Between 2014 and 2019 I participated in the annual Dragon Boat Art Show, curated by local artist and friend Alea Bone. I believe I was the only artist to participate every year. For the first 2 years my art was reflective of my tattoo style, but by the third year I had begun photographing the annual dragon boat races for inspiration, and was exploring the interaction between the races, the river, and our iconic bridges with landscape painting. Most of these were done on 300gsm Arches cold pressed paper with washes using sumi ink. The first painting (not pictured) was not for sale, but the rest have been sold except the final one. Since the last dragon boat art show I have painted a handful of landscapes in this style, but it’s been hard for me to find landscape subject matter as inspiring as the dragon boats among the bridges of the Willamette.
2015 – Dragon boat in tree(12x12in)
At the time I painted this I was doing a lot of reading on the origins of art and was inspired by entoptic phenomena such as Purkinje trees. This is evident in the tree structure.
2016 – Hawthorne(15x23in)
This is the first time using the style I would focus on for the rest of these paintings. It depicts the end of a race from the vantage point of South Hawthorne Waterfront Park, one of the primary areas for spectators to view the race. In the background is Hawthorne Bridge, which was incredibly fun to paint. For this style I rely on the grid method, which helped a lot to replicate the structure of the bridge.
2017 – Small studies(4x6in), Large one(15×30)
In 2017 I had an art show that featured these 2 studies for the upcoming dragon boat art show. The first one depicts a race in progress as the boats pass the marina as seen from the east side of the Willamette just north of OMSI between the Marquam and Hawthorne Bridges. One of my struggles painting downtown in a landscape is how to simplify buildings without oversimplifying. This painting was sold to a friend, and I was satisfied enough with it not to paint a larger version.
The second study depicts the Marquam Bridge from the waterfront next to OMSI as the boats get ready to race. I was happy with everything but the top part of the bridge, which was very shaky and hard to paint geometrically at that size. This was on my wall at the shop for a while, but I believe I gave it to a client a few years ago. Below is the definitive version.
2018 – In Color(10x20in)
My one and only watercolor landscape depicts the end of a race from the west side of the Hawthorne Bridge, looking south toward Marquam Bridge and OMSI, with the marina to the right. The marina is the staging grounds for the races, so it’s where the teams go to embark and disembark before and after a race. While I was happy with how this turned out, it didn’t scratch the itch that the gray wash paintings did. I liked the effect of grayscale, it felt like I was making a painting of a 16mm film.
2019 – 2 from the east side (11.5x5in, 13×7.5in)
The top painting is a strange one. There was a long pause in the races for some reason, these boats waited quite a while to start their race, but I can’t remember why now. It’s painted from the vantage point of the east side just north of OMSI, with the Marquam Bridge framing the left side. I felt like I spent too much time on the condominiums in the background.
The bottom painting is a similar vantage point as the watercolor painting from the prior year, but with the marina out of the picture. I enjoyed painting the structure of the Marquam Bridge for this one, it reminded me of the lintels of Stonehenge, which I had visited a few years prior.
2019 – After the race(12x9in)
This is my favorite of the paintings in this series. It shows the aftermath of a race from South Waterfront Park, with Hawthorne Bridge in the background. In front of the boats are paddlers, headed on or off the marina high fiving each other before or after their races.
2020 – For all tomorrow’s dragon boat art shows
While I wanted to make multiple pieces for 2020´s art show, Covid had other plans. Art shows were canceled, dragon boat races were put on hold, and I had a tough time motivating myself to paint when business was shut down. I also spent some time trying to replicate this style on my new iPad, but it just wasn’t the same. The process of layering washes on paper was more satisfying than replicating it digitally. Eventually I made this painting, depicting a race in progress from the vantage point of the ramp next to Portland Fire & Rescue Station 21 on the east side. In the extreme close-up at the top is Hawthorne Bridge, with Marquam Bridge behind the boats, Ross Island Bridge, and the new Tilikum Bridge in the background.
2020 brought a lot of things into focus and rearranged my priorities. One of the things that was lost was my participation in the local art community. I stopped going to art openings and lost track of many artists who I would regularly show up for, partly because of the shift away from gatherings, which has now just become a habit for many of us. While there may not be another dragon boat art show, I will be photographing the 2023 Dragon Boat Races again, in case I feel the urge to continue this series in the future.
https://watch.opb.org/video/oregon-art-beat-fire-water-dragon-boat-art/