Two Willows (Or, What I Did at Saint Paul Art Crawl)

I'd been meaning to do this for a while and at Crawl I had the opportunity, so I took it (Art Crawl, for those unfamiliar, is something like a pub crawl but with art studios; there is usually still some alcohol to be had, too).

The first iteration is in my pocket sketchbook, and even taking up two pages it's only about 7" wide. I wanted a larger (and unbound) version, so I translated it to 8 x 10" and this is the result:

Many hours and many finely drawn lines later, I had something I really loved. This is pen, watercolor, and acrylic on imported French printmaking paper. Prints and greeting cards are here, and the original is available at $225.

Branching out

Olive Branch, above, 14 x 18" canvas in oil paint and wax medium. This is a commission for the Mount Dora Olive Oil Company in Florida. I'm adding a few shots of the work in progress for those who are curious about how these things take shape. 

 

 Above are two of the four thumbnail sketches I did. These are about 4" wide, and you can see I was trying out some different shapes for the branch and facing or slanting it in different directions. The bottom sketch is more finished because I liked it better and thus continued to work on it. 

 When I put the design on the canvas, I did it originally in a red-clay-colored pastel pencil. I didn't photograph that step because the pencil is a soft color, not very dark, and doesn't show up well in photos at all. You can see that I kept the basics of the design I had in the thumbnail, but made the branch somewhat more graceful, with fewer bare spots or abrupt curves. 

The photo above is of the stage at which I had taken a brush and some dark paint (mostly raw umber) and drawn the graphic-style outline with that.  I then left it to dry before continuing. 

Next, I had to start mixing the greens and browns I wanted. Greens are tricky, and what looked nice and neutral to warmish on my palette, looked really minty-blue on the canvas. I had to keep adjusting it.

The shadow you see on left is mostly cold wax medium, which is this translucent stuff about the consistency of Crisco, and you mix it with oil paint; and in this case I applied it with a palette knife, like skimming a wall with a trowel. Eventually I covered the whole surface in it, making the colors lighter as I moved toward the right. Wax medium lets me build up a lot of transparent to semi-transparent and then opaque layers really quickly.

When you start with a transparent layer and then put opaque layers over it: *poof* instant feeling of depth. It's really fun to do. The rest of the painting process was one of applying layers of transparent, translucent, and opaque paint, with the brightest and most opaque "foreground" or focal area in the lower right quadrant. That's also where I used the coolest, bluest colors in what is otherwise a very warm painting. Had I used the same colors all over, in the same proportions, it would have been pretty but not very interesting -- more like wallpaper.

Wisconsin in May

My little sketchbook went with me, and my watercolor set. This was a hiking trail I was on; I stopped and sketched the scene in terra-cotta colored pastel pencil, then added watercolor back at the lodge.

Shortly after making this sketch, I saw a Scarlet Tanager for the first time; shortly after that, I discovered that the trail signs became progressively fewer and less helpful the longer I walked, and that I was ... not lost, exactly, but making an unplanned detour in the heat of the day.

Also there were bloodsucking bugs out. I will spare you the details.

The walk was still worth doing, though.

Ghost Tree at Bruce Vento Park

Ghost Tree, about 10.5 x 8", mixed pencils on paper

If you've been thinking of taking lessons with me, be aware that it won't always, necessarily, mean being in the studio. Today was too beautiful for that, so I took my student out to Bruce Vento Park (a short hop from the studio building) to try out landscape drawing for the first time.

He had fun and so did I, and this piece, which began as a quick demo, turned into something I really like.

Willow Sketch

Dear Readers, I have lost my camera. I am utterly bereft. I just finished a beautiful new dog portrait and can't photograph it.

So meanwhile, a soothing willow tree for Friday, and the hope that my beloved Nikon is only temporarily missing, and not stolen, as I fear.

Willow Study, carbon pencil and pastel pencil on paper, 9 x 6.5"

Morning with Coffee and Tree Sketches

Orono Elm, 5.5 x 3.5" pen sketch in my Moleskine notebook

Imagined Tree, 9.5 x 6.5" pastel pencil sketch, study for a detail of a mural

These are from December when I was working on the Orono Elevator Mural. The ink sketch is a detail from one of the big, beautiful trees outside the window of the home. The pencil drawing is a study based on one branch of that tree. I used the structure of it for a tree in the landscape I was painting.

It's very rare for me to make art purely from my imagination. My mind has too many set patterns, too many limitations; the natural world does not, and always does surprising things I wouldn't do.

In other news, COFFEE. For about six months now, I have lived without an electric coffee pot. The one I had and loved has apparently got a broken switch, and will not turn on. Now I've gone low-tech and have been using an old-fashioned espresso pot that goes on the stove. Make espresso, mix in about a 1:1 ratio with hot milk: café au lait, and it is soooooo good. If you love coffee, I recommend it.