Painting the Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge
An art group was enjoying the day so we stopped to say hi
Karen Swallow begins work on her Oaks Bottom landscape
The Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge in the center of Sellwood is just one of the things that makes our neighborhood so special. Passing through recently, along with the usual eagles, ospreys, and scenic views, we saw a small group of people trying to capture all that beauty with only a brush and paint. We thought that deserved at least a little conversation…
Katherine Taylor, finding that necessity is the mother of creativity
Our encounter with the painters began on the east end of the refuge where we met Karen Swallow. A beginning painter, she was just blocking out her painting as we talked to her. Karen explained the group was a class ‘en plein air’ painting; not just painting from life, but painting in the open, outdoors, ‘in the open air’. It was a practice much favored by Impressionists like Monet and Renoir. Karen’s very involved in the community beyond painting, spending quite a bit of time volunteering at Leach Botanical Gardens, where the class plans to paint later this year.
Just a little farther down the path was Catherine Taylor, who was happily painting away even though she’d forgotten her white paint. It didn’t slow her down at all. “Without the white, you can’t vary the intensity of the color”, she said, “so I’ve just worked without it, and today I’m trying a new style with vivid, bolder colors”.
Many students set up just behind the guardrail on the caution curve by the park… if you’re a Sellwoodian, you know the spot!
Karen and Katherine were well away from the main body of artists, who had gathered under the trees at the west end of the overlook with Jef Gunn, the artist teaching the class. He’s a Seattle native who has been in Portland for decades, exhibiting his work throughout the region and teaching classes on a stunning array of subjects from beginning painting to wood cut printing to the Dao of seeing painting.
Jef Gunn’s painting class under the trees of Sellwood Park in the Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge
Jef began teaching en plein air painting in 2003 in response to a student’s suggestion while he was teaching at PNCA. Though he’s long since left PNCA, the class itself has thrived. 11 people showed up today to paint at the refuge but the whole class is 15 people, which Jef said was about the biggest it could be. They’re currently about halfway through the term, and so far this year they’ve painted at Sauvie Island and Rooster Rock. Future sites include Leach Botanical Gardens and Clackamette Park in Oregon City. Though en plein air is mostly about nature and landscapes, they’ve also done a little urban painting this year at spots around Jef’s neighborhood.
We wanted to talk to some of the painters in the big group, but Jef asked us not to. “I’d hate for them to be disturbed,” he said. “They’re balancing light, shape, and color, trying to squeeze all of THIS,“ Jef gestured expansively, “onto a little flat rectangle. It’s a difficult task, and they need to concentrate completely.” And seeing the painters, each lost in their own tiny worlds of canvas and paint, it was obvious he was right.
But then we realized that knowing what those other painters were thinking wouldn’t be helpful anyway. If you’d like to know what Monet felt while painting in Paris, the only way is to get YOUR paints and canvas and dive into the en plein air beauty all around us. We found that there’s no better place to start than the Oaks Bottom Wildlife Refuge, and no better guide to ask for than Jef Gunn.
