What’s on the easel? March 22, 2026

22 Mar What’s on the easel? March 22, 2026

Posted from Seattle, WA on March 22, 2026.

I’m on a major campaign to finish paintings, old and new. I’ve been trying to finish Redwing and Rainier for 21 years, and possibly yesterday is the last time I will have worked on it.

This King Salmon in full spawning red is one from the latest batch of starts, this year, and is the second in a series of underwater animals on a white backgound. The first was a female Orca. Still not begun is a Steelhead.

For stock purposes and to distinguish it from my other Bald Eagle Flying painting I’m calling this Bald Eagle Banking. But that sounds like it opened a checking account so I don’t think I’ll use that on the prints when I sign them. I’m about to order a few of these huge–20 x 30– larger than the painting. The prints will sit on the light bar high over the store with an 18 x 24 Osprey and an 18 x 24 Red-tail. It’s not out of Eagle-worship that I will make the Eagle print larger than the other two. It’s the problem that making all the prints the same size means the Eagle looks like the smallest of the three Birds and this doesn’t compute in your brain when you look at them–I know it doesn’t work for me, it just doesn’t look right. I can’t wait to get the 20 x 30 Eagle and put it up with the other two and I will love to have it there. However, it’s not normal to look up that high when walking through the Market and we almost NEVER get even a passing comment on that set of prints. I believe, however, that people take a lot in subliminally. It’s true with dirt also. I had a long-time employee and I used to complain that we needed to clean at ladder-height in the store–which had and in some cases still has visible gobs of dust– and he used to always say “People don’t look up.” I agreed, but said, “But people know.”

This is a very new painting, I started it in November of 25.

This is a new painting I started in New Mexico in February. That’s awfully fast for me, I have no confidence in it yet but want to see what people have to say or not say about it. Snowy Owl on driftwood.

This Blue-winged Teal was one of the paintings I started in New Mexico in November 2025.

This is the Orca on white, part of a future series.

This is a very old painting, I’ll have to see if it’s dated anywhere, that I’m trying to finish again because I like the composition. Unfortunately, I painted this on foamcore and the foamcore now has damage so it will never go on sale as an original.

I have finally finished the painting Return of the Sockeye, I think. I will need a much better photo of it however. I’m trying to decide whether to put it up for sale now or keep it. It works well for a backdrop for movies and it looks good in the living room. Part of the problem is that if I put the price I really want to get in return for giving it up, I will look conceited, by my standards, it would be a high price. I haave sold about 8 paintings for 3K I would want a lot more than that. It’s published in about 8 different sizes and crops and does well in all of them. I have continued working on it long after publication of all of these. It just happens to be a really colorful, pretty painting and it’s also on canvas and, again by my standaards, quite large.

Common Yellowthroat. I’m hoping to do a Warbler Skinny and this would be on it. But I’d have to finish it and painting Cottonwood leaves to look realistic isn’t my favorite thing.

This is one of the fastest paintings I ever did. I know because I started it on April Fool’s Day of this year and it’s now April 21. April 1 was also the day I put together my spring to-do list. If everything turns out bad, that’s ok, I have an easy excuse. But I like this so far although to me it seems the monitor likes this painting more than the printing presses do. I have been to the printers with it three times already and am about to deploy the last version at the store–I’m hoping people like it.

The Snofalls thing got me wondering about my existing Snoqualmie Falls painting. I remastered it yet again–I’ve been working on it 13 years now, in the hope ofmaking it harder for customers to decide between the two. That’s my job.