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Still Water Landscapes
 
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wpeD.jpg (42043 bytes) 1.  Pilchuck Creek.  This is a  favorite of mine and won an Award of Excellence at the Art By The Bay art show sponsored by the Camano/Stanwood Art Guild in August 2000.  It sold a few weeks later at the AAUW art show for $425.  It has been digitalized and archivally printed by the artist.  It is now available in a limited edition of one dozen prints.  Three have been sold.  Each print is signed and numbered.  The price is $350 matted in a 16 X 20-inch metal frame, postpaid.
wpe1B.jpg (29168 bytes) 2. Davis Slough One.  Davis Slough lies at the mouth of the Stillaguamish River and is just visible from the skybridge crossing to Camano Island from Stanwood.  I  happened upon it on a beautiful day late in September, with a blue sky overhead punctuated with some streaky white clouds.  It was a perfect day for photography and I took a couple of dozen pictures, a large number of which served as the basis for a series of watercolor renditions.  I took a lot of work to get them to the point where they were acceptable, but finally I was satisfied with some of them.  Since then I've been back to Davis Slough numerous times, but as is the case with many other things each later time proved less exciting and the pictures not so satisfying.  18 by 24 inches, matted, in a black metal frame.  One of twelve.  $400.
wpe6A.jpg (65831 bytes) 3.  Davis Slough Two.  This slough is heavily effected by the tides.  I should imagine the water is brackish at high tide or on the flow (but I shouldn't want to taste it to confirm this).  A lot of weedy flats become flooded as the sea advances and low channels start to run with water, forming a pretty network of water that mirrors what is going on overhead.  Similarly, when the tide ebbs, the channels empty and become nearly dry.  And in the late afternoon light in September, if the light is diffused enough, there is both detail in the shadow areas and the highlights are not blocked up.  The water takes on a bluish glow and the bright areas shine.  I've tried to catch this effect in my rendering of the basic photograph from which this painterly picture was produced.  I've found that it and other pictures from that day hold up well and the eye does not tire of them or the mood of tranquility they produce.  At least my eye doesn't.  18 by 24 inches, matted, in a black metal frame.  $425.
4.  Davis Slough Triptych.   Okay, I was having fun here.  I thought the picture might make an interesting screen in the Chinese fashion, so I broke it apart, moved the pieces around, and put them back together n a slightly different and staggered order.  It was an exercise and I wanted to see if I could do it; I think it was successful.  As a panel, or long picture, it offers the eye variety within the sameness of its view, or field of vision..  There is a bit of Zen in it, too.  And it can be seen as a view from a window that is partitioned by glass frames.  I lived in such a house for years, and my view from the living room window was always divided in this fashion.  It is up to the eye to join the panels back together--something the eye does easily and many times during an ordinary day of viewing landscapes, say, from a car window.  16 by 20 inches, matted and  in a metal frame.  One of ten.  $350.
5.  Davis Slough 3, yet again.  This visit produced flat light in which nothing much looked good.  I snapped pictures because this is what I was here for.  I reached the end of the dirt road and turned back; halfway to my car the sun came out from behind a stack of clouds.  I might not have noticed anything, but I had occasion to look back.  The light, the sky, the water--all were transformed brilliantly.  I took three pictures before the sun hid again.  This is the best of them.  To me it looks as though Turner might have seen our beautiful countryside in the same manner.  16 by 20 inches, matted, in a narrow walnut frame.  One of ten.  $350.
wpe2F.jpg (24867 bytes) 6.  Yellow Fields. The land along Davis Slough is farmed wherever dikes are able to protect the fields from a salty invasion.  To the left, that is, the Southwest, the owner has planted seed crops.  This is often the practice in the Stillaguamish and Skagit flats.  They are great producers of seeds and bulbs sold the world over.  I don't know about farming to be able to identify what the vast yellow crop is, only respond to its brilliance and beauty.  The standing water, the long diagonal perspective, the diminishing distance, the rich dead grasses, all combined to produce, at least for me, a striking effect.  16 by20 inches, matted and framed.  One of ten.  $350.