Gail Niebrugge's Blog
Mt. Drum; North Face acrylic original painting by Gail Niebrugge. Original painting available for purchase, call for price. This painting has been part of the private collection of the artist, and was the first painting from Alaska to be accepted in the top 100 Arts for the Parks exhibit in Jackson Hole, Wy, 1988. “Mt. [...]
“Rail Car” original acrylic/watercolor painting by Gail Niebrugge. To purchase this original painting, call for price and availability. This old Chitina lawn ornament has always puzzled me, the wheels look like they were designed to run on railroad track. I am fascinated by the shapes and shadows of broken parts, and how the wooden spokes [...]
“Sweet Repast” original acrylic painting by Gail Niebrugge. Original sold, artist proof prints available. Here is an example where staying flexible and making lemon aid out of lemons paid off very well for me. The Mc Carthy Road is famous for flat tires, it is a rare trip without getting at least one, sometimes two, [...]
“Spirit of Flight” original acrylic painting in pointillism by Gail Niebrugge. Original painting sold, Giclee prints available. One day while sorting through my Trumpeter Swan research file, it occurred to me that I had been given a gift that I was not acknowledging. Instead of searching in vain for the perfect shots of swans in [...]
“Trumpeters with Young” original acrylic painting by Gail Niebrugge. Original painting sold. After hours of hiding in the brush watching Trumpeter Swan on Chitina Town Lake, and crawling on my belly with tripod and camera, I finally got a few shots of the swans and their young before they hastily swam to the opposite shore. [...]
“Last Light” 22″ x 30″ watercolor/acrylic © Sold. Driving along the Edgerton Road near Kenny Lake, Alaska, late one summer evening the road curved and aligned itself perfectly with the setting sun, instantly blinding me. I slowly pulled onto the shoulder and stopped the engine to wait for the moment to pass, and as I [...]
“Flags Up” 12″ x 16″ watercolor painting ©1985 Sold. My last post showed an acrylic painting of caribou in the Nabesna Road region of the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, this work is from research in the same area but completed about ten years earlier when I focused on painting with watercolor. It was hard work, [...]
“Caribou Crossing” 15.5″ x 23.5″ acrylic painting SOLD. Fall in the Wrangell-St. Elias region of interior Alaska begins in early September and lasts only a few weeks, the colors are intense, richly saturated and strong. In a word, beautiful. The research for “Caribou Crossing” was done during the 1980′s along the Nabesna road, one of [...]
“Open Water” 15″x20″ acrylic painting Sold. Another painting from my work in the Wrangell-St. Elias region of wilderness Alaska. “Open Water” was painted in 1994 from research done several years earlier in October during freeze-up along the Chitina River while we were guests of wilderness guides and operators of the Ultima Thule exclusive adventure lodge, [...]
“Prospect Ridge” original watercolor/acrylic painting 14.5″x37″ Sold. Back to memory lane and the history of my work in the Wrangell-St. Elias region of Alaska. During 1992 I began a painting using research from a trip taken in 1976, where I flew in the mail plane that landed on all the small bush airstrips in what [...]
Continued from…… Waking from a wet and rainy night in my dry tent at May Creek, I dressed and hurried over to the main cabin for breakfast and news of the day. The Gulkana hangar radioed that clouds were on the deck at the airport, it was raining hard and flights would be delayed. There [...]
Continued from….. I scrambled across scree and boulders to explore the tunnel mine shaft of the historic Green Butte copper mine in the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, Alaska. These decomposing, rickety structures are intimidating and it took me awhile to gather up enough nerve to poke around inside. Before I was finished exploring it was [...]
Continued from…. The employees of the Wrangell-St. Elias National Park were courteous and kind to me, as Artist-in-Residence they let me sit in the front seat of the helicopter during our ride from May Creek to Green Butte. It scenery was spectacular, and the location of the old copper mine was incredible. It was perched [...]
Young Creek near the park service wilderness headquarters at May Creek. continued from…. It was a beautiful evening on my first day as Artist-in-Residence stationed at May Creek, the clouds cleared and the long low light of the Alaska summer lit the mountains to the east. Alone with my camera I hiked the trail to [...]
The Wrangell-St. Elias National Park was established in 1980 while we were living in the region. It is the nation’s largest park covering over 13 million acres, most of it is wilderness. The park is accessible only by two rough gravel roads, most areas are reached by small aircraft that can land on gravel, or [...]
“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 [...]
“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 [...]
“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 [...]
“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 [...]
“Ice Field” original acrylic and watercolor painting by Gail Niebrugge, sold. Piloting my own single engine Cessna along the lower elevations of the Wrangell Mountains, Alaska, worked fine until I became so fascinated with the subjects outside the windshield that I would forget to fly. It soon became clear that to obtain the best reference [...]
Gail Niebrugge (Knee-brew-ghe) born and raised in California has pursued art since childhood, winning a poster contest on the Johnny Jet television show at the age of twelve. Gail began her career as an illustrator for the US Navy and Marines in San Diego, and later established the Instructional Media Center for the Grossmont High School District in La Mesa, California. The Niebrugge family fell in love with Alaska while on vacation in 1976 and never returned home, instead they established a residence and studio in the remote interior settlement of Copper Center where the artist painted … [Read More...]
Wikipedia defines pointillism as; "a style of painting in which small distinct points of primary colors create the impression of a wide selection of secondary and intermediate colors." It goes on to say that the mind and the eye mix the color spots into a full range of tones and that it is closely related to Divisionism. Divisionism was practiced by Georges Seurat during the Neo-Impressionism period. He broke his color into basic elements and painted very small and regular dots. His dots are carefully placed as to not touch each other, so the white under painted canvas shows around all of the dots. I call my painting technique pointillism, but technically it is incorrect according to Wikipedia. The difference between my technique and true pointillism is that I use … [Read More...]