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“Fireweed I” original acrylic and collage painting by Gail Niebrugge, sold.

My thirty plus decade love affair with fireweed began during my first summer in Copper Center, Alaska, surrounded by fields of wildflowers. Above is one of my earliest paintings of the plant. In actuality it began as one of my few attempts at collage that I painted over with acrylic. With art supplies at a premium in the wilderness, I never threw anything away. Years before I made an unsuccessful attempt at collage, pasting all manner of paper and stuff to a masonite panel. It was ugly, butt ugly. But, I carted it around with me anyway clinging to the hope that I could eventually turn it into a masterpiece. Running low on canvas one day I reluctantly bid farewell to my repugnant collage, and coated it with a layer of dark acrylic paint. The texture was gorgeous, and soon I was immersed in creating a painting of fireweed in the red leaves stage. The irregular surface gave the leaves a dried-up wrinkled look and made it a very successful painting.

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Gail Niebrugge, wildflower paintings

“Green Aurora” original acrylic painting in pointillism by Gail Niebrugge. Original sold, limited edition prints sold out, a few Artist Proofs are available.

On a clear night during winter the green aurora borealis can be found dancing in the sky somewhere. One has only to watch and wait and this beautiful phenomena will appear. Unfortunately this is not the case in the city where man-made lights obscure the sky, to experience their full beauty drive to the wilderness.

While studying these events I learned that their are many different colors and configurations of the northern lights, green is the most common and the tallest and can extend upward for more than a mile. I love Alaska in the winter, every day is different from the next, always changing, always beautiful. As an artist, I am blessed.

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Gail Niebrugge, wilderness painter

Fuzzy out-of-focus photo taken by me (I’m an artist, not a photographer) of the return of the muskrat to the cove on our lake.  After yesterday’s snow melted there is about 20′ of open water along the shore, the rest of the lake is still locked in ice.   This is the first sighting of the resident muskrat, actually I think he mated because TWO muskrats were feeding along the shore together.  I tried to sneak up on them to get a photo, but they both quickly dove under water and I only caught this bad shot just before this one disappeared.  Now, if I were the photographer that my son Ron is, I’d set up a blind and wait hours using a tripod and get clear, crisp, close-up shots of both of them.  I don’t have that kind of patience, that’s why I paint!

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Gail Niebrugge, Alaska landscape artist

April 26, 2008, the landscape is beautiful this morning, no yard work worries today.  I doubt anyone will even bother to snow plow because it is supposed to warm into the 50’s by afternoon.  I’m just glad I don’t have to drive anywhere until this evening.  Today I’m just going to enjoy looking at the last breath of winter.

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Gail Niebrugge, Alaska landscape artist

Yesterday we were raking dead leaves and planning to aerate the lawn and today 15″ of snow is forecast!  We’ve already taken the studded tires off the cars.  Accidents are everywhere.  A strange, cool Spring.  Last year the lake was free of ice by May 5, I don’t think this will be the case this year.  So much for global warming.  Maybe in your town, but not mine.

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Gail Niebrugge, Alaska landscape artist

“Red Aurora” original acrylic painting in pointillism by Gail Niebrugge, original sold, limited edition prints sold out, some Artists Proofs available.

If you haven’t had the pleasure to witness a red aurora borealis, you have missed a spectacular, wondrous event. The red-colored northern lights are like nothing else, even the very best man-made artificial laser show cannot compare to the size and scope of one of these rare events. I imagined a herd of caribou, normally invisible in the black of night and moving soundlessly, silhouetted against the glow of a red aurora. Without the incandescent heavens, nighttime in Alaska’s wilderness is very dark. The Wrangell-St. Elias is a magical place no matter the season, but the best part is that it is in my very own back yard.

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Gail Niebrugge, Alaska’s wilderness pointillism artist

“Night Light” original acrylic painting in pointillism by Gail Niebrugge. Original painting sold, limited edition prints available.
My goal is to paint the northern lights in a unique way to show how truly awesome they are. I want my paintings to stand out from the usual colored-sky-silhouette-tree approach that are quickly banged out on gold pans by the thousands for tourists.

