New Blog - Pittsenbarger Watercolors

Dear Readers I have decided to start a new blog "Pittsenbarger Watercolors" for posting all my new paintings from now on. I have been wanting to do this for sometime as I feel it will be better for people searching specifically for watercolor paintings and since I don't do a lot of trout paintings anymore. I will still keep this blog for trout relating photos and paintings but they will be few and far between.

Please check it out and share it with anyone you might be interested. 

Pittsenbarger Watercolors

thanks and have a great day!

Urban Sketching

The past month I have been slightly obsessed with the Urban Sketching movement. The concept is to sketch on location to capture the world around us. It's suppose to be of ordinary everyday type stuff and done quickly to capture the essence of the scene.  I have been going out occasionally on my lunch break with some other architects and sketching  downtown Portland scenes I add watercolor later when I get home, but hopefully I will get a set up to do the painting on location too. This is a nice break from doing traditional studio watercolor painting.

My main inspiration has come from these Urban sketchers check them out their work is awesome

Gabi Camanario
Marc Taro Holmes
Stephanie Bower

I recently purchased a new "Moleskine" watercolor sketchbook book (see the Cathedral Bridge sketch below) and a Stillman and Birn Alpha series  both are great to draw in but I have yet to use watercolor in the Stillman and Birn both sketchbooks are highly recommended by other sketchers so I will see which one I like the best. All the sketched below with the exception of the bridge are done in the my old sketchbook  made by "Bees" paper its a good all around sketchbook and quite a bit cheaper but the paper is a little thin for watercolor.

This is the Alley by Voodoo donuts in old town Portland

 

South waterfront marina

 North Park blocks Elephant sculpture

 Library

 Cathedral Bridge St Johns

2014 Review

2014 was a great year for painting, I made a lot of progress in the quality of my watercolors but there is still a ton to improve upon. It was also a good year for showing my paintings having several solo exhibits at Atomic Pizza and Rolling River Distillery and two group shows at the Oregon Society of Artist even sold a few paintings to fund all the watercolor paper I've been buying.

Here are a few of my favorite paintings for the past year.

McMinnville Vineyard
15x22 - $300

Spring Showers - Willamette Valley
15x22 - $300

Wishing Well
9x12 - $95

Fuller's Cafe
9x12 $95

 

PCT - Mt Jefferson

9x12 $95

Misty Morning

12x16 $150

Edge of the Earth - Nehelem Bay St Park

15x22 $300

Sheets of waves - Ecola State Park

15x22 $300

2015 Looks to be a another good year of art I have several shows scheduled for the summer and just hung my paintings at  Anna Bananas in St Johns neighborhood for the month of January I have also entered the painting Edge of the Earth for the "Collective art show" at Gallery 360 in Vancouver. Check them out if you are in the area.
Somethings I hope to work on for next year are:
- establish more consistency in paint stroke and colors
- get better at painting human figures in street-scapes
-  and try some portraits in watercolor

 Thanks for looking and happy painting

A few new coastal scenes

I have recently had the bug to paint coastal scenes, perhaps its the winter weather and the fact I have not been on any outdoor excursions for awhile so to substitute I have been painting places I would rather be.

The first is Bixby bridge on California's Highway 1 in Big Sur, this is a pretty famous bridge that has been painted and photographed a lot for a good reason it's really incredible . This was a challenging painting because of the Bridge I tried to capture enough detail so it looks believable but not too fussy, also waves are really difficult to paint and the reason I have not attempted a lot of ocean paintings.

22 x 30  - $400

These next 2 are from the Oregon coast Ecola State Park near Canon Beach and Nehelem State park near Tillamook both beautiful rugged coastal areas after the first painting I think I am starting to get the hang of paint waves.

 this one  will be on display at Gallery 360 Vancouver Wa. in January

Nehelem Bay State Park 

16x22 - $300

Ecola State Park 

16x22 - $300

send me an email if you are interested in purchasing, thanks for looking,

Jefferson Park Cont.

Here are a couple more paintings from my backpacking trip to Mt Jefferson, this place offers an endless subject matter for a the landscape artist or photographer, and I will probably continue to do paintings based on my sketches and photos throughout the winter painting season.
This first one is a loose study of Scout lake, most likely done while drinking a beer and having kids yelling in my ear resulting in a pretty messy foreground but it helps focus attention on the mountain.

This second one is a painting of Mt Jefferson from Russell lake, our camp was in the patch of trees in the center of the painting.  I tried to capture the quality of light as sun was beginning to set in the west. A wash of raw sienna in the trees, lake and distant mountains creates a subtle glow of sunlight from the right and the scene gradually gets darker with washes of Ultra Marine blue  mixed with some burnt umber and a touches of alizarin crimson and hookers green.  I don't generally like sunset paintings but this one is subtle enough I think it came out pretty good.

thanks for looking.

Chinese Courtyard house

This was a recent painting I did for my sister from a photograph she took in Beijing. I think it came out all right but I am not  real happy with the roof texture.

Salmon River in Fall

Here are a couple paintings based on some sketches I did on a recent hike on the Salmon river near Welches Oregon, a beautiful little river running through the old growth forest on the west slope of Mt. Hood.

This is the ink and wash sketch done on on location.

the small painting based on this sketch

This was from a little bit up stream in the morning there was a mist coming off the river I tried to capture it in this painting. 

I have been wanting to do a simple pastureland scene for a while, this painting was painting from a picture of a Willamette valley farm, it was inspired my some of similar paintings by Joseph Zbukvic I think it came out pretty good, next time I will add cows.

Thanks for looking