Dana M Johnson – Paintings, Illustrations, VideoThe Blog of Dana M. Johnson

As promised from yesterday, here are the sketches created from the window of the Empire Builder line of the Amtrak which moves along the Mississippi River.

Mississippi Island, watercolor & pen on paper, copyright 2010

Glass Telephone Insulators, watercolor & pen on paper, copyright 2010

Passing Rusty Train, watercolor & pen on paper, copyright 2010

Flooded around trees, watercolor & pen on paper, copyright 2010

Moon over the Mississippi, watercolor & pen on paper, copyright 2010

This weekend I took a break from my studio, but not from painting, and traveled along the flooded Mississippi river. The Empire Builder (Amtrak) travels from St Paul daily and the views are beautiful in the early morning. I met several wonderful people traveling on the train, including a couple celebrating their 45th wedding anniversary and two talented and talkative young ladies studying art. I enjoyed seeing their colorful fashion sketches. Tomorrow I will post my sketches from the train.

A lot is going to change yet as I continue to work.  Often I paint over parts several times as I work and layers change shapes and colors  More updates to come this week!

Studio view

You can see the scale of the painting in comparison to other recent work hanging in the background.  This large painting will live in Eau Claire when it is complete at the State Theatre.  Last fall I participated in liveArt2 at the State Theatre and it was at that time that the idea to work on this painting was proposed by the director & staff at ECRAC.  Since September I’ve been working on brainstorming ideas, sketching & hauling home stacks of books from the library.  I will posting updates throughout the next few weeks as I continue to paint, feel free to comment, critique & offer suggestions as I work!