artAbility artists L-Z

• Forest
• Jungle
• Noah's Ark
• In the Woods
• Woods

Forest

Workshop: Tule Weaving and Natural Planters
Tule reeds and thread

For this project, participants weaved together tule reeds with thread to create mats. This mat is made of fourteen tule reeds, each about six inches long. The reeds on the edges are about a half inch in diameter, and the others have diameters of a centimeter or less. The reeds are pale green, almost light brown, and speckled with brown spots. They are woven together by orange thread about an inch and a half from the top and navy blue thread across the middle. The weaving across the middle is very uniform. The weaving across the top is more varied. The mat is slightly taller than it is wide and flares out toward the bottom.

Jungle

Workshop: Tule Weaving and Natural Planters
Wood strips and wire

This circular planter is made of sixteen wood blocks, each five inches tall and the same light tan color. They are woven together with two strands of thin silver wire that circle around each block once an inch from the top and once an inch from the bottom. There are small gaps, uniform in size, between each block. At the top and bottom of the planter, where the wire is tied off, there are bits of wire sticking out. Inside the planter is a light brown fiber mat. It is thin and circular but folded over itself with its edges pressed against the sides of the planter, so it stands up almost to the top of the planter.

Noah's Ark

Workshop: Canoe Planters
Birch bark, red willow and sinew

To make this canoe-shaped planter, participants sewed two pieces of birch bark together with sinew and lined the top with red willow branches. The two pieces of birch used in this piece are trapezoidal, with the shorter end on the bottom. One side of the canoe is mostly gray with some large brown spots. The other side is mostly covered by dark brown and white bark, which is chipped away to reveal warm brown wood beneath. The bottoms of both wood pieces are sewn together with light tan sinew, creating horizontal dashed lines along both sides of the canoe. The top edges of both birch pieces are lined with thin red willow branches, bright burgundy in color. The willow is sewn onto the inside of the canoe with more sinew, which creates more horizontal dashed lines along both top edges of the canoe.

In the Woods

Workshop: Special Effect Watercolor
Watercolor and salt on paper

This painting is quite minimalistic in its design. The white background is colored with thick, light pink zigzags. In the foreground is a large parallelogram that slants to the right. Inside the parallelogram, a vertical line stretches from the top to the bottom, splitting the shape into two areas, which makes it look like two walls of a building. In the area to the right of this line, an arch sits along the bottom edge of the parallelogram, like a door. This whole shape was first painted in red, then traced over in blue. The blue paint has also been sprinkled with salt in several areas, creating red blooms with jagged, fractal-like edges.

Woods

Workshop: Plein Air Oil Painting
Oil paints on canvas

This painting has a dark blue background with the focus being the trees in the center. There are three total, all the same height and size painted in a brownish orange color right onto the dark blue background. There is a slight blending, giving the brown a darker color. The artist finished their painting off by signing their name in the top right corner, “Peter.” Their signature, written in print, is painted in a dark green color.

• Even Imperfect Things Need Love

Even Imperfect Things Need Love

Workshop: Tule Weaving and Natural Planters
Tule reeds and thread

For this project, participants weaved together tule reeds with thread to create mats. This mat is made of four tule reeds, each about one centimeter in diameter and six inches long. The reeds are pale green and sparsely speckled with brown spots. White, silky thread ties the reeds together on the right side. Thin, purple thread ties them together on the left. The thread is tied off at the bottom left with several inches hanging off. The mat is several times longer than it is tall.

• Sweet Pie
• Daffodillia
• Sweetheart
• Sweetheart
• Sunflower
• Sweet Pie
• Grand Baby

Sweet Pie

Workshop: Tule Weaving and Natural Planters
Tule reeds and thread

For this project, participants weaved together tule reeds with thread to create mats. This mat is made of eight tule reeds, each about a half inch to an inch in diameter and six inches long. The reeds are pale green, almost light brown, and sparsely speckled with brown spots. They are woven together by two pieces of thin purple thread about an inch from the top and bottom. The weaving on the bottom is quite uniform. The weaving on the top is more varied. The mat is approximately square, slightly more tightly woven at the top than at the bottom.

Daffodillia

Workshop: Tule Weaving and Natural Planters
Wood strips and wire

This circular planter is made of eight strips of birch bark, each roughly five inches tall, except one, which extends another two inches above the others. They are all very light brown with large dark brown speckles. The wood pieces are woven together with two thin strands of silver wire, which circle each strip once or twice about an inch from the top and a half inch from the bottom. The bottom half of the inside of the planter is filled with a light brown fiber mat, above which sits a circle of thicker silver wire tracing the inner walls of the planter.

