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I’ve noticed lately that the subject matter in most of my original paintings is based on summer or fall and there is an obvious shortage of winter scenes. It’s funny how this happens, it is not deliberate but represents my interests and the world in which I live. A few years ago my portfolio consisted of many winter northern lights scenes and snow covered landscapes. Not so today. I’ve been pondering, why the change? (more…)

I’m astonished when I look back at the calendar and see that it has only been ten weeks since I sat down with grid paper and laid out a landscape plan for the new studio/residence. Much has happened since we raked the first rock. One thing for sure, I now have a huge pile of rocks to use as I please. (more…)

Last year we won a prize in a drawing at the Alaska State Fair, Palmer, a round trip for two and a tour of the the Alaska Kuparuk Oil Fields, sponsored by Conoco/Phillips. We scheduled our tour for July 2006, during the warmest time of the year in this normally dark frigid region. We began the tour by meeting our guide at 5:30 AM at the Conoco/Phillips check in counter at Ted Steven’s International Airport, Anchorage, Alaska. (more…)

Playing hooky from work this week we took our house guests to Seward, Alaska, for three days of sight seeing, fishing and eating!! Emphasis on eating. We were greeted by the sun on the day we arrived, and found out that this was the first day of sunshine since the 4th of July weekend! Apparently the weather had been cloudy, rainy, foggy, windy and cold during most of July bringing havoc to the charter fishing business with high seas and miserable conditions. Not so for our visit! We were greeted with beautiful sun, warm temperatures, calm seas and endless vistas of beautiful scenery. We were charged and ready to go! (more…)

We had a great time in our booth Saturday July 22 at the 2006 Alaska Garden and Art Festival at the Palmer Fairgrounds. Friday night, with the help of our house guests, we set up our 20’ x 10’ booth walls and hung artwork. Instead of the usual double and triple hung walls, I chose to hang the framed art museum style, in a single row. Since we were including original paintings as well and framed prints, the evenly spaced single row of art allowed each individual piece to stand alone and could be viewed in depth without distraction. It looked fabulous! (more…)

It took five days to incorporate details into my design for the mural that will be painted by 20-25 muralists during the Seward Music and Arts Festival, September 23-24, at the Alaska Railroad Terminal, Seward, Alaska. I am working on a very reduced scale drawing, and it still fills my 5’ wide drafting table. The final product will be 8’ high and 34’ long and will be mounted on the exterior of a building in downtown Seward. (more…)

We have been getting ready for the Alaska Garden and Art Festival that will be held at the Palmer State Fairgrounds on Saturday, July 22, 2006, from 11:00AM till 6:00PM. Our booth will be in the Don Sheldon Event Center. We plan to set up Friday night and hopefully have everything ready so that we won’t have to arrive too early Saturday. (more…)

The design for the Seward Mural looks great when printed out small enough to fit on a legal sized page, but as I began to enlarge the drawing it is clear that the details are missing. The devil is in the details. This stage of the drawing will take some time, but will be well worth the effort when enlarged to the 8’x34’ surface. (more…)

On June 9th we sowed lawn seed in the back yard by hand, unfortunately within two hours a terrible a wind storm wrecked havoc sending seed and topsoil airborne. Undaunted, we faithfully watered the survivors and now have a strange looking patchwork lawn. (more…)

We were away during the 4th of July weekend and now that we are home we have noticed the absence of any Tree Swallows flying in and out of the nest box. On closer observation we found that the nest is empty! Our assumption is that the babies were mature enough to “fly the coop” and did so over the weekend. We miss our busy little friends, but are happy that they have completed their work here and are continuing their journey. Next year we will have several more nesting boxes in the woods waiting for the annual return of the swallows.

Gail Niebrugge, Alaska Artist

I’ve been working on the Seward Mural design and am coming to some conclusions. The details need to be simple and the color scheme limited as well. The muralists will work from cans of premixed paint and I have been asked to designate all the colors needed well in advance. This is not how I work, my palette is mixed as I paint and the colors change constantly. But, to paint the mural in a day or two it has to be carefully planned, simple and organized. (more…)

I’ve completed several designs for the Seward Mural today, each one is better than the previous effort. They are building on one another. The composition was stilted at first, and did not flow well. I enlarged the flowers and added more sweeping leaves. It feels better now. The sketch is in a ready enough state (drawn with ink and colored with marker) to post on my easel for a day or so to contemplate and mull over. (more…)

July 2, 2006 at 9:45 AM the sound of a float plane engine seemed very loud, I looked out my window and saw a plane circling around and around in our quiet shallow cove. The plane was entirely too close to shore where three active Red necked Grebe nests are located, one floating 10′ or more from the waters edge. It seemed unusual and unnecessary for the plane to circle three or four times in the cove before applying full throttle. It created quite a commotion and a pretty good wake in its path. (more…)

After visiting the site of the proposed Seward Mural last weekend I’ve been pondering many ideas and compositions. The Mural Society would like to see wildflowers incorporated in some way, but have given me complete freedom to paint whatever I want! (more…)

This is the site for the proposed mural I’ve been commissioned to paint for the Seward Mural Society. It will be mounted on posts about three feet in front of this building at the edge of Kawabe Park at the corner of Third and Adams downtown Seward, Alaska. Gail Niebrugge, Alaska Artist

Sunday morning we climb into our truck and camper and make the scenic drive from our home/studio in Palmer to the gorgeous seaside town of Seward, Alaska. Our son, well known professional photographer, Ron Niebrugge and his wife Janine live there. We have been celebrating the fourth of July watching and helping with the famous Mt. Marathon Race for many, many years. You can see Ron’s work on his photo website.

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This morning I catch an early flight to Homer, Alaska, to participate in an art show featuring my fine art prints and giclee art prints. This is an annual event. I’ve been showing art in Homer for well over fifteen years and look forward to visiting the people, seeing the town and just being there. (more…)