Clendaniel Studios Plein Air Painting Blog

Good morning!  I am glad to see you here at the plein air blog today!  The sun is breaking above the clouds here in Anchorage and a red sun is visible through the particulates(smoke). The forest fires in Alaska have been making the air quality unique to say the least.  Yesterday, I had a frustrating painting day, due to all the smoke.  It is impossible to see very far, so I decided against landscape.  I had been shopping with Dicker all morning for a new bar-b-que, after a quick trial run with the cedar plank it became obvious that the new grill was great.  It’s Electric!(not the dance, the grill…) So now he is legitimate to BBQ on his sweet balcony. Phew! All these years using propane, we could have been blown to pieces at any moment!  A propane tank is a dangerous thing to suspend  20 feet in the air in case of explosion. I think terrorists have been using them as bombs for years. I painted the new electric grill “en plein air” (outside) on the deck, well the painting sucked as you can imagine a painting of a BBQ is a half baked idea to start with(and a last ditch effort to appease maria for the lack of productivity due to a BBQ emergency, the old grill had died).  so after an hour or so of struggling with it I gave up, and just wiped the surface to save it for something better. I probably will have something to do with this red sun today.  It is amazing how well oil paint wipes off of the red gold surface I prepare. Of course the paint was only on there for about 2 hours and oils takes up to two weeks to dry. I am looking forward to painting the sun as it is probably the most remarkable thing that I can see from Anchorage today.  The red gold surface should be perfect for the project and it is a better subject than the grill.  As for your plein air picture for this entry, I give you the last of the lake house paintings. This one is from last year and had been sequestered in the Berry lake house for a whole year.  Now I publish it to the world for you and I hope that you find it to be as interesting as the view I painted it from.  The people in the canoe are Anneliese Loescher and my wife Maria. Happy viewing!

Here is Per the Berry’s dog who Leah has to dogsit.  It is Leah’s mom’s dog and I seem to get along well with him.  Although he does seem to get agitated when I am contemplating skipping a stone at the beach, he wants me to hurry up and throw it!  He also gets upset when I skip stones at all because they go too far into the lake. Per will only go out till his chest gets wet and then he forgets the rocks are out there and returns with this cute look on his face as if to say “like what?”  So another fun painting from last year. Per was there at the lake house this year and we all got along fine! I am not quite sure who’s shoe that is, but they must have sat still for most of an hour in order to remain in the painting.  Good times!  Chillin’ on the deck!

Oh what a lovely weekend! Maria and I went out to The Berry Lake house on Kenai Lake.  We had and enchanting time relaxing on the beach, eating tasty treats and living the good life.  The light was perfect and the midnight sun was beaming around mountains with unique lighting effects.  The lake is such an interesting color of blue because of the glacial silt, it is a turquoise blue that reminds me of the Aegean and Mediterranean seas. I kept telling Leah I was going down to the ocean! we had many laughs and great cheer for over the weekend and I picked up some paintings from last year as well.  I painted this one on Friday night 7-03-2009.  The sky was so bright It seemed the most brilliant yellow.  The mountain, Langile Mtn(?),  was very close, but in the evening a misty haze came over the lake and with the lighting it was inspiring!   

Well here is a toast to you Jim Drewry. (sp?) We couldn’t have asked for a better fish in return for this painting! So I was hanging out at the footbridge at the end of the road, and painted this but I had no way to take it back to the property safely. (a common problem for me)  I decided to tip the parking lot attendant a painting. In return he invited us to a salmon dinner (copper river red salmon!!!) but we had way too much on our social plate to attend, so he simply gave us dinner instead!  What a great guy! Maria excellently cooked the fish over the open campfire and it was delish.  Perfectly roasted, way to go M!  It was one of those things that made our last trip truly grand! Best regards to Jim and everyone in McCarthy as I really enjoyed your company and fellowship!  I look forward to August when I will finally return to my home(campsite on my lot) in the park. I hope you stay tuned as I will be putting new work up from my trip to the Kenai for the Fourth!  

Hey I am back and I have a new blog page that is finally updated to include all the content from previous versions.  I hope this format will work for me.  Yesterday I was painting along the coastal trail on my way home from  a last minute visit with Hanif (parent’s FES) I sent him home with a couple of Clendaniel Original paintings, then booked it back home to get some more work done, stopping along the way to paint this scene.  I was glad to work as I have a ton of paint that is about to turn from Wrangell St Elias, and It was nice to see it put to good use! Stay tuned to see tomorrow’s plein air piece from last week in Wrangell St. Elias

MAY 18, 2009

Greetings and welcome to the Clendaniel Studio’s plein air painting blog, my new goal is to paint and update this blog every single day. Its purpose is to tell you where I was painting when and why. Also to show you what I have been working on most recently outdoors. This first entry is from last Friday, and is right before the grass was truly green. I took a little artistic license and greenified it for lack of better word. It is the view from Lynn Airy park. I went out with the plein air painters of Anchorage. It was a lovely morning, but a bit chilly. Look at all that snow on Mt. Susitna! Stay tuned for tomorrows entry

MAY 20, 2009

A brand new day is upon us and it is gorgeous. I eagerly await the painting session for today. Yet I am stil inside uploading the painting from yesterday. I am doing a very small series so it doesn’t take all my time out in the field, these are about an hour or two long paintings. This one is painted on the upper deck on the Snowgoose restaurant. Might I recommend the Hop Bomb from their brewery to the beer lovers in this crowd. I plan on hitting this spot a few more times, as I was having a dificult time deciding what to paint up there, the view is just that good. I decided that the Alaska range was the strongest subject matter of them all. Just wait and see, maybe the others will be better!

MAY 21, 2009

Can you believe this weather?! went out to the Chester Creek Trail today and stayed close to home, I enjoyed the shady bank of the creek and thought about how many times I crossed that bridge all winter long! This was a repainted support and I am glad that this painting turned out better. I am still working on the beer paintings, I will start photographing them and putting them up on a new page in about a week. stay tuned for more exciting plein air paintings, tomorrow I head out with the plein air painters of Anchorage! Hope it is good turnout…

MAY 22, 2009

I tried to meet with the plein air painting group but obviously missed them. Oh well there is always next week. Since I was in a hurry, because I had an important sushi date with my friend Yuki, (mm mmm sushi) I was only able to put together this little piece. I painted it from the sledding hill at Balto Seppala park in Turnagain. This hill has many important memories for me. It is more than simply the highest place in the neighborhood, it is where I learned to downhill ski, hung out for bicycle jousting, (don’t even ask) and I even proposed to Maria on this very spot. So I hope it is as fun for you to look at this painting as it was for me to paint

MAY 25, 2009

Oh Memorial day my favorite of three day weekends, what a sunny beautiful day in the Mat-Su valley in Palmer. My friend Erik (Moe) and his family had a gathering at his parents house, and what a BBQ, most notably awesome was the smoked salmon candy and the rib cookoff! of course dueling IPA and everything was awesome. My only problem was I got too full too fast. I had to sit on the lawn a paint some of that food off before I could even think about eating another bite. I love BBQ’s oh yeah and tether ball/ disc golfing at them. Well here is a prost to the hosts! may all the BBQ’s live up to this standard!!!