June Underwood, Paintings

January Sky, the Painting

june — Sun, 23 Jan 2011 02:25:43 +0000

My most recently completed studio painting: January Sky, approximately 30 x 36″ (I haven’t measured it yet), acrylic on canvas, 2011. This is not a plein air painting. It was inspired by a walk up SE Salmon Street, late one afternoon a few weeks ago. The clouds were gray, but somehow a light was pouring [...]

PEFO Paintings, Mostly Finished.

june — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 17:44:31 +0000

I promised to provide updates to this blog as I worked in my Portland, Oregon, studio on the Arizona Petrified Forest National Park Paintings. The following paintings are mostly finished. At the moment I seem to have 17 acceptable paintings which I am moving around into various groupings to see what works best. Here are [...]

Petrified Forest Residency: A concluding remark or two, in Context

june — Sun, 07 Nov 2010 19:01:26 +0000

I have been shilly-shallying about writing this conclusion for close to a month now. And it’s not because I don’t know what I want to say. I think it’s because I can summarize or I can expostulate, and while the first is almost too brief, the latter is too turgid. So here are some silly [...]

Petrified Forest Residency, Almost Finished: Oct. 16, 2010

june — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 00:20:11 +0000

October 16, 2010: Last painting finished in the Petrified Forest. Yesterday we toured Holbrook, where we “did” Jim Gray’s Rock Shop, a serious classic of its kind, checked out the Museum Courthouse, walked through and photographed the Centennial Historic Register District, and got home by 1 PM. Oh and we had a Dairy Queen. Then [...]

Petrified Forest Residency, Day Whatever, Oct. 14, 2010

june — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 02:30:36 +0000

I have lost track of time. A bit of disorientation in space as well, but mostly of time. After returning from the Lightning Field, I had to sleep a lot, and I had to re-orient my head to painting. We found a hardworking crew, putting up a fence around our back “patio” space. They start [...]

Petrified Forest Residency: The Lightning Field by Walter de Maria

june — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 03:19:46 +0000

The Lightning Field experience is as far removed from Drive-by Tourism as it’s possible to get. Well, that’s not true — a two-month Park residency is perhaps a bit further along that continuum. But to go to the Lightning Field takes some effort, and money. Reservations are made far in advance, as the cabin in [...]

Petrified Forest Residency, Day15, Oct. 10, 2010

june — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 03:36:18 +0000

A raven flies across the rock face at Canyon de Chelly. My residency contract ended yesterday, but we talked the Petrified Forest into giving me another week. However, we had already made arrangement to go to Walter de Maria’s Lightning Field Land Art, in west-central New Mexico, so we are on the road for a [...]

Petrified Forest Residency, Day 14, Oct 9, 2010

june — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 23:08:35 +0000

Blue Mesa Badlands, Petrified National Forest, 2010. Having survived the demos, I am taking the day off from painting. Which didn’t exactly mean sleeping in. We got up at our usual time, but this morning, instead of pulling myself up and pulling things together and pulling myself to the car to get to the painting [...]

Petrified Forest Residency, Day 13, October 8, 2010

june — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 01:06:10 +0000

Another day, another demo. Weather favorable. Painted the Bidahochi outcrop on the rim behind the Painted Desert Inn. The vertical, devoid of human artifacts, has now been completed. This afternoon, I did the demo, also behind the PDI, trying to improve my skill at painting adobe. It hasn’t improved. Bidahochi Rim from Painted Desert Inn, [...]

Petrified Forest Residency, Day 12, Oct 7, 2010

june — Fri, 08 Oct 2010 03:05:51 +0000

I painted, (on masonite, not on stuccoed walls) the Painted Desert Inn this morning, and I demoed painting at the Painted Desert Inn this afternoon. Turns out demoing is a bit easier than painting, although in both cases the wind played havoc with the work at hand. No boards danced off into the badlands, but [...]