Sweetheart

Workshop: Canoe Planters
Birch bark, red willow and sinew

To make this canoe-shaped planter, participants sewed two pieces of birch bark together with sinew and lined the top with red willow branches. The two pieces of birch used in this piece are trapezoidal, with the shorter end on the bottom. One side of the canoe is covered with dark brown diamond-shaped divots, and the other is gray with heavy white and black speckling. The bottoms of both wood pieces are sewn together with light tan sinew, creating a zigzag pattern along the bottom centimeter of both sides of the canoe. The top edges of both birch pieces are lined with thin red willow branches, bright burgundy in color. The willow is sewn onto the inside of the canoe with more sinew, which creates diagonal lines along the top centimeter of both sides of the canoe.

Sweetheart

Workshop: Special Effect Watercolor
Watercolor and salt on paper

This painting depicts six small images lined up in two rows of three across the paper. Starting in the top left, there is a human figure with a purple circular head, red hair, and a blue body. To the right of this figure is a pink house made of a triangle on top of a square. In the top right corner is a sunshine made of a circle with rays sticking off it. In the bottom left corner are two more human figures, one with a magenta head and body and orange hair, and the other with a yellow head, a green body, and orange hair. Finally, in the bottom right corner is a green rectangle overlapped with a wash of pink paint that features the initials “KM” in blue. The border of the piece is traced with a thin strip of blue paint.

Sunflower

Workshop: Ink Painting with Nature
Natural inks and charcoal on paper

In this painting, the artist laid their canvas paper horizontally and added a splash of color. They started off with a bright yellow, creating four main points. One in the top left, one at the top towards the middle, one in the middle, and one towards the bottom. Each of these yellow spots have a spreading effect, leaving a light-yellow trail all around them. After that, the artists added some darker blue spots in the middle with unique shapes and sizes. There are smaller accents of reddish-brown paint on the far left. To finish this painting off, the artist added six black charcoal lines horizontally drawn about an inch thick in the center of the page.

Sweet Pie

Workshop: Plein Air Oil Painting
Oil paints on canvas

This painting has a red-orange background painted in both thick horizontal and swirling strokes. The focus of the painting is two trees at the bottom of the painting. Both are dark green, but the tree on the right is much thicker, about three times the width of the one on the left. The branches are made of small dots that angle down and out from the trunk of each tree. The artist had a gentle patting approach giving a very unique texture and life to the painting. Finally, the artist signed off on the painting leaving the initials “KM” and the year “’25” in green.

Grand Baby

Workshop: Plein Air Oil Painting
Oil paints on canvas

This oil painting has a background of horizontal blue strokes and fluffy white clouds. The foreground has a lighter green color across the bottom with notes of light brown. The rest of the painting consists of various different flowers. The one in the middle has a green stem, blue and white outline, with a yellow center. On each side are flowers with feathery dark red and purple petals. In the center of the light green area and all along the bottom are dots of green and brown that look like grass. The initials “KM” are painted in yellow and blue in the top right corner.

• Lisa
• Tinkerbell
• Taylor Swift
• The Forest

Lisa

Workshop: Tule Weaving and Natural Planters
Wood strips and wire

This circular planter is made of fifteen strips of birch bark, each about six inches tall and mostly white with dark brown speckles. Half the wood strips have clean edges, while the other half are quite jagged at the top and bottom. The wood pieces are encircled by two thin strands of silver wire. The wire wraps around each wood piece once or twice an inch from the top and several times an inch from the bottom.

Tinkerbell

Workshop: Canoe Planters
Birch bark, red willow and sinew

To make this canoe-shaped planter, participants sewed two pieces of birch bark together with sinew and lined the top with red willow branches. The two pieces of birch used in this piece are both trapezoidal, with the shorter end on the bottom. One side of the canoe is white with prominent dark brown speckling, and the other is light brown and heavily textured with a distinct dark brown knot in its center. The bottoms of both wood pieces are sewn together with light tan sinew, creating horizontal dashed lines along the bottom of both sides of the canoe. The top edges of both birch pieces are lined with thin red willow branches, bright burgundy in color. The willow is sewn onto the inside of the canoe with more sinew, which creates diagonal lines along the top edge of both sides.

