Gail Niebrugge's Blog
I’m really enjoying the galleries in Scottsdale, the abundance of sculpture everywhere, and to my enjoyment the wonderful recycled sculpture of a horse in Fountain Hills. Today was a full day of visiting art galleries and sites. Awesome stuff, and so different from Alaska art. Here we have hotly colored abstract art reminiscent of the [...]
It is no secret that Bob and I love Mexican food, and Arizona is jam-packed with good Mexican restaurants! We’ve had tacos, burritos, enchiladas, guacamole and chips, salsa, and refried beans almost every day during our stay in Tucson and Scottsdale. By far the best food so far was at the Carlsbad Taverns in Scottsdale! [...]
We are having entirely too much fun playing hookey from work and snowbound Alaska, today we basked in mid 70 temperatures from premium seats behind home plate and watched the San Francisco Giants win a game against the Cincinnati Reds. Great fun. Beer, peanuts and hot dogs. Life is good. We are enjoying our time [...]
Here is our friend Cookie Hales standing on Main Street in Jerome, Arizona, wearing a pair of shorts in a blizzard. I’m taking the photo wearing shorts as well. It was freezing up there at 5,000 ft. elevation. We enjoyed staying at the former hospital, the Jerome Grand Hotel, that is said to be haunted [...]
We’ve done 4 wheel drive trips into the wilderness most of our lives, in the early years we drove our own 4 wheel drive International Scout down the Baja Peninsula and traveled all over the Southern California Deserts. We fit right into the wilderness of Alaska when we moved there 35 years ago, and wore [...]
I’m always overwhelmed at the beauty of the red rocks and towering limestone spires in Sedona, Arizona. It has been quite a few years since our last visit, and I’m not disappointed. The town has grown carefully, with thoughtful planning to incorporate buildings and infrastructure that will blend into the natural environment. We are spending [...]
A shot of some of the beautiful grounds at the Omni Tucson Resort, Arizona, that served as a base camp during our three day visit. Large independent casitas are sprinkled throughout the property, with pickle ball and tennis courts and a gorgeous pool to complete the picture. It was a nice place to unwind after [...]
I love the days that our ship is at sea, on this trip we will have a total of nine days. Most days are calm and sunny with many hours spent by the pool reading, or playing games with the other passengers, or watching first run movies and excellent lectures. But our last day we [...]
Our last stop in the Hawaiian Islands was Lahina, Maui, we had to use a tender to get ashore the dock is too small for a big ship. Friends, Russ and Nancy Kanady, met us and drove us along the narrow road north, with breathtaking scenery of cliffs, coves, small villages, and twisting one-way hairpin [...]
We had a wonderful, whirlwind day with LeEllen and Ed Baker on their beautiful island of Kaua’i. They met us at the ship and drove us to all their favorite spots, this photo shows Ed (swallowing coffee) LeEllen, and Bob strolling through the coffee plantation. The photo below is LeEllen’s favorite spot to watch the [...]
Here I stand with my pasty white Alaska skin, on the hot sands of Waikiki Beach looking conspicuously like a tourist. The town of Oahu, Honolulu, has grown enormously in the twenty years since we last visited. Previous stays we sought out all the major tourist attractions, so this time we opted to take the [...]
Our friends, Judy Tyke and Billie Lewis, drove two hours from the opposite side of the “big island” to meet our ship and show us around Hilo. We had a fabulous lunch at Pestos in the old town of Hilo, and fun at the Macadamia Nut Factory, but best of all we were able to [...]
After four days a sea we arrive at Hilo, Hawaii, today and meet with long-time friends from Glennallen, Alaska. We’ve been treated like royalty on the cruise ship, and food dominates each day. I especially enjoy the displays of vegetables and fruit carved and placed in decorative arrangements throughout the dining areas. Ice carvings also [...]
This winter has been one of the snowiest I can remember, the good news is that it is beautiful outside, the bad news is that it is a huge job keeping roads, driveways, walkways, patio Bar-B-Q accessible. We plow, snow blow, shovel and clean it up only to find wind drifts covering our work and [...]
A view of Fairbanks from the airplane window at -20 degrees two days ago, today it is snowing hard at my studio in the Matanuska Valley and the temperature has warmed to +38. Wild swings, wild weather, wild Alaska. It has been a most amazing winter. Tons of snow, absolutely gorgeous. Snow plows, snow blowers, [...]
Yesterday I had the pleasure to serve as a juror for the Fairbanks Art Association upcoming show, Patterns of Influence “Symphony of Light,” that opens February 3 in the gallery at the Alaska Centennial Center for the Arts in Pioneer Park, Fairbanks, Alaska. Many artists braved the sub zero temperatures to attend my slide show/lecture [...]
About 40 years ago we brought our family to the historic movie set of Old Tucson, Arizona, John Wayne was still making cowboy movies and we recognized many of the buildings and streets in films. It was exciting. Yesterday we revisited this place of many memories after a drive through the magnificent Saguaro National Park. [...]
While eating dinner at the SaddleBrook Preserve last night and tiny herd of seven deer grazed in the brushy area below the patio. They are so much fun to watch, quiet and quick, first you see them then you don’t. An enjoyable memory of our time in Tucson, Arizona. Gail Niebrugge, Alaska artist
The temperatures drop in the evening in the 3500′ elevation of Oro Valley, North East of Tucson. I’m sitting at my favorite restaurant in the Preserve at SaddleBrook clubhouse, watching the evening sun on the Santa Catalina Mountains. The tallest peaks are over 10,000′ elevation and have traces of snow, in the valley below are [...]
Along the historic route 66 to Oatman, Arizona, we were delighted to find desert bushes decorated for Christmas. Apparently every year there is a Christmas Bush decorating competition in the area. The spirit of Christmas is alive and well in this part of the United States! God’s Blessings to the people of this wonderful community. [...]
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...]