Laurelines

2008, my watery, wandering, wonderful year

2008 has been the best of years, the worst of years. On the world's front, not the best---though there's reason now to hope for some relief. On a personal front, a meaningful, stimulating year as far as my artwork is concerned.

Travel has been, since my childhood, a huge part of my life and my art, so, not surprisingly, travel figured largely in my world again this year. Our area had suffered from drought on and off since at least 2002, with 2007 as the driest, deadest, saddest, scariest year of my adult memory. I'm a gardener as well as a painter, so I was deeply affected by the brown, sere world outside my windows. The specter of global warming and increasing scarcity of water on our planet shook me to my soul.  I needed to go where there was water and I needed to make paintings about water, half hoping that I could seed the clouds, could become a kind of rain maker myself.  As is my wont, I made a plan.

Hawaii and Iceland beckoned to me. These waterfall-studded, rain-blessed, sea-surrounded volcanic islands were perfect locations for experiencing water. Paris,  coastal mid-California, Montréal, Barcelona and even Austin, Texas were on my itinerary, as I explored both the sublime and the ordinary aspects of water. I wanted to avoid making obvious paintings. There are few subjects so prone to cliché as the one I'd chosen. I gave myself lots of leeway---I could draw and paint sea life, fountains, bottles of water, running water in sinks, in tubs, water in all forms and occurrences. Though I filled up many sketchbooks and renewed my commitment to more sustained paintings, it is clear, from late December's vantage point, that I've only just begun to get my sea legs. I'm beginning to understand what there is about water that calls to me and I'm feeling my way to a personal visual vocabulary for expressing it.

I'll be continuing on this watery path in 2009, working on my series of rocks and water paintings, being fully receptive to following new currents as I go. I've found a topic in water that is deeply important to me. As far as travel goes, I dream of Newfoundland and Labrador and Cornwall. I want to spend September in Brittany, to paint and to be. I have other hopes and plans for travel which I'll tell you about in time, but our global recession may freeze all, most, or some of my wanderings. We shall see. I have enough sketches, photos, studies, and memories from this year's explorations to supply me with subject matter for months of painting. There's more to tell, more about other art projects I've got on tap, two group blogs I participate in and love,  some really exciting new directions, not expressly water-related, but these will have to wait because... I'm leaving Monday to spend the last days of 2008 and the first of 2009 in Paris, with a side trip to Bruges to celebrate my birthday. There'll be sketches and stories to share with you. Thank you so much, dear friends, for your continued support and interest. I've cherished your company this year and every year. Happy 2009 to you, each and all.

Christmas x 3

I'm having a diner Christmas, a dealership Christmas (took my car in for servicing on Christmas eve!), and a daughter Christmas. This is how you fit drawing in during the holidays! Hope you all are having festive days and nights. I'll be back here in a couple of days to give my year end assessment of my art and travel and to talk about what I've got planned for 2009. Happy holidays!

Foiled again!

This is such a crazy, busy time of year that there's little time for sketching, let alone painting! However, yesterday, sitting in front of a mirror at my hairdresser's, getting my highlights freshened, I found a captive subject.... me. Not that this is a great likeness, what with my head tilted downward  and only my eyes allowed to move. My head surmounted in foil papers completed the fetching ensemble. My other captive subject is Crystal, my hair stylist and good friend. She's a graduate of the Savannah College of Art and Design and is starting a career in textile art and fashion design. She's pretty amazing

We had so much fun yesterday, me sketching and the two of us watching me sketch, that we decided I'm going to spend a whole day drawing her at work in early February. Then I started thinking of other places I could go and sketch all day, like the fishmongers, and pretty soon I had another 2009 art project all thought up!

Before December 29th, when I leave for Paris for a few days, I have to write a post assessing my 2008 art project, 'In Search of Water.' It has been one of the most meaningful quests of my adult life and I will continue it in 2009. More about all that in a few days.

What December looks like, here.

Playing with brush pens

If you look at the sketch of the musicians in the last post or the ones of the fishmonger and eel in recent ones, you'll maybe be able to tell how much fun I had using them. The watercolor- based ones are my favorite because you feel like you're skating or flying when you use them---the lines flow and glide. I used a different kind of brush pen in the drawing of the guitarist and you can see the brush marks stick a little more to the paper---they plod more than they fly.

I want to be able to use watercolor washes with the former brush pens, but it's difficult, since the lines dissolve immediately when you paint over them.

In the sketches below, I'm experimenting with these pens----painting washes first and then adding inked lines, or using a combination of delible and indelible pens with watercolor in one piece.  The bee sketch is to fulfill my last obligation to the Moleskine International Exchange---whew, glad I can mark that off the list! Here David is watching Obama on Sunday morning teevee.

Chapter the Last: Barcelona Musicians

In which our heroine discovers that the best things in life are free.

On the last day in Barcelona, I was strolling the heights of Parc Güell when I heard the most sublime music ever---it was jazzy and ethereal at the same time. I couldn't imagine what instruments could produce those sounds! Following the park's sinuous paths to the source of the music, I joined the spellbound group of listeners. Here is what we saw:

And here is what it sounded like, that hang drum, that clarinet, that kora, played by those so talented men:

and: Beautiful, no? Another night we went to a pricey performance of flamenco music at el Tablao de Carmen. It was the dinner theater version of flamenco---touristy and soulless. Making flamenco soulless---that's quite a feat.

Dried blossoms and a baby

I have been SO bad about fulfilling my international Moleskine exchange obligations! I lost momentum this past fall and then life took over with a vengeance, creating more and more delay. As of today, it's Scoach's book down and Leigh's yet to go.
I can't seem to manage watercolors at all on those Moleskine pages, so here's a little acrylic painting with some Kai brush pen thrown in of dried blossoms from my garden. The brief for this book was