Taylor Swift

Workshop: Special Effect Watercolor
Watercolor and salt on paper

This painting evokes images of the ocean on a warm day. The bottom third is painted various shades of blue with a jagged edge, like a choppy sea. It borders a muted yellow color that stretches up through the rest of the piece. This yellow is also quite varied in its shade and it showcases distinct brushstrokes. At the top of the painting sit two very light blue circles roughly outlined in dark green paint that runs off them and down the right edge of the piece until it meets the top edge of the blue. In the top right corner is a small light green circle, which is also surrounded by the green outline. The whole piece is sprinkled with coarse salt, which has created fractal-like blooms in the blue paint.

The Forest

Workshop: Plein Air Oil Painting
Oil paints on canvas

This oil painting has a soft blue background. The bottom section of the painting is composed of a greenish blue color with swirly paint strokes giving a rounded effect to the green section. The center of the painting has two trees with green leaves and a light brown trunk. Above them are two yellow spots with thicker paint strokes. There are smaller green dots next to the yellow spots and light white sections throughout the sky as well. Toward the left of the painting is a pink and yellow circle with a darker green shape right in front of it.

• Special Olympics USA

Special Olympics USA

Workshop: Special Effect Watercolor
Watercolor and salt on paper

This painting is outlined with a thick border of light blue. In each of the four corners, there is a heart drawn in Sharpie and painted purple. The central focus of this piece is block lettering that reads “Special Olympics USA.” Each word is on its own line, and the text is large and roughly centered. Most of the letters are outlined with blue, red, green, or black paint. The insides of the letters are filled in with red, green, blue, pink, black, and purple paint, and the outlines do not necessarily match the fill colors. All around the letters are green splotches made by stamping the ends of a fluffy paintbrush on the paper.

• Ocean Canoe
• Seahawks/Moscow Bears
• Mountain is Calling
• The UI Tower

Ocean Canoe

Workshop: Canoe Planters
Birch bark, red willow and sinew

To make this canoe-shaped planter, participants sewed two pieces of birch bark together with sinew and lined the top with red willow branches. The two pieces of birch used in this piece are trapezoidal, with the shorter end on the bottom. Both sides of the canoe are light brown and textured with darker brown spots. The bottoms of both wood pieces are loosely sewn together with light tan sinew, creating horizontal dashed lines along both sides of the canoe. The top edges of both birch pieces are lined with thin red willow branches, bright burgundy in color. The willow is sewn onto the inside of the canoe with more sinew, which creates diagonal lines along the top centimeter of both sides of the canoe.

Seahawks/Moscow Bears

Workshop: Special Effect Watercolor
Watercolor and salt on paper

This painting is covered with alternating red and black stripes, starting and ending with red on the left and right edges. The red stripes vary in color from concentrated red to light pink. The black stripes are all a bit washed out, making them appear gray in some places. There are bits of white space between the stripes and along the edges of the painting, and each of the stripes displays pronounced brushstrokes. As a whole, the stripes curve slightly toward the bottom right corner of the piece. There are some sprinklings of coarse salt on the left half of the painting, with the most noticeable pockets on the two leftmost red stripes.

Mountain is Calling

Workshop: Ink Painting with Nature
Natural inks and charcoal on paper

This painting combines charcoal pencil and ink to create a full picture. The border of the piece is white with tiny splashes of light blue and beige. Two dark charcoal pencil curves created from multiple strokes span from the bottom of the paper to the left of the painting, while a couple other charcoal lines on the left create half of a square. There are a few other lighter charcoal lines throughout the middle of the piece. Green ink compliments the black charcoal curves, and much of the space in-between the half-square pencil is beige and white.

The UI Tower

Workshop: Plein Air Oil Painting
Oil paints on canvas

In the background of this oil painting, there is a blue sky that takes up about a third of the painting and green grass is painted in the remaining space. In the upper portion of the grassy area, there are five vertical, blue-grey lines painted side by side. To the immediate left of these lines is a brown line that is slightly taller that is comprised of small brushstrokes and widens out at the base. Sitting on top of the grassy space, in the blue portion, is an open brown square with four rows of small vertical brown and tan brushstrokes. Immediately above this square is a series of textured white dots with varying shapes and many overlapping with each other.

• Coffee Tables
• Tree Grower
• Tree Boat
• Go Cougs!
• Nature
• Nature
• Outside Paint

Coffee Tables

Workshop: Tule Weaving and Natural Planters
Tule reeds and thread

For this project, participants weaved together tule reeds with thread to create mats. This mat is made of twelve tule reeds, each about a centimeter or less in diameter. The reeds are pale green and sparsely speckled with brown spots. They are woven together by purple thread about an inch from the top and black thread very near the bottom. The weaving along the bottom is quite loose. The weaving at the top is tighter. The mat is slightly taller than it is wide.

