What is it about chickens?

"Comb Over" / pastel / 9.5x7

Whenever I go to the fair I love to visit the chickens with all their color combinations and feather styles, bright floppy combs, and non-stop chicken chatter. Raising chickens in your backyard has become a popular urban activity and in Portland you can have up to three in your yard without a permit. The neighbors behind us have chickens and I enjoy hearing them cluck around doing their chickenly business. I eat an egg almost every day for breakfast so maybe I should get a chicken. But I travel a lot and then I'd have to get a chicken-sitter so I guess that's out. The models for today's paintings come from my daughter and her family's farm in Shelton, Washington. Although they seem a little curious about my motives, I have nothing but admiration for my fine feathered friends.

"The Line Up" / pastel / 7x9.5

"Me and My Shadow" / pastel / 7x9.5

Old Red Farm Bench, Hood River area

Between the Trees, 6 x 9

Last summer I had the pleasure of joining other members of Northwest Pastel Society for a few days on a plein air painting excursion in the Hood River, Oregon, area. What tremendous fun it was to work in great weather along the mighty Columbia River and Gorge where the scenery is so varied and often dramatic. Here's a painting from that trip, and another one from a visit with my daughter and her family at their farm in Shelton, Washington. 

I'd also like to encourage you to look at the galleries of some of the Northwest Pastel Society members I painted with in Hood River by clicking on their names: Janice Wall of Vashon Island, WA; Barbara Szkutnik of Battleground, WA; Christine Knowles of Hood River, OR; Brenda Boylan of Portland; and Michael Fisher of Portland. They're a great group of people and have been very supportive and encouraging to me in my artistic journey.

Old Red Farm Bench, 8 x 11