New in the studio, Thornton Creek studies…
I’ve been in the studio laying out color sketches from this past week. I walked down in the Thornton Creek Watershed again yesterday, tracing through the wetlands behind the Meadowbrook Community Center. It was time to pounce since the change of light came this week… everything expands during the autumnal equinox. The moon, the yonder mountains and the color. There was another woman wandering back in the mulched wonderland and she was looking as bewildered as I was at the surprise of the secret park and its peculiar placement-behind the concrete community center. It is an addiction- to find beauty in peculiar places. My son, with all of his quirks, continues to fascinate and even dazzle me and I thought about how good it feels to notice a flashing moment. I worked my way down from Meadowbrook through neighborhoods and into gulches until I found myself at Matthews Beach where the creek enters Lake Washington through a cement culvert. I through down a bunch of color sketches finding olive and gold as the surprise of the day. It smelled like mulch and the blue heron greeted me as usual. There were people around… the kind who know to take time to notice the day.
I love those people who find their passion nurturing a Watershed. It’s a new thing for me… getting down in a creek, with black rubber boots, just to look at the expressions and contour of water flow. It’s something we all agree on; that water is a good thing. For the rest of this month I am immersing myself in water with a celebration on the 30th. I think it’s like a baptism of sorts to paint water and the light that touches it. Right here in North Seattle starting under the Northgate parking lot is a treasure called the Thornton Creek Watershed. And the people who fight and care to honor the water are heroes to me.
I want to honor them by noticing the urban watershed. There are reasons to know where your local water flows, and to take time to watch it and interpret it. It is our life force. Without it we are just shriveled up dead moldy pruny skeletons. So now, I grab a glass of good Seattle tap water and I paint.
These are oil sketches on canvas from my week… they will be completed within the week and will be available over the weekend. I will be showing several new works on October 30th in Walking on Water Gallery. If you cannot attend the celebration, call me to arrange a private showing at 253-677-1621.
If you are interested in a painting, please email me at northwestcolor@gmail.com.
