PORT ANGELES — Gretha Lindwood’s not usually a coffee drinker, but she sips when she paints. The caffeine keeps her gloved, pastel-powdery hands busy.
By now, the Portland, Ore., painter knows what works.
She finds a comfortable spot — this time, a golden meadow accented with lavender thistles across from the Elwha River — and then finds a painting.
She “frames” a clump of trees and a few inches of mountain with her index fingers and thumbs to try out a potential painting.
“I wish I could duct-tape the sky,” she says. “That would make it easier.”
Her finger framing continues for about 10 minutes until she settles on an section of tree line. One mossy, light-colored tree stands out among the others. “Little ghost tree,” she calls it. Lindwood is drawn to the contrast.
Then, she begins to outline significant features in the landscape.
“I may have had too much caffeine,” she laughs as she decides the color of a particular pastel doesn’t quite satisfy. She uses “high-tec” paper towels to remove the unwanted shade.
She tries to stay true to the view: the colors, the shadows, the light. Lindwood describes her style as impressionistic and representative.
As she paints “en plein air”— a French expression for painting outdoors — she talks to herself, sometimes scolding, sometimes reassuring.
“Get to work,” she says. “Quit fussing around. Get busy.”
But as mountains, trees and grasses take residence on the 6-inch-by-11-inch canvas, Lindwood’s tone brightens a bit.
“OK, maybe this will work.”
After “finishing” the painting several times, she commands herself: “Leave it alone.”
Lindwood’s one of 22 painters in the heat of Paint the Peninsula, the fifth annual weeklong juried plein air competition. She has competed in four of the five annual competitions hosted by the Port Angeles Fine Arts Center.
Early Wednesday afternoon, curious onlookers observed Lindwood in action from a distance. Passing cars slowed down. It turns out plein air painters are quite the show-stoppers.
“We’re just another roadside attraction, right?” Lindwood quips. “They’re wondering why my hat is bobbing up and down.”
When people approach Lindwood, she informs them about Paint the Peninsula and hands out brochures inviting them to a reception.
“I’m not the silent salesman,” she says. “I really hope they come.”
She also explains her tools of choice: dry pastels and sandpaper canvas. Educating the public comes with the territory of being en plein air, and Lindwood savors the interruptions.
All in all, she has participated in some 24 plein air competitions across the United States, give or take. Interactions with other painters and the public are always a highlight of her plein air competition experience.
Today, Lindwood will perform a demonstration at Hurricane Ridge in Olympic National Park at 11 a.m. She’ll decide the subject once she’s atop the ridge and can assess the light and shadow situation, colors and composition of her surroundings.
When she gave a demonstration last year, Lindwood was drawn to smoke billowing from a wildfire in the distance. Every other painter chose to depict the mountains, but “it’s not every day you paint smoke.”
On Friday, Lindwood will join 21 other painters for “Paint Out!” The artists will gather on City Pier and the esplanade in Port Angeles to paint the waterfront.
At the paint-out two years ago, Lindwood painted a young couple sitting on a bench near the pier.
They missed the ferry, so they picked a nice seat downtown to fill some time until the next boat arrived.
About six months later, Lindwood recalls, a woman emailed her to ask if the painting was still available for purchase. She said she and her husband decided upon a name for their baby while sitting on that bench.
When the couple came to the studio to purchase the painting, they brought their newborn. They decided to hang the painting in the baby’s nursery.
“I was thrilled,” Lindwood says. “It seemed like a story someone else would tell. And I get to tell it.”
On Saturday, an awards ceremony and reception at the fine arts center will be open to the public. It costs $10 to attend, and that includes appetizers, wine and soft drinks.
These sorts of events sometimes reveal fascinating reactions from potential buyers or collectors, Lindwood says.
A man once had an emotional reaction to her painting of an edge of a lake surrounded by wildflowers near Mount Adam.
He told his wife, “I want to be buried here.”
The woman later relayed the story to Lindwood. The man apparently had a stressful job, and the lake just looked so “calm and peaceful.”
Those kind of reactions are not common, but Lindwood always enjoys interacting with her paintings’ buyers.
“We get to see the art goes to a good home,” she says.
En plein air paintings are on sale now at the fine arts center, 1203 E. Lauridsen Blvd. Sunday will be the last opportunity for people to purchase some 150 paintings created during the week of Paint the Peninsula. The gallery will be open from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
Paintings for sale also can be viewed on Paint the Peninsula’s website, www.paintthepeninsula.org.
________
Reporter Sarah Sharp can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 56650, or at ssharp@peninsuladailynews.com.
Gretha Lindwood concentrates on capturing her view of a meadow across the Elwha River while participating in Paint the Peninsula on Wednesday. (Sarah Sharp/Peninsula Daily News)
Gretha Lindwood poses with her completed plein art landscape painting in a meadow across from the Elwha River while participating in Paint the Peninsula on Wednesday. (Sarah Sharp/Peninsula Daily News)
