Painting Mt. Hood

As part of my Wilderness of Women series, I decided to paint the iconic Mt. Hood.  Judy Flexer sent me a fabulous photo of Mt. Hood from the PCT, and while I liked it, somehow living in Oregon and actually painting the one big iconic volcano in our state was… well, maybe too big of a project.  I was so reluctant about the subject matter that I pretty much filed the image under “do not paint… like, ever!” in my mind and that was that.  Until I was searching for my next project.  And I kept coming back to that image, it was big, and bold and compelling as all hell.

So I wondered… why not?  I proved to myself I had the ability, so what was stopping me?  I couldn’t think of anything other than my own little fragile ego.  If I compared my work to the quintessential hero of the landscape, Albert Bierstadt, I felt I was falling short of greatness.  But why compare?  He was a great painter, yes, and while it is true that he has a particularly nice rendering of Mt. Hood that happens to hang in the Portland Art Museum, surely that’s no reason.  Intimidating, yes, but really, that’s a silly reason to not paint something. It’s not like the PAM is calling me anytime soon to ask what was I thinking?!  Damn it, I wanted to do it just because at first, I didn’t.  It may be a perverse kind of determination, but it’s how I spurred myself to get over myself and just do it already!

In Judy’s photo, Mt. Hood is bathed in sunset colors, the viewer stands between the sunset to the west and looks east at the mountain.  The eastern sky is a deepening blue, as opposing sky lines often are; the foreground is shadowed, you only know it’s sunset because of the spectacular glow of Hood.  The Multnomah Indians called it, Wy’east, and he was one of the sons of the great spirit.  Wy’east is a big beefy volcanic guy and without his deep mantle of snow, we see all his orange, golden, tan and ochre tones. You can tell it’s late in the summer and the white cape he usually sports has mostly disappeared.  Hood is pretty much naked in this picture… and something about that really appealed to me.

And now, for some other perverse reason, I decided to not only paint him, but document myself in a whole new medium to me, film.  Well, digital anyway.  Last time I made a film was in a class where we actually spliced real film!  So, not only did I have to learn the software, I had to hang up my phone on a tripod and upload, upload, upload.  Argh!!  It tested my patience and because it was a distraction, I skipped filming portions of the painting.  So, it’s not a great piece of movie making, but it is kinda fun and explains my delay at posting to my blog!

Without further ado, Painting Mt. Hood.  A digital short by Sky Evans… enjoy!

Mt Hood

If you’d like to learn more about Albert Bierstadt and his amazing talent, here’s a quick link to his version of Mt. Hood:  http://www.wikiart.org/en/albert-bierstadt/mount-hood-oregon-1865