Clendaniel Studios Plein Air Painting Blog

Howdy, and welcome back to my plein air painting blog! I am always excited when I am able to execute a plein air painting successfully, and I am glad to do it quickly too. This is why I use the painting palette I have developed over the last several years of my career.  Because this unique palette allows me to mix the colors I will be needing ahead of time, and my quick set up time allows me to capture light as quickly as possible making for a more successful plein air painting.  The weekend in Kenai was a real treat and I was glad to have brought out a fresh palette full of paint.  Last year I painted four paintings in a two day span, and this year I only made two. I was bombarded by micro flies when I was painting this rosebud (below) and when I went in for breakfast I came out to find a million flies had landed in both the painting and the palette,  I scraped the flies from the painting but I was unable to get them out of the paint in my palette.  Bummer.  After struggling through the rose which was  deceptively difficult painting to create, I figured it was cool for the weekend and just chilled. I wish I had brought the fly filled paint with me for the Fourth party at Seward, because the Seward coastline was looking so amazing, but I was busy with the parade and stuff so it was probably for the best.  We did have a great day in Seward after I painted in the morning finally finding Bob Poe(Alaska needs a governor) and the start of the parade. Maria and I took our tandem bike to Seward parked our truck in the safeway parking lot and cruised through Seward until we found the “Poemobile” which was completely unmanned.  We kept wandering around all the streets of Seward, what are there three of them?  Until we found the parade and Bob Poe(and I met Bob Poe candidate for governor) yelled for us to come  over, amazing how visible you can be on a shiny blue tandem bike.  Well I rode on the back of the tandem and threw candy to the kids at the parade.  I only almost fell off once, but I perservered and ladies were streaming through finishing the Mt. Marathon race, no I did not see my sister run through however that would have been cool! Bob Poe was running around shaking hands as quickly as possible, it is hard to have a short meeting during a parade! Afterwards Maria and I found a wonderful park bench and took in the view. It was nice to avoid the throngs of people, however we decided to followed that by watching the mens Mt Marathon race as they stumbled down the rocky scree.  We ran into Ian and crew in their sweet VW Westfalia, and saw Zareena and Athena, amazing Athena took 3rd in the kids race! We also  saw Jack, Jessica and Nate, it seemed like the entire state of Alaska had driven, biked, hiked, or crawled into Seward for this short holiday weekend! After all that excitement we made it safely back to the lake house in Cooper Landing for another evening of excitement. Fireworks at the neighbors and two different versions of beer pong had me tired by midnight and I sadly said au revoir to the holiday.      

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!!!

MAY 29, 2009

Summer is here and the tulips are blooming in my court yard. I went out this morning and painted in the rain. Despite the dampness, it was still a beautiful morning