As I searched through my photo reference material I found that most of my photos of northern lights all look the same; blurry shapes of light in the sky and very dark, almost black foreground.  My experience living in the wilderness of the Wrangell-St. Elias taught me that the aurora can really light up the darkness, as the lights reflect on the white snow the landscape becomes clearly visible.  A skilled photographer can capture this using a tripod and long exposures, but my hand-held photos don’t.  So, without good photo reference I imagined this whole scene; a beautiful landscape with the rayed band formation mirrored in water.  As the painting progressed, I still wasn’t satisfied. It needed another element, something subtle, not just the typical tree and cabin that everyone paints. I called the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and asked about the habits of the trumpeter swan and found that they migrate at night just before freeze-up. Perfect! My aurora borealis gave light for their flight that night. As an artist I can create my own world where fantasy and reality are the same.
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Gail Niebrugge, Alaska Art

Yesterday I wore the hat of Alaska State Arts Council Board member and Co-Chaired an all-day meeting at the British Petroleum Energy Center, Anchorage, to evaluate biennial and annual support grant applications from non-profit arts organizations.  The hard-working panel included (from left to right) Michele Miller of Anchorage, June Rogers from Fairbanks, Co-Chair Ben Brown of Juneau, myself, Charlotte Fox the AKSAC director Anchorage, (not shown) Annette Evans Smith of Anchorage, Roger Schmidt from Sitka, and sitting in front on the right, Vivian Kinnaird of Anchorage.  The public was invited to attend and a teleconference phone connection remained open for grant applicants to listen to the discussion.  The applications filled a four inch thick book that was sent in advance to each member to review.  I’m really glad to be finished lugging around that big, fat, heavy notebook.

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Gail Niebrugge, Alaska wilderness artist

“Alaskan Garden” original acrylic painting in palette knife by Gail Niebrugge, sold.

Another plein air painting in palette knife of a building at the historic agricultural site in Copper Center, Alaska. Most yards in wilderness Alaska are designed by nature, and maintained by a weed whacker. When left to grow unmaintained they often become a gorgeous jumble of wildflowers. My affinity for Alaska wildflowers began in this this open field, where I nurtured my study of the phases of fireweed. I didn’t realize it at the time, but this was an excellent education.

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Gail Niebrugge, paintings of Alaska wildflowers

“Black Rapids Lodge” original acrylic painting by Gail Niebrugge, sold.

I have no idea why I love old broken down log buildings. But I do, I really, really do. Tipping and leaning, adorned with the proverbial set of antlers, roofs patched and sagging, these crumbling structures speak to me. They call me. To do justice to the many, many additions and phases of the Black Rapids Lodge on the Richardson Highway north of Paxson, I need a long vertical canvas. Their are many more additions, but they were built using sort of a nonstandard 2×4 construction and not as interesting to me as the early phases built with logs. So, for this painting I chose a vertical format and focused attention on the oldest part of the complex. Don’t you just love it?

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Gail Niebrugge, paintings of historic sites

“Burning Trash” original acrylic painting with palette knife by Gail Niebrugge, sold.

In the midst of my palette knife period I experimented with pouring paint directly on the canvas, a technique that my Mentor, Ed Betts had perfected. This is one of my only successful attempts, my other tries ended up in the waste basket. I remember being so happy with myself with one piece that I submitted it to a national juried exhibition where Ed was a juror. On my rejection letter he hand-penned a note encouraging me to continue submitting, but to find my own style. He said, nothing is more boring for a juror than to see a bunch of “little Betts’s”, or work that tries to copy the juror’s style and gain approval. I was mortified. I knew better, but it was a good lesson. I really like this little painting, though. Something nice is happing with the paint.

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Gail Niebrugge, Alaska landscape painter

“Copper Centers Past II” original acrylic painting with palette knife by Gail Niebrugge, to purchase original please call for price and availability.

Another plein air painting depicting a few of the historic buildings from the old agricultural site in Copper Center, Wrangell-St. Elias, Alaska. Posting these oldies, but goodies, really brings back memories. Fun!

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Gail Niebrugge, landscape artist

“Copper Center Autumn” original acrylic painting with palette knife by Gail Niebrugge, sold.

Painted plein air (on location) in my Copper Center back yard with palette knife in 1976. Beauty can be found anywhere if you learn how to “see”. Dappled, changing sunlight illuminated parts of trees and sections of the distant mountains. A restful, colorful, pastoral scene. Sometimes when I look back on these early paintings I get the urge to grab a palette knife and paint outdoors again.

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Gail Niebrugge, landscape artist

“Mile 60 Richardson” original acrylic and watercolor painting by Gail Niebrugge, sold.

