What I'm working on

I'm currently playing with the alligator images from Ossabaw. this is a mostly done charcoal drawing I made using some of the things I learned at the Arrowmont workshop on experimental drawing I took. One helpful thing we did was mess up the paper before we started. In the field we rubbed earth, moss, and plants on it, in the studio, we splattered and daubed it with dilute ink washes. This made an interesting surface to work on, and got rid of the dread, scary white paper. With the paper already being messed up, we were freer to draw with abandon. We also did a lot of subtractive drawing with erasers. In this drawing, I splattered dilute burnt sienna and violet ink on the paper first, then worked both positively and subtractively with charcoal, and erasers. I've just started using some pastels on it, trying to decide if I like it. If I don't like it, I might do as my teacher, Susan Davidoff, does and paint over it with dilute gesso. The still visible underdrawing again makes an interesting surface to work on, and the whole process encourages one not to think of anything too precious. I am also working on a big oil version of this alligator using colors borrowed from a Wayne Thiebaud painting, but that I'll save for another post.

And You Thought I'd Died

So I have joined a group on facebook, "Everyday Matters", devoted to keeping daily sketchbooks. They post themes if one needs a bit of help getting started. This week it was, "Summer Joys", so here are some of mine. I had a lot of fun with this, stayed very mellow and loose, and enjoyed the whole thing. However, I find that my 11 X 14 sketchbook is too big for my scanner, and I must photograph my work to post it. Yikes! Me getting a decent image is about as likely as me (to use a recent political euphemism) "hiking the Appalachian Trail." Here is my best effort.

GATOR!!!!!

Today, I am on Ossabaw Island, with my three good friends: Carla, Chantal, and Leanne.  I have visited Ossabaw many times before. It is a wonderful, unspoiled barrier island off the coast of Georgia near Savannah. I have seen many alligators here before, but today was a halcyon day. We were driving in one of the island trucks to look at a possible new place to paint. As we rounded a bend, there was an enormous alligator on the edge of the road. Usually, they skedaddle as you approach, but this one held his ground, and seemed to be challenging us. As we approached, it commenced hissing loudly, but remained unmoved. We stopped, with me riding shotgun, and having a view better than bird's eye. I hung out the window of the car, snapping away, wondering how high the damn things can jump. These images are the result.

photo class

Much of my art making time has been taken up with photography lately, as I'm taking a class at Showcase Cameras. I am finding it challenging. For starters, I can't see the image in the little viewfinder very well, so I keep  making fuzzy images. Then there's the aperture/shutter speed thing. I feel so clueless. We had a field trip to Oakland cemetery, and  I've been back twice trying to get six images I'm proud of for class on Thursday. I liked the one above, but boy have I shot a lot of garbage.  When I'm painting, I think composition is my strongest suit, probably because of an obsession with art history, I don't really have to work too hard to make the eye flow over the image. When I'm looking through the viewfinder, there's too much to think about: what the heck should I be setting it on, the aforementioned seeing problems, the fact, with creaky knees, I'm usually uncomfortable, all of which means frequently what I get is not what I thought it would be. Plus even when I check it on the camera after I've taken it, glare frequently makes it difficult to see. Anyway, I'm having fun, but I'm really stressed out over it. It doesn't help that everyone in class is younger and seems more experienced, or better equipped than I am. Oh well, I firmly believe that learning anything is important, and something one should do every day, plus I got to find out how beautiful  the cemetery is in autumn and early in the morning, so I count myself very blessed, but reserve the right to whine/wine.

Rest in Peace

Lucy died yesterday at 5:30 . We will miss her.

Saying Goodbye to an old friend and family member

Yesterday I got very sad news. Our dear old cat, Lucy, nearly twenty, has inoperable cancer. The tumor is wrapped around her urethra, explaining why she keeps visiting the Kitty box to little effect. The vet says the kindest thing is to put her to sleep. She still wants to snuggle, still wants to eat a bit, still yowls insistently for anything she wants, but she's only five pounds, and so incredibly fragile. Having the power of life and death over a creature I've loved for so long is very, very difficult.  I need to do the right thing, but I don't know if I have the courage. We have an appointment for tomorrow afternoon. God give me strength to do what is needed: to say farewell, and ease the passage of a very dear old friend.

Waiting for Red

In my sketchbook, and here using paper, and acrylics on a small canvas board, I am continuing to think about Red Riding Hood and other fairy tales. So many of the tales have woods and scary things trying to get children. I think about how ancient,and primal the wish to protect our children from the scary things in the woods and elsewhere is. It certainly speaks to my heart. Telling the tales, and painting pictures are both ways of letting them go, and trying to deal with our fears for them.

I have noticed most of my paintings for the past year tend to have a fearful element to them, even when I wasn't consciously thinking about them as scary. I am interested in what comes from ones unconscious mind, unbidden and often unwanted into ones work. I guess I'll quit giving Georgia O'Keeffe a posthumous hard time about denying her paintings were sexual in nature. You just never know.