Making New Friends

by Jo Reimer

back row: Randall, Celeste
front: Jo, Cathleen, Annie, Carol

Last week Randall Tipton and Carol Marine invited a few Oregon artists for brunch and to meet one another. Carol and her family recently moved to Eugene, OR after their Texas home was leveled by fire.

What a fun time we had getting acquainted.  By the time a couple of hours had passed you'd have thought we'd been friends for ages.

Celeste Bergin lives in Portland and loves to paint en plein aire.
Cathleen Rehfeld lives in Hood River and also paints plein aire and teaches at  the Columbia Center for the arts.
Annie Salness is a studio artist who lives just a few blocks from me but our paths hadn't crossed.

Click on each name above to access their blogs and treat yourself to seeing some mighty fine art.

Randall David Tipton workshop

by Jo Reimer

Refuge
Watermedia on Yupo
20" x 13"

Refuge
matted

I participated in a workshop with Randall David Tipton over the weekend, making paintings on Yupo, a plastic "paper" from Japan. Randall shared his methods for using watercolor and acrylic paints and mediums on this interesting surface, but most importantly he talked to us about interacting with the landscape and remembering the emotion of the moment in order to make a painting without being photo-realistic. We mostly painted from memory.

In the past as I've moved through the landscape and been moved by the beauty of this earth, my thoughts have been rather useless for informing future work. I didn't think carefully about what I was seeing. I didn't ask questions of myself, like 'what is it about that patch of brush that I find beautiful?' or 'why does this particular sunset move me to tears?' 

I do take a lot of photographs and am careful about compositon which does help with memory, as does sketching. But being mindful about the emotions of the moment is necessary to making good paintings later.

Undersea
Watermedia on Yupo
20" x 13"

Undersea
matted
A mat makes a big difference in
the presentation of a finished piece.

Randall's website is here and his blog is here. His work is available at the White Bird Gallery in Cannon Beach and directly from him. His price list is on his blog.

My work is also available.