Springtime in South Prairie

This afternoon the weather was so beautiful, I felt compelled to throw my leg over my motorcycle and ride to the nearby country town of Orting, in the Puyallup Valley, Washington State, USA. I took some drawing work with me and plugged into the Wi-Fi at Orting McDonald's and worked on my drawing. 

Upon finishing my artwork, I decided to keep riding, so I headed southeast out of Orting on Highway 162 to one of my favorite spots, South Prairie, a rural community in the shadow of Mount Rainier.

To my surprise, I found the meadows along the highway were ablaze with spring wildflowers. I know the montane, sub-alpine and alpine wildflower varieties, but I'm not very familiar with the lowland wildflowers. My best guess is that the white and purple flowers are valerians. But I only know the Sitka valerian that grows in the subalpine zone of the Olympic Moutains in Washington State.

I wish I knew for sure what these beautiful golden flowers are. Many of the fields and meadows along the road were carpeted with them. Upon further checking, it appears that this is a wild mustard field.

More mustard fields, this time with a herd of cattle. I only spent about 45 minutes in South Prairie today before I felt I needed to ride back home. It was a memorable motorcycle adventure.

It's easy to see by the above photos why I'm so glad I live in Washington State. I never take for granted the lush pastoral beauty that is rural Washington, my home state. I hope you enjoyed the pictures.

Have you seen my other blog, The Trowbridge Chronicles?

Discovery Bay Rhododendrons Painting Progress - Lower Background Finished

My Discovery Bay Rhododendron painting is slowly coming together. I started the painting on November 25, 2013. I wish I could move more quickly through the painting, but it's one of many projects that I'm dealing with. Plus, painting in a realistic technique is painfully slow. This is my early morning-late night project. The lower background portion and the foreground rhodie on the lower right is now complete.

I found this rhododendron along Highway 101, just west of Discovery Bay, in Washington State, USA. There was something special about this flower that you can't see yet. It will be revealed at the very end of the painting. 

I normally teach painting in a watercolor technique. But I decided to try something different with this painting and render it in Prismacolor Pencils using a colored pencil blender, which gives the wax pencil more of a watercolor appearance.

I'm still a bit unsure about how I will handle the background in the upper portion of the painting. Will I fill it with detail as I have in the lower portion of the painting? Or use more dark areas with less detail, so the flowers stand out more? I will be addressing that issue soon.

Have you seen my other blog, The Trowbridge Chronicles? 

Discovery Bay Rhododendron, Progress

This Rhododendron flower that I found growing on a wild Rhododendron bush along Highway 101 just west of Discovery Bay in Washington State, USA has been my early morning-late night project over the last ten days. It will probably require at least ten more days to finish it, depending on how much time I can set aside to work on it. 

The top flower portion of the painting is now complete. I have enjoyed working on this project because I'm using a technique that I was not previously aware of. In preparing for this painting I discovered the blending brush. This unique brush contains a chemical that dissolves the wax in the colored pencil, giving it a "wet" appearance. 

Though I teach watercolor in my Painting in Paradise workshop, I wanted to try the colored pencil technique with the blending tool and see how it works. Now that I'm familiar with it, I might even incorporate the blended colored pencil technique into my workshop. If people would rather apply color in a dry media, they would have that choice. It would make things much simpler when you're working away from your studio as we do in the Cook Islands. Plus, it think it's easier for most people to control a dry media than watercolor.

I'm still looking forward to moving into the dark background portion of the painting. At that point the flower will begin to stand out. With no low-key background color, the high-key flower colors are still suffering from a lack of contrast. 

Check back soon. The next thing you'll see will be a finished rhodie in the lower right, which is still in pencil. Then I will begin work on the background.

Have you seen my other blog? It's called The Trowbridge Chronicles.