a box of algorithms or a pallet of paint

I've been taking digital photos and playing with them in a photo program that has some spiffy tools. I got a little miffed because the computer does some stunning things that I wish I could do. What I have discovered is the computer as a tool has pushed me into new ways of working.


this first picture is a digital picture taken below Grand Coulee Dam called Seaton's Ferry, which I also did a painting of.


I used the computer to morph the digital photo into this version that is still somewhat representational


I then pushed it further into this rendition. What I learn here is how to see. How to push elements beyond the literal. How color relations are developed ending in an abstraction where the canvas becomes an object in its own right. It reminds me of reading Hans Hoffman's founder of the German, Bauhaus. I was a student going to Eastern Washington College, a half hour ride into the wheatland outside of Spokane, WA. He opened my eyes to the 'ideas' that an artist is obliged to grapple. It's been a long time since I was looking at things that intellectually rather than in the moment that I've lived in for so long.

I've often reflected upon what value there is to art. Picture making is not what it was when the camera didn't exist and the artist was something of a magician. Today we not only have camera but numerous technology that diminish the role of the artist who is relegated to the duty of operator of technology. People are saturated with visual stimulus and bombarded with ideas and take the images they are surrounded with for granted.

My attachment is to the process. Being one with nature. Like farming or logging my paintbrush is the team of horses that I harvest hay. Instead of harvesting a field I am harvesting a landscape and instead of producing a bale of hay I end up with a painting. One does not have any less value than the other and both share 'substance' which is how I want to live my life, a life of substance.

painting, belgian team, mowing 30"x40"

I've been working on a large painting of a team of Belgian horses mowing hay. This isn't necessarily my team or any of my horses as mine are more 'red sorrel' horses except for the mare Windy who is a blond sorrel but has an unusual grey mane.
It is a large painting for me but was not at all a problem. Being a person 6' 3" I find larger paintings to fit my physical nature. I also keep from overworking the painting as there is so much area to cover I can move around in the painting. I did the sky first. I had wanted to do cumulus type clouds but after 4 hours or so I ended up with a sky of 'mares tail' cirrus clouds that ended up fitting the composition quite nicely and are appropriate for the month of July when I am usually haying and are a good sign to a farmer as they represent a high pressure front of clear weather. I've had plenty of hay rained on, more when I was using machinery and had more hay to put up and had to start in June when the weather was chancy. Now I only cut 40 acres or so and can wait for the brome grass to get more mature and lend some grain to the hay. For the last two years the brome has looked more like oats it has been so heavy. The six horse I feed through the winter really like it and what they don't eat gets shook out on the ground and makes for good hay the next year.
I'm not done with the painting and have the harness to put on the horses. I've included the grisaille stage (imprimatura underpainting) just to show the progress. It's a different way of working than the imprissionistic rendering of the "Season Series" that I have yet to finish. I order stretched canvas from a distributor. It is incredible to be able to purchase such high quality canvases that are made in China and shipped to me in Washington from N.Carolina distributor. A 30'"x40x2" deep canvas is only $30. Some would think it improper to buy from exploited chinese workers but I'll bet, like the fall of the USSR, China will change due to the influence of Capitalism. Can't say that's a good thing either for us or them but it is a possible reason we would have fewer differences especially ones worth fighting about.

Merry Christmas Everyone
by Gregg Caudell

season series

These paintings are lartger than I have done for a while 24"x36" and 2" deep so that they can be hung without frames. I intend to do two more 'Summer' and 'Spring'.
As in the "Fall Series" I've taken my Plein Air attempts and used them as notes that I expand upon using the technique I've developed resembling a semi abstract perhaps 'tonalist' rendering of a landscape subject. I've discovered that my affinity for color and pushing paint around has developed into a distinct technique that uses something of the effect of Seurat's 'pointilist' practice of placing pure color in proximity to each other to create a third color. The technique achieves a vibrancy but working spontaneously and expressively, mixing color on the canvas, I have developed a personal application of paint through brushstrokes that imparts a vigorous and I think, 'unique' effect that allows the canvas to become less the rendering of an image or a picture of something as an artifact in it's own right.