Tree Grower

Workshop: Tule Weaving and Natural Planters
Wood strips and wire

This circular planter is made of ten strips of birch bark, which are between five and eight inches tall. They are all white with dark brown speckles, and a couple are frayed at the top. The strips of wood are woven together with two strands of thin silver wire, which wrap around each strip once along the top and once a half inch from the bottom. A loop of excess wire about two inches long sticks off the planter, running along the inside edge. Also inside the planter is a fiber mat, which has been bundled up to fill about a third of the planter.

Tree Boat

Workshop: Canoe Planters
Birch bark, red willow and sinew

To make this canoe-shaped planter, participants sewed two pieces of birch bark together with sinew and lined the top with red willow branches. The two pieces of birch used in this piece are trapezoidal, with the shorter end on the bottom. Both sides of the canoe are gray and dotted with brown spots, which are much bigger, more abundant, and more textured on one side than the other. The bottoms of both wood pieces are sewn together with light tan sinew, creating horizontal dashed lines along both sides of the canoe. The top edges of both birch pieces are lined with thin red willow branches, bright burgundy in color. The willow is sewn onto the inside of the canoe with more sinew, which creates diagonal lines along the top centimeter of both sides of the canoe.

Go Cougs!

Workshop: Special Effect Watercolor
Watercolor and salt on paper

This painting is predominantly red. The whole background is painted light red, and the brushstrokes, which flow in every direction, are distinct. Over top of the red, “Go Cougs!” is painted in white tempera paint. The paint is somewhat see-through, which creates swirls of white and pink inside each letter. The letters are painted with very thick strokes, making the letters in “Cougs” somewhat hard to distinguish. The whole piece is sprinkled with coarse salt, which stands out white against the red background. Where it is sprinkled over the lettering, the grains have turned pink and created a bubbling effect where the paint dried around them.

Nature

Workshop: Ink Painting with Nature
Natural inks and charcoal on paper

This ink painting has a mixture of yellow, brown, and green ink against a white background. The shape of the ink presents itself in splashes, drips, and ripples that are generally heavier in the top half and get skinner toward the bottom of the piece. There is mostly green on the left side of the piece, brown in the middle, and yellow on the right. Some of the colors are pure, while others have mixed.

Nature

Workshop: Plein Air Oil Painting
Oil paints on canvas

This oil painting has a background that is comprised of various shades of blue, from light blue to periwinkle. There is a strip of green wavy ground on the bottom quarter of the painting, with some yellow brushstrokes sparingly incorporated. On this ground are three main trees that the artist depicted using a combination of brown and green brushstrokes. The trees are generally cone shaped with layered branches jutting out. The trees are large and span almost the entire height and width of the canvas.

Outside Paint

Workshop: Plein Air Oil Painting
Oil paints on canvas

This oil painting is full of activity with deep colors and distinct brush strokes. Across the top is a dark blue color for the sky. The bottom half of the foreground is colored brown but has thick dark green paint strokes going back and forth over it. In the middle is a forest with many trees densely packed together. The trees is a dark green with gentle highlights of lighter green and brown trunks. The branches angle out and down from the trunks. To finish the painting off, there are bright white clouds spaced throughout the dark blue sky that act as a nice contrast to the darker colors of this piece.

• Peace Mat
• Tall Planter
• Lewis and Clark Canoe
• Cherry Blossom
• Cave Man Art
• Water Tower Painting
• Blue Spruce Tree

Peace Matt

Workshop: Tule Weaving and Natural Planters
Tule reeds and thread

For this project, participants weaved together tule reeds with thread to create mats. This mat is made of seven tule reeds, each about a centimeter in diameter and six inches long. The reeds are pale green, almost light brown, and several are heavily speckled with brown spots. They are woven together by three strands of orange thread about an inch from the top and bottom and across the middle. In all three rows, the weaving is quite varied, not sticking to a consistent over-under pattern or wrapping around each reed an equal number of times. The mat is about three times taller than it is wide and has a jagged edge at the bottom, due to the differing lengths of the reeds.

Tall Planter

Workshop: Tule Weaving and Natural Planters
Wood strips and wire

This circular planter is made of twelve wood blocks, each five inches tall and all the same light tan color. The blocks are woven together with two strands of thin silver wire, which circle each block once very near the bottom and twice about an inch from the top. The planter is slightly narrower at the top than at the bottom. It is filled nearly to the brim with a light brown fiber mat that sits on top of a cardboard disk lining the bottom of the planter.

