nice wine, and serve delicious hors d`oeuvres. Come meet them and me this Friday evening Feb. 5, 5-7 pm. The location is on 3rd St. just a block south of A [toward the lake] in downtown Lake Oswego.

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Coastal Creek - winter wetlands

                                                        Coastal Creek oil on canvas 48x36


 Finally something new and big! I wanted a larger version of this. After complaining so much about summer and the overwhelming green, I do this in the dead of winter! I really don`t like being so perverse but there you go.
Those streams pouring off Cascade Head are so pure and undisturbed, I hoped to get a sense of the lush vitality of those summer forests.

 Here are some winter paintings. These 12x9 studies were painted ten years ago and the subject is the dormant wetlands of the Crystal Springs right in the middle of the Reed College campus. The beautiful little canyon thrives due to volunteers and careful stewardship. I spent a lot of time in its cool shade while living in the treeless Brentwood Darlington neighborhood in Portland. Angelita Surmon has also painted a body of work based on the canyon.


 I had never seen the name and I still don`t know how to pronounce it. Whether Diarmuid Kelly was male or female was also a mystery. Then I stumbled on this video.
 A dude, and he can paint like a master!
 I saw the piece below years ago and thought it oddly enigmatic. The figure's hands have a gesture of blessing or surrender and he seems to be lying in a livestock water troff in a convalescence of some sort. What`s going on?

                                                              Diarmuid Kelly


 Here is one of his gorgeous still lives. He even got the fuzz!!

                                                          Diarmuid Kelly-peaches


 In a collaboration with the Lake Oswego Arts Council, the Johnstone Financial Advisors are displaying a dozen of my paintings, the majority of them large. They look better than I`ve ever seen on the deep blue walls. Visit during normal business hours or come say hello at the reception Friday, February 5th.

I just finished Audible.com`s incredible reading of Wallace Stegner`s Angle of Repose. This historical novel of the American West is a rich and thorough examination of a marriage. The narrator, Mark Bramhall, is such a gifted actor, every character is vibrantly believable. It`s a long book that I savored and it helped keep me afloat during the dark December.

work for sale in my studio

Metolius - Oneanta - Multnomah !

                                                     Metolius Riverbank oil on canvas 20x20


 I`m finishing up a show for the White Bird Gallery in Cannon Beach, opening July 18 and continuing through August 25. Another pairing with my friend Tom Cramer and also the potters Dave and Bonnie Deal. Stop by if you`re on the north coast!
This painting is of a small fragment of the Metolius River, that marvel that gushes from a spring high in the mountains fully formed. I finally saw it last September and it was quite unusual.
The edges of things and transitional zones fascinate me. Like the wetlands which seem to be earth, water and sky all at once. Or the high tide line as the ocean retreats leaving its treasures. The banks of the creeks and rivers around me are often heaped with decaying trees and vegetation with healthy new grasses, ferns, saplings and mosses growing among and upon them. Life and death, side by side.

                                                          Oneanta oil on panel 10x8


 I love my country but not its birthday. I join the dogs hiding in the bathtub. Too much testosterone, booze, heat and noise! A few years ago I had the brilliant idea of going to a late movie and avoiding the mayhem. We saw the charming Moonrise Kingdom. But even in the dark pit of a theater with its encompassing surround sound, the fireworks outside sounded like a bombing raid.
Last night was different. We were invited to a family gathering at the home of Laura Foster. Two years ago she bought this painting as an engagement gift for her daughter.
But Anna was not engaged.
Now living in Minnesota, she still correctly believes Oneanta Gorge to be the most special place on earth. Last Friday on a hike there, her beloved Luke asked her to marry him. The painting was presented to the couple as we ate on the lawn and watched the sun set.
Much better than holing up in my bunker with NPR too loud.

                                              Multnomah Morning oil on canvas 12x12


I`m not often up for the sunrise but if I were and if I was on a houseboat in the Multnomah Channel, I think it might look like this.
It`s on the shores of our big waterways that the sky opens up for our viewing pleasure. The trees are behind us, the breeze smells of mud and sometimes the ocean, and the water becomes an enormous mirror reflecting the movements of the clouds. It can feel perfect.


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