I become frenzied as I try to gather as much research as I can during fall in Alaska’s interior, the season is short and brilliant lasting about two and a half weeks.  I grow even more frantic as it begins to peak, I hope and pray for just one more perfect day.  Unfortunately, high winds will often shred leaves from trees prematurely, on the other hand winds bring storms and storms bring snow to mountain tops creating magnificent scenes.  After a fresh snowfall the red tundra appears to ooze from from underneath like blood running down ridges until it is stopped by a blanket of glowing yellow and orange trees at the foothills. The Richardson Highway, from Copper Center to Valdez, is spectacular and one of my favorite places for fall research. My nose pressed to the window each morning I ask; is the sky clear? Are the leaves falling? Is it windy? Will the clouds obscure the peaks? Will I have great light? I pray; let it be perfect today, please, let it be perfect.

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Gail Niebrugge, Alaska wilderness artist

Yesterday Gail gave a presentation about her work as an artist to a group of 8th grade students during the Palmer Middle School Career Day, Palmer, Alaska.  She enjoys sharing herself and her world as an artist with her community, and even though she is very busy she tries to find time to do as much community service as possible.

“River Gold” original acrylic and watercolor painting in pointillism by Gail Niebrugge, original sold, limited edition Giclee prints sold out.

Another painting inspired by my wanderings along the shores of the Copper River after the water recedes during the fall season. For nearly 20 years this fabulous river was in my back yard. It brought life in the form of salmon from the sea, and death. Summertime this raging glacier melt river is fast and dangerous, I’ve known more than one person to drown as a result of carelessness or accident. Nevertheless, it is tamed by the cool weather of fall, and completely freezes solid in the cold winter months. I witnessed temperatures as low at -70˚ Fahrenheit without wind chill, just a penetrating, deep, intense cold without mercy. The Wrangell-St. Elias wilderness of Alaska is a truely wild and beautiful place.

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Gail Niebrugge, landscape paintings

“Riverside” original acrylic painting by Gail Niebrugge, sold.

Sometimes it is nothing more than being in the right place at the right time to find a subject to paint. Early morning and late evening in the fall along the Copper River in the Wrangell-St. Elias, Alaska, has enough beauty to satisfy and artist for a life time. This is an early painting, after palette knife and before pointillism when I began exploring the use of brushes again.
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Gail Niebrugge, landscape painting of Alaska

“River Bottom” original acrylic painting by Gail Niebrugge, sold.

This beautiful, grassy river bed along the Copper River was under water all summer, and unreachable due to the thick vegetation along the banks. In the fall when the water recedes a whole new world opens to explore. And, with the right light, a painting is borne!

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Gail Niebrugge, Alaska landscape paintings

“Morning Ice” original acrylic painting by Gail Niebrugge, sold.

When seeking inspiration sometimes artists forget to look at the the ordinary everyday things that surround their lives, and end up frustrated searching for grandiose or bigger than life subject matter. Stop, look, and observe the same subject at another time of day, in a different light, from a dissimilar perspective, or in unusual weather. I find this method often will change the very ordinary into something extraordinary. Thus is the case with the painting “Morning Ice”.

In the spring and fall when the Copper River finally slows and recedes, it is my habit to take daily walks on the new found shoreline. I love to explore the river bed strewn with rocks, boulders, sand bars, driftwood, and uprooted vegetation, and find parts and pieces of fish wheels torn loose from moorings and dismembered by the swift current. But nothing equals the beauty of the patterns created by frozen puddles scattered along the rocky bottom during the crisp chill of early morning.

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Gail Niebrugge, landscape artist

“Copper Centers Past” original acrylic painting by Gail Niebrugge, sold.

This original was painted plein air (on location) during my first year in Copper Center, Alaska, during the period that my style was heavy impasto pallet knife. My early education art came at the height of the abstract art movement, and although all I wanted to paint was realism, I was criticized, critiqued, and admonished as “trite” by my instructors and encouraged to paint my “feelings”. It was a confusing time for me, because I had great “feelings” for what I literally saw around me in my every day life. Not for some splotches of color randomly applied to a canvas and given names like; “Pain”, “Birth”, “Anger”, etc.
And, my natural instinct is to dwell on tiny details. I was encouraged to try to break free of this limiting habit, to paint loose with great intuition. To comply with my teachers, all that I could think to do was to paint the subjects that I liked using a palette knife, without any brushes for detail. I painted this way for 7-8 years, but it didn’t change my nature, or who I was.

When we moved to the wilderness of the Wrangell-St. Elias, Alaska, I was on my own, free to paint what I wanted how I wanted. I gave up the palette knife after about two years and rediscovered brushes, and have been using them ever since. I have to admit though, I really like these early palette knife paintings and kind of wonder about incorporating that technique today with my pointillism. We shall see……I’m always considering something new, but rarely make spontaneous changes.

More tomorrow,

Gail Niebrugge, palette knife artist