New Work

Recent paintings will appear below for an indeterminate period of time.  They may or may not eventually be placed in the relevant Portfolio.  This "New Work Portfolio" is a work in progress, as I decide how to use it, and so perhaps not every new piece that I complete will make it in. 

Please see Current News (under the News & Events Tab) 
for Information on the following three Oil Paintings.

"On the Prowl ... Times Past on Sparks Lake"
[This was a commission from a very loyal collector & friend back in England]

C1476 - "On the Prowl ... Times Past on Sparks Lake" (Oregon Cascades), Watercolour, 11-1/8" x 20-3/4" - ©2012 Steven Thor Johanneson – Once there were Wolves here, as there were throughout North America. P.S. - Over this past winter (2014) I have heard that Oregon now does have Wolves in residency, and a Lone Wolf has been detected in the Oregon Cascades.

Detail #1 from “On the Prowl” - ©2012 Steven Thor Johanneson

Detail #2 from “On the Prowl” - ©2012 Steven Thor Johanneson

Detail #3 from “On the Prowl” - ©2012 Steven Thor Johanneson

Although the above work was completed in the Autumn of 2012, I have only now been able to surface for air after many months on another important commission.  Sadly I won't be able to display images of this most recent commission in Oil Paint as the commissionaire stipulated in the contract that the work remain anonymous.

"Sunlight & Cloud Shadows Crossing Fort Rock Valley"
[Even though this is now not "New Work," I'm going to keep it here a bit longer]

C1455-"Sunlight & Cloud Shadows crossing Fort Rock Valley" (Oregon High Desert), Watercolour, 11-1/8" x 25" - ©2011 Steven Thor Johanneson

Detail of above painting showing Fort Rock to center left (note Mountain Blue Bird in the lower left).

After spending the night camped in my SUV at Hole in the Ground (the remnants of a volcanic maar * about a mile across), and painting a small oil sketch from there, I meandered on the Forest Roads down through the Ponderosa Pines, generally heading East.  A couple of miles from Hole in the Ground, I left the forest edge and a couple of hundred yards out I came upon this scene.  I paused for a moment before circumnavigating the butte to the left, and after negotiating some very 'iffy,' rutted tracks, I decided to come back to this spot and draw.  The cloud shadows rolling across the landscape, interspersed with the bands of sunlight, was my first inspiration for the original drawing.  But when drawing contemplation sets in, and sometimes more is revealed to the mind.  In this case the vastness of the scene became my main inspiration when approaching the painting, and what I have attempted to achieve in this work, while not overlooking the actualities of that Landscape within the realistic way I approach my Art.  The vastness of the High Desert might at first sight seem akin to that of looking out to Sea from atop Sea-cliffs.   But it is not.  Having lived for 23 years on the Coast of North Cornwall, England, and walking out to the sea-cliffs on most days, the experience is of a different order.  Looking out to Sea one is aware of a vastness, but it is not easily comprehended when there are only waves marching in from the horizon or the serried ranks of cloud to mark the scale of that space.  Comprehension begins when looking up or down the coast line, but even that view is relatively linear.  Its linearity is not of the same order, since in the High Desert, one may observe the Landscape in various directions.   With a view such as I have here depicted, the eye travels from landscape feature to landscape feature, and from cloud shadow to cloud shadow on into the distance, the eye resting now and again upon its journey into the vastness, perhaps to consider the physical traverse such a journey might take in actuality, whether on foot or vehicle.  That very consideration, seems to expand such a Landscape into a vastness greater than that of staring into the infinitude of the Sea, where there might be little to stop the eye's onward rush into the blue Infinity, save the odd flock of sea-birds, perhaps a whale or a boat, or yet another of those myriad waves.  I feel the vastness that the High Desert engenders every time I cross eastwards over the Cascades.   

* A maar is a volcanic explosion crater formed when a bubble of magma rises to the surface and bursts.  Fort Rock is also a maar, and is the main feature seen in the detail image above.