June 30th, 2009 Along the Coastal Trail

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 tomorrow’s 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 still 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 difficult 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!

Chester Creek Trail

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 a 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 25th, 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 and 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!!!

Tulips

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.

Coffee Mug

This is an older painting, sorry I have been so preoccupied with my tree house building that I have not had enough time in the day to get it all done… However, I am headed out to Wrangell St. Elias National Park tomorrow morning for a five day trip to hang the treehouse in the tree!  I will bring back a few paintings and will upload them all at once for your enjoyment!  After I return be prepared for extreme awesomeness, as I plan on finishing up the beer series and creating a sweet beer page for them.  It should make for at least a few minutes of distraction from your regular work.  Well, check on me on Tuesday for pics of newest paintings and the treehouse as well!

Ship Creek

I made it home from my property in McCarthy, which is located in the heart of the Wrangell St. Elias National Park, I unfortunately was not able to hang my tree house as I had hoped.  It was a bummer.  I am currently trying to decide whether I should continue with the tree house idea or simply leave the grounded structure as a bicycle/tool shed.  I am looking forward to returning to the park in a few weeks, and will hopefully be able to conclude the tree house saga.  I was painting today along Ship Creek looking at this old building.  It reminded me of Duke Russell’s painting I saw at Snow City Cafe about five years ago and felt that it was an interesting dichotomy between nature and architecture.  I was also hoping to see some fishermen hauling in some salmon, but alas they were getting skunked. 

Runnin’ the River

Spent a wonderful weekend in the wilds of the Kenai.  We enjoyed the river, the wine, the fine company, and had a great time camped out on the Anderson Fish Camp in Sterling, Alaska. This is a portrait of the notorious Richard “Dicker” Anderson when he is driftin’ the river.  The Kenai River is a bountiful, beautiful locale and it looked like the whole world had showed up to harvest the salmon.  Combat fishing was in full effect.  After drift boating the river we sampled a beautiful thing called Bota Box wine, which we poured into a carafe that we had gotten in Mexico.  The sangria we made with blue-berries, strawberries and the old vine red was a magnificent experience! one to be remembered…