“Ode to Fireweed” is a series of watercolor and acrylic paintings by former Halibut Cove summer resident and longtime Homer artist Jan Peyton. On display at Fireweed Gallery, this exhibit was inspired by her favorite flower and includes both new work and previously unfinished paintings she revisited and completed.

“So many of my smaller paintings depict fireweed and mountains and last year we had no fireweed blooming here,” she said. “’Ode to Fireweed’ is an ode to an Alaska summer and the fireweed that is such a part of the season for all of us. If the landscape doesn’t have fireweed in it, it’s just not complete.”

Painting both plein air (outside) and in her home studio out East End Road, Peyton also does her own framing and matting in a separate studio space on the property. With a goal of getting through her large pile of unfinished paintings, she resurrected those she felt inspired to return to.

“For this exhibit, I thought, why should I only show new paintings when I have ones I’ve been meaning to work on for years,” she said. “With watercolors, you can put paintings aside and come back to them later. I started going through these paintings and I got excited about seeing what I could add to them, how I might fix them and finish them. In this way, it might take me an hour and 40 years to paint a painting or 2 hours and 30 years.”

Along with showing new and revisited paintings, Peyton is also debuting a few paintings from her private collection, her own work that she has kept and displayed in her home and wasn’t, until now, ready to share or part with.

“Genesis” depicts swirls and shapes in pastel colors and was inspired by time Peyton spends in Maui each year, and specifically, by the water.

“I wanted to capture the organic, life-forming shapes in the water that are the way I think of seeds of life forming,” she said.

This painting has hung in her home since she first painted it in 2006 and was created with a watercolor technique called wet on wet.

“Water is what makes a watercolor painting glow, “ she said. “No other medium does this on its own and the artist has little control over the outcome if they want to preserve that purity and glow. My paintings tend to use a combination of wet on wet and wet on dry techniques. For wet on wet, as the water and pigment move on the paper, I can add pigment on the edge of a wet area to contain it somewhat, knowing the edge will blend a bit also.

“So much depends on how much water and how much pigment is on the brush. It is constant trial and error until one knows intuitively the right mix. An abstract wet on wet painting requires being in the moment and looking at cues as to where to go next. Maybe the artist has a landscape or floral idea in mind, but doesn’t know how it will evolve. It is an exciting and spontaneous way to paint that requires decisive moves and speed to avoid the drying of the paper. I’ve been painting with watercolors over 45 years and still find it challenging.”

Her painting, “Open Heart,” is another wet on wet painting she revisited recently after painting it and setting it aside in 2003. This painting is in soft purples and pinks and depicts a flower with petals wide open.

“The original painting was too contained with edges all around it, like it was squeezed into a box,” she said. “Now lighter areas go off the page and I added new areas and changed the area on the bottom. Watercolor is a very unforgiving medium. Once you paint, it’s hard to get the white back, but with experience, you learn you can lighten areas, scrub areas out, lift paint away with paper and add different colors in. Now this painting feels fresh and free-flowing, what was previously missing.”

Well-known for painting landscapes and florals, Peyton has long been inspired by the places she has called home — both full-time, like Homer, and seasonally, including Halibut Cove and Maui.

“I can’t look anywhere and not want to paint it,” she said. “In Hawaii, the water is serene and beautiful. In Alaska, there’s such a closeness to nature, whether that’s a field of flowers in Homer or a landscape scene from up above and looking down onto the cove in Halibut Cove.”

Born and raised in Washington State, as a young girl, Peyton was introduced to oil painting by her grandmother. As a teenager, she was inspired by and studied paintings of the masters depicted in her mom’s various museum and gallery coffee table books — Paul Gauguin, Edgar Degas and Vincent van Gogh, among others. She painted acrylics throughout high school, and her foray into watercolors began in 1976 during a beginner’s class at the University of Washington.

“I fell in love with watercolor because it has this fascinating ability to move on its own,” she said. “There’s a glow you can get on the paper with watercolors that I don’t think you can recreate with any other medium.”

With a degree in Russian Language and Literature, encouraged by her father’s own passion for languages, Peyton visited Homer in 1977 after reading a National Geographic story about a Russian Old Believer Village community in the area.

