Alaskan Raven Studio

Art in Alaska. Story of an Alaskan artist.

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A perfect morning: sun, birch, mountains, wood stove

March 22, 2014 by alaskanraven

Don’t you just love a perfect morning when everything comes together after a delicious cup of hot coffee?

A few weeks ago in February, I couldn’t wait to get my brushes into paint and get started on a canvas.

Mount pochade box onto tripod. Squeeze out color. Brushes available and warm fire in the wood stove. Perfect.

The sun rises and shines on the birch. Mountains appear across the river valley. I pile on the paint and push the color to capture the scene.

Fire crackles in the wood stove. It entertains and warms me.
I start with bright colors. I will tone them down with more layers of paint but the orange of the morning-sun-sky needs to shimmer through the trees. I like to have little edges of bright color intensify the whole visual experience.
PaintingwFire
Adding color to the canvas affects the other colors in dramatic ways. It’s a whole world that’s being created with its own relationships. Colors contrast and enhance each other. A brush stroke with light orange tint can make the light blue shimmer and appear more intense.

“Sunrise”
8″ x 10″ oil
Morning sun shines orange through the trees and lights the sky behind the silhouette of Mt. Hayes.
The day begins in the Tanana river valley. I love morning sunlight. It warms up the sky and contrasts with the cool blue shadows.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: birch, color, oil, oil paint, painting, plein air, pochade box, river valley, Tanana River Valley, tripod

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Raven Ramblings

Shipment arrives

“Sterling, look at that!” “Look at what, Felix?” “That huge box. From Canada.” “Looks like the artist received another shipment of Kroma paint. Watch, she’ll spend the rest of the day arranging it in her studio. All those tubes of paint go in some sort of order.” “Paint? What is that?” “Paint is color. She […]

Edges are important

“Sterling, What is the artist doing now?” “What do you mean, Felix?” “She spends lots of time brushing paint on the sides of her painting. The edges. You know what I mean?” “She makes changes on it when she changes the front of the painting. The sides appear to be important to her.” “But why?” […]

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contact me with questions or comments

Alaskan Raven Studio
PO Box 80231
Fairbanks, Alaska 99708
USA
alaskanblackbird@yahoo.com

 

Represented by:
Well Street Art Co.
1302 Well Street
Fairbanks, Alaska
907 452-6169

Stephan Fine Arts
939 West 5th Ave.
Anchorage, Alaska 99501
USA
(907) 274-5009
http://www.stephanfinearts.com/

more about Raven

I ventured to Alaska before there was an oil pipeline and fell in love with the gnarly spruce trees, intense weather and mountains I could touch. Very different from the landscape in St. Louis. I was looking for different. The spruce trees: those scraggy, wizened, lanky conifers danced onto the first page of my sketch […]

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