As each picture developes I discover new things that I wish to pursue in the next painting. Working in series helps develop both a theme and continuity of process.
In an effort to apply to shows and contests I made a CD of my work and was disconcerted to find that although there are many pieces that I liked and had good things going on, I realized that what the public or 'industry' would be looking for or more comfortable with, had to have continuity.

I think I am achieving a way of working that I am comfortable with and one that I will want to work with for some time to come as it has much potential and is natural for me yet challenging in that it has intellectual prospects that can disclose both subjective and objective issues.

winter efforts

"Winter, Chick le 'est, 11"x14"


"January Thaw, Devil's Elbow" 16"x20"

I have been delighted with the results of winter work out of doors. It is cold but I have the luxury of a car heater. When my hands or feet get too cold I simply jump in and warm up. I tune the satelite radio in to the Opera and turn up the volume with the doors open and paint away. Eat your heart out Monet! Luv it! The white of the snow is like the white of the canvas which makes it easy to decipher the composition and shape of things. The painting just about paints itself and I try to keep from overworking the painting. I use a very limited pallet raw umber, raw sienna, alizarin, cobalt blue a little viridian and very little cad yellow but lots of thick impasto titanium white.

"Storm Over 21 mile" 16"x20"


"Winter Tracks" 11"x14"


"Tracks in the Snow" 11"x14"

Studio Paintings

I promised myself I would start working on paintings of horses if only because I have worked with them for more than 20 years and figure I should paint what I know. I've got a lot of material, digital photos, regular photos, and 6 models, Lucky, Rainy, Windy, Sunny, Willow and M&M.
The challenge will be working in the studio as opposed to life studies. I do tie up the horses outside the window and study them to get things right but I miss the colors of the warm seasons and the horses are wearing their shaggy winter coats.

Myers Falls 16x20

This painting was started on location at Myers Falls, the oldest longest producing millsite west of the Mississippi, 1826, or atleast that is the claim of the caretaker that lives below the falls and maintains the power house that still operates and makes enough power for up to 1000 homes. Pretty cool. This was also the area that the Hudson Bay Company established a post and if it weren't for David Thompson and political shenanigans that occured at the time this area would have been part of Canada. Also nearby was one of the greatest salmon fishing sites on the Columbia to which tribes from all around the west would gather for a potlatch. The first of the catch went to the Creator, the next that were provided for were the elders and handicapped, then those that came to trade were dealt in. Salmon didn't make it up Myers Falls but continued on their way up to the Upper Columbia, one of the greatest Salmon fisheries the world has ever seen. Today dams on the Columbia have closed much of the fishery off to salmon, many species of which are endangered of extinction. I wonder what it was like back then. I bet you had to dodge Grizzlies and wolves for some of the bounty.
It was a very cold and grey day to paint. I had to brighten it up in the studio. I was tempted to put turkeys in the painting. As I was working a flock of turkeys flew from the trees across the canyon over my head. There were atleast 50 of the big birds and it was a delight to watch them cruise over my head, gobbling to each other as they landed.

Fall Series

I've been working on a "Sanpoil Autumn" series.
I've enjoyed developing a simplifying my compositions as well as color notes from plein air work onsite. It is a pleasure to explore possibilities and interject the poetry I derive by reflecting on nature. I listen to opera and refer to notes of paintings and digital photos I took on location. I have always been enamored with the process of painting, of discovering new color combinations. Painting is much like playing the guitar. Many times I take time out and play the guitar as I critique my work. I have noticed there are many similarities between the way I play and the way I paint. It is very personal, I have never been inclined to play music as it is writen, rather it is a point of departure that I build upon with innovation and simplification. If art is about growth then I am growing. I discover my self through my efforts. It is an aesthetic development of the window of the self and the world that self occupies..




I visited the Frye museum in Seattle and discovered works by Cummings, one of the last of the NW greats like Tobey and Graves. I had seen some of his "Western" work in various magazines. The show was a retrospective of his very hard life in which he was married 7 times, survived TB and being a Communist during the days of Black Lists. I found insight into an artists development. He was true to his own vision. His later works are a celebration to his committment to color. He said something to the effect that after 40 yrs he finally allowed himself what he always suspected, he was a color junky. That's not exactly how he put it but it certainly is appropriate for his later Masterpieces, "Balthazar" and others.

Sanpoil Autumn and trip to Washington D.C.