Smitten by the natural beauty and Russian history, she moved to Homer the following year, where she worked various jobs before being hired as a bilingual instructor at Nikolaevsk, the Russian village she had read about, and the only one in the community at the time. Peyton later moved to Anchorage for a time, where she got married and pregnant with the older of her two daughters. She and her family then returned to Homer, and Peyton taught Russian at Kachemak Bay Campus for 18 years.

Working and raising her family, she continued to experiment with watercolor, both on her own through trial and error and by taking classes in Homer and Anchorage.

For 13 years, beginning in 1992, Peyton spent her summers in Halibut Cove amongst other artists, like well-known painter and art teacher Alex Combs. It was here, living, painting and exhibiting her work that she developed the confidence to call herself a professional artist.

“Alex would often see me painting plein air and comment that watercolors were too hard for him and how impressed he was with my work,” she said. “He asked when I was going to have a show, and that encouraged me to approach Asia (Freeman) at Bunnell. I had my first show there in 1995 at 42 years old. I didn’t have a garden and my kids were free to be out on their own in the community so I wasn’t worrying about my children. When you take yourself out of your normal surroundings and the distractions of your home life, you’re free to pursue your passion more fully.”

After the success of her first exhibit, showing alongside two other artists and selling several of her pieces, Peyton joined Ptarmigan Arts, Homer’s co-op gallery, where she was further inspired by fellow artist Cheri Greer.

“Cheri wanted to trade a painting with me, and that was such an honor because I admire her and her work so much,” Peyton said. “With the sales of my first show, the encouragement of Alex and Cheri, meeting one artist after another and being able to exhibit and sell my paintings in the Cove, selling just about every piece I put in the galleries, I felt incredibly validated as an artist. It all blossomed from there.”

Peyton began making and selling prints and cards. She also got into juried art shows, including at the Pratt Museum in 1993 and 1998. When she retired from teaching at the college, Peyton began taking more and more watercolor classes and workshops. In 1998, she took a week-long workshop in Kenai called Wet on Wet Watercolor from Alaskan artist Barbara Natchez.

“That workshop was like a religious experience for me,” Peyton said. “When Barbara demonstrated what you could do, it was all just intuitive, no lines drawn on the paper, just free form and abstract. I got so excited because it was all about the water flowing and the freshness of the water and not overworking things on the paper.”

Inspired by the workshop, Peyton began mass-producing her prints and cards and hosted demonstrations for painting groups like the Kachemak Bay Watercolor Society that offer instruction, paint-togethers and support for painters of all levels. A longtime KBWS member, Peyton currently serves as president. Eventually, she left Ptarmigan Arts to focus on raising her children, pursuing her painting and cultivating another passion, gardening.

After 45 years painting watercolors, Peyton has participated in numerous group shows in Homer at Bunnell Street Arts Center, Fireweed Gallery and Ptarmigan Arts, and at Halibut Cove Experience Gallery in Halibut Cove. Celebrating her favorite flower and exhibiting new work, older pieces never shown before and a series of resurrected paintings, “Ode to Fireweed” is on display at Fireweed Gallery through July.

Find Peyton online at janpeyton.com. For more information on the Kachemak Bay Watercolor Society, visit them on Facebook.

Artist Jan Peyton looks over previously-done watercolor paintings she has recently been finishing on Monday, June 24, 2024, in her home studio in Homer, Alaska. Photo by Christina Whiting

Jan Peyton poses with “Open Heart,” a watercolor painting she began in 2003 and recently completed, on Wednesday, June 26, 2024, at her home in Homer, Alaska. “Open Heart” will be on display in her solo exhibit, “Ode to Fireweed,” in July at Fireweed Gallery. Photo by Christina Whiting

Homer artist Jan Peyton poses in her home studio on Monday, June 24, 2024, in Homer, Alaska. Photo by Christina Whiting

“Ode to Fireweed” is a watercolor painting by Jan Peyton on display in her solo exhibit through July at Fireweed Gallery in Homer, Alaska. Photo provided by Fireweed Gallery

”Fireweed Up Close II” is an acrylic painting by Jan Peyton on display in her solo exhibit through July at Fireweed Gallery in Homer, Alaska. Photo provided by Fireweed Gallery