Adalyn

Adalyn

20" x 16"

Oil on hardwood Panel

[click on the image to enlarge]

This cute little mite is my niece, Adalyn.

She has been traveling with her parents recently and some of the photographs caught my interest.

I wanted to make a more colorful infant portrait.

After getting the basic sketch in place, I experimented and played with the colors.

Infants are so helpless, they can't really object no matter how we dress them. Besides I believe she is a bit too sweet to complain.

The green is a Phthalo Emerald color by Gamblin. It is a very powerful hue and I like it better than the more usual thalo green which has more blue in it. The dress has a good bit of Quinacridone Rose although neither are pure at any point on the painting.

I imagine that I will keep looking at it and making small changes however I decided to publish it anyway. After all the changes may make it worse - it's happened before.

Sunrise Dairy

Sunrise Dairy

24" x 30"

Oil on hardwood Panel

[click on the image to enlarge]

Whiting Sunrise Dairy in Lewiston, Utah is the place that I remember most often when I consider my childhood, although it was really mostly my teenage years.

The best place to raise the 5 Whiting kids.

Like homes a working farm is a place that is always changing. The crops are planted, grow and are harvested and stored. The animals need attention, feeding and the cows are milked twice daily. Similarly the buildings and landscaping change over time. So some choices had to be made when considering this painting.

Many buildings including the home, the small garage, the large red barn and the milk annex no longer exist, except in our memories. And everything could not be included so the solid, wood grainery, the corn pit, the calf sheds, the pig pens and most of the equipment are not visible. The canal, irrigation ditches and sprinkler pipes and manicured fields of corn, barley, alfalfa and wheat are behind this scene.

Some things are constant such as dairy cows, feed for them, a large garden and chores.

I wanted the sunrise aspect to be dominant and the sunrise within the painting, so it was necessary to make some adjustments and thus to allow the dairy to face west for this purpose. This also nicely puts some more interesting mountains behind the buildings.

This was another fun painting to work on. Every building and item has some memories attached to it. For example the brick chimney was shaken during the Richmond earthquake and fell off the house going behind the bedroom. We are fortunate that the individual bricks rolled down the roof rather than crashing as a large mass into the home.

The red barn had two parallel rows of stalls to milk cows behind the sliding door- one row to the right and one to the left. The leanto annex on the left side was used to store supplies the one on the right side had shop tools. The barn had a full floor above the milk area and was used to store bales. Also had a few bats up in the rafters.

The painting is worked mostly in grey hues with accents. It is a larger painting than the previous two landscapes.

I hope you also noted that though it is early morning and the house and general area is quiet, the lights are on in the milk annex as dad goes about the first morning chores. The last chores of the day will be about 14-15 hours later.

Because of the greys and the limited palette this painting is very subject to ambient lighting. In some limited light it appears to be first dawn as night starts to wane. With more light flooding the central portion it becomes a brighter sunrise.

I love these memories of home.

Life in the Fields

Life in the Fields
JHC Country

18" x 24"

Oil on hardwood Panel

[click on the image to enlarge]

My dear mother will also celebrate a birthday of note a little later this year.  Since I'm her favorite child, I wanted to paint something from her childhood. [Really, the competition for that title is quite limited....]

This painting is  a painting of memories and family ties.

John Hartley Carlile [JHC- from the brand that I created a couple of years ago in his memory] and his perpetually cheerful wife Florence raised a family of four children in these homes.

The Carlile's were lots of fun to visit and as kids we always looked forward to seeing them. When I got a little older I was allowed to sleep in a very small upstairs bedroom. The bedroom was small, with sloping walls tucked into the attic,  and was reached by climbing up a steep and narrow stairway. It's small window looked out towards the Quaking Aspen on the left side.

This painting's theme  works around late summer in the farming fields. The palette is much warmer.

Liberty was taken with placing the various elements of the past into this painting. Especially creating a country lane with their first home on the same lane as their later home.

Hart Carlile did love the fields, the animals and the farming life.

The memories of them are warm and joyful. So sit back, relax, have a dish of homemade ice cream,  listen to a story or two and enjoy your visit.

Charleston Homestead

Charleston Homestead

18" x 24"

Oil on hardwood Panel
[click on the image to enlarge]

Since my father enjoyed his 90th birthday this spring, I looked back into our family history to find inspiration for painting.

The red brick home was owned by my grandparents, Wayne and Violet Whiting, while living in Charleston which is a small town in Wasatch County. Charleston also sits on the banks of the Deer Creek Reservoir with the Provo River running into it on the north.

I remember lots of snow as a small child, much deeper than portrayed here.

It was a fun place with many trees and farm animals. My great grandfather and grandmother also lived not very far from here. Uncle Gene and Aunt LaRae lived upstairs with his parents for a time. And we lived next door to the right.

I walked down this road to join my five Charleston classmates in kindergarten. And learned to ride a bike on it after many topples.

The setting though is altered to put local mountains, the fields, the old Charleston ward building and some of the town into the background. They existed however not in the alignment as depicted.

Despite the red hues in the home the painting has a cool palette. And many very warm, comfortable memories.

The home was also the setting for a film called 'Easter Dream'