Sanpoil Autumn, 16x20

This is my first studio painting of the year. It's been raining and cold every day. We sure need it, the ground soaks it right up. It hasn't rained for months and months. There is snow in the mountains and the Indians are burning slash, creating a nice but pungent haze in the valley. When the sun does shine the mountain shadows are every shade of ultramarine blue. Perfect to set off the brilliant oranges and reds of cottonwoods and aspen. I chose to work from my studies. I still had the same paint on my pallet that I had been using so thought it would be logical to use those colors and the notes from some landscapes. I had fun developing some of the color combinations I had discovered outside i.e. intense gradations of Hansa + white for highlights down yellow cad, virmillion and alizarin mixing alizarin and ultramarine with white to get some wonderful pastels.

In this painting I used the "Golden Rule" idea for the composition with the center of interest in the middle of the painting perhaps too much so but it does feel like I achieved the intent. I look forward to perhaps a series of these to develop the idea and see where I can take it. I listen to classical music and don't notice the day go by as I paint away!

I worked outside everyday with the intention of working indoors during the winter. I started just fixing up some plein air work, adjusting and altering right on the existing painting but quit after I realized they were important notes that I can't afford to lose. I have lots of digital photographs but they aren't to helpful. They help with the mechanics of things such as composition and object identification but lack any kind of ability to inspire interpretation. I've come to the conclusion that nature is a point of departure. If I thought I wanted a perfect picture of reality I would take a photo but they don't even come close to the right colors. Paintings are about Ideas whether it was the cave man, Monet or Picasso the end result was a reflection of the artists thoughts or ideas.

I had the opportunity to go to the Freer Gallery where many Whistler masterpieces reside. I also got through Hirshorn Museum of Modern Art but felt those represented were large "smart asses" thumbing their nose at the viewer but I also recognized that they were those that pushed the envelope of convention. I particularly liked the installations and sculpture especially the most modern sculptures such as David Smith's welded sculpture of a Raven. I came to wonder why I can stand in front of a Church, Moran, or Bierstadt for hours and marvel at their accomplishments. As usual I spent most of my time in the National Gallery of Art looking at those favorites but discovered two wonderful paintings by George Bellows of his famous "Boxers". Huge dark canvases such as Rembrandt would have devised with two figures brutally locked in combat under a light from above, a rabid crowd dark on dark crowded around the bottom of the combatants. I was delighted to see two of his cityscapes. Truly a virtuoso painter. Much pallett knife work but very acurate fooling the eye in such a way that the shapes come together from a distance of about 10 feet. Fun stuff! I have to think that his process was such that after working on location he would distill his thoughts and visual memory into such wonderful work.

The Freer Gallery built at the behest of Railroad tycoon and art Patron (William?) Freer has many of the "Aestetes" such as Whistler, Dwyer and Twachtman. I didn't know that Whistler was so influetial on art history. He changed how art was viewed in his time by making a painting, 'art for arts' sake', a saying I have often heard but hadn't realized that there was an actual transition from allegorical paintings that told a story to what we take for granted today as the artists license to do his own thing. He also interjected "Harmony" into his paintings from observing Oriental art. The painting became an object in his own right. One of the most significant personal insights I got from observing Whistlers work some as small as my hand, was painting or rather drawing over an underpainting with thin washes in such a way as to allow the brushstrokes to appear transparent and delineate the lines of the form as you would with a pencil. The transparent veils of a woman's dress or japanese paper parasol achieving a translucent quality. He often painted on wood panels with thin washes over an underpainting. I hope I can remember to try the technique.


I have to mention why I was back in D.C. of all places for a horselogger/artist. As Secretary of the WPUDA we had to try to convince our NW delegation of the critical need to dissuade BPA from proceeding with deregulating our transmission system in the NW. Apparently we were successful as when we came back Steve Wright of BPA pulled out of the discussions which effectively kills the process although I won't be surprised if another 'for sale' sign gets hung on some feature of our federal energy resources. Stay Tuned!

"Fair Barn on the Sanpoil". I went painting with a group up in Republic. Got this done in about 3 hours. Lost the light but held onto the gist of it. Russel says I need to get away from mixing white with my colors and instead mix the next higher or lower value in intesity with the local color I am trying to portray. i.e. to get brighter cad yellow light, mix hansa or lemon yellow, to darken, mix cad red light or vermillion.