Red Beets

Abundance in this life is what gives us feelings of happiness and joy; and not just about the physical possessions you own or your financial net worth. True abundance and true joy comes from having valued relationships, doing the things you love, good health, and a life that lets you live according to your values and beliefs. I have one more definition of abundance....and that is our summer garden. We grew a wide variety of vegetables this summer and in spite of all the rain it rewarded us with great abundance. We love red beets both the tops and the beets and when I saw this bunch fresh from our garden I knew I had to paint them. 6" x 8" oil

The Birches

We live beside a lake in the wild woods of Alaska where ferns, mushrooms and mosses grow in abundance. The woods are mostly birch and aspen and have grown skyward 70 feet or more. The trees shelter and house a multitude of bird life and normally I don’t pay them much attention, but on the rare occasion when the sun has come out this summer the trunks of these trees reflect the most amazing colors. I have tried to capture those colors along with a bit of our lake in this painting that I call "The Birches". Oil 6" x 8".

Hay Bales

This was painted at the Matanuska Experiment Farm in Palmer. They have a number of research and demonstration projects that may be of interest to anyone who has questions about agronomy or horticulture. My interest is in the old barns and buildings that are located on the property. I loved the way the shade draped across the road leading to the old cow barn. The hay bales added another point of interest in this painting, and once again one of the mountain peaks that surround the Matanuska Valley towers in the background.

Matanuska River

I painted this on the banks of the Matanuska River with Pioneer Peak in the background and bodenberg butte in the middleground. . The river is approximately 75 miles long and drains the Matanuska-Susitna Valley. Its headwaters are at the Matanuska Glacier in the northern Chugach Mountains. It flows past Palmer at this point and on to the Knik Arm of Cook Inlet. Silt from the worn down glacial rock has been deposited here since the ice age and one does not want to be painting this scene when the wind blows and fills the air with this fine powdery silt. I tried that last year and by the end of my painting session I felt like I was trying to complete a sand painting. This day was beautiful and lots of people kept showing up on the beaches of the river to walk their dogs and let their children play.

The Little "Su"

This painting was done in early May near the bridge that crosses the Little Susitna River on the road to Hatcher Pass. The snow had just melted and the greens were those that last only a short time before our Alaska daylight increases at breakneck speed and our greens rapidly get darker and bluer, the colors of full on summer. The river was beautiful that day and painting beside it was very relaxing as the water blotted out all other sounds. Oil 8" x 10"

Musk Ox Farm

Spending a day painting in Palmer at the historic colony Musk Ox Farm is an experience not soon to be forgotten. These shaggy ice age beasts were nearly hunted to extinction in the 1800's. A few survived in Canada and in 1930, biologists brought musk oxen from Greenland to Nunivak Island in Alaska. Now back in the wild, up to 3,000 of the animals live free on the arctic tundra. The Musk Ox at the Palmer farm are part of a domestication project. They produce a wool which is spun into Qiviut. It became very windy the day I was painting at the Musk Ox Farm and when my easel blew over I decided to finish this painting in my studio.
8" x10" oil.