Lewis and Clark Canoe

Workshop: Canoe Planters
Birch bark, red willow and sinew

To make this canoe-shaped planter, participants sewed two pieces of birch bark together with sinew and lined the top with red willow branches. The two pieces of birch used in this piece are trapezoidal, with the shorter end on the bottom. Both sides of the canoe are white with brown spots, one side’s spots being much smaller and abundant than the other’s. The bottoms of both wood pieces are sewn together with light tan sinew, creating horizontal dashed lines along both sides of the canoe. The top edges of both birch pieces are lined with thin red willow branches, bright burgundy in color. The willow is sewn onto the inside of the canoe with more sinew, which creates diagonal lines along the top half inch of both sides of the canoe.

Cherry Blossom

Workshop: Special Effect Watercolor
Watercolor and salt on paper

This painting uses light red and pink paint topped with salt to create a sparkle of color. The painting is covered in pink petal-like brush stokes that form a swirl of the darkest paint in the middle. Salt was sprinkled mostly over the center of the painting giving it a three-dimensional form and adding noticeable texture. Points where the salt touches the paint add a darker outline of paint to each salt grain.

Cave Man Art

Workshop: Ink Painting with Nature
Natural inks and charcoal on paper

This ink and charcoal painting features a largely white background with an eccentric use of yellow, green, and black scattered throughout. Blotches of yellow and pale green ink are present on the left side of the painting and spread across the center, where bold black charcoal strokes arc to layer the ink. Aside from the curved lines, there are charcoal dots speckling the entire left side of the painting. In the bottom right, there are two stick figures present. They stand beside each other with their arms at their sides, hair on their heads, and neutral facial expressions.

Water Tower Painting

Workshop: Plein Air Oil Painting
Oil paints on canvas

This oil painting depicts an overcast day on the University of Idaho campus. It has a light grey background with green brushstrokes layered on the bottom third of the canvas. They are light and some blend in with the background. On the right side, there is a large green tree that incorporates the same kind of green layered brushstrokes. It is roughly cone shaped. In the center-left there is a large yellow letter “I” against a dark grey circle sitting above the greenery.

Blue Spruce Tree

Workshop: Plein Air Oil Painting
Oil paint on canvas

This oil painting has a background of dark blue and green paint. The brushstrokes move from the center outward. The foreground has a dark brown strip across the bottom, above which sits a blue spruce tree. The tree is a dark green with vertical paint strokes showing its volume. There is brown lightly painted around the tree to resemble the branches and pinecones held by the tree. Surrounding the spruce along the brown ground is a lighter green haze reminiscent of the rest of a forest. To finish off, there is a leaf painted at the top of the tree in the same green.

• Elvis
• Swellvis
• Animals in the Barn

Elvis

Workshop: Canoe Planters
Birch bark, red willow and sinew

To make this canoe-shaped planter, participants sewed two pieces of birch bark together with sinew and lined the top with red willow branches. The two pieces of birch used in this piece are trapezoidal, with the shorter end on the bottom. Both sides of the canoe are light brown and textured with darker brown spots. The bottoms of both wood pieces are sewn together with light tan sinew, creating a varied pattern of horizontal dashed lines and zigzags along both sides of the canoe. The top edges of both birch pieces are lined with thin red willow branches, bright burgundy in color. The willow is sewn onto the inside of the canoe with more sinew, which creates diagonal lines along the top centimeter of one side of the canoe and zigzags along the other.

Swellvis

Workshop: Special Effect Watercolor
Watercolor and salt on paper

This painting is dominated by blue-green brushstrokes that create its background. Each stroke is distinct, and they flow as a unit around the edges of the piece and back through the middle, leaving bits of white poking through here and there. The other main color in this piece is a vibrant purple. A cluster of thin, vertical, purple strokes and small purple dots fill the top right corner of the piece. There is also a rectangular spot of purple in the bottom left corner. The whole piece is generously sprinkled with both coarse and fine salt, which stands out white against the colorful background.

Animals in the Barn

Workshop: Plein Air Oil Painting
Oil paints on canvas

This oil painting is very colorful with a light blue sky and a thick green strip across the bottom. Above the green strip is a large red triangular structure with a large white square painted in the center. On the left of the red structure is a yellow figure flying in the sky with the word “chicken” painted above it in orange paint. On the right of the red structure, there is a light green figure with a brown smiley face and brown ears with the word “sheep” painted next to it. Above the sheep is a white figure with a brown tail and a brown smiley face with the word “cow” painted next to it in brown. In the upper right hand corner, there is a yellow sun with the word “sun” painted next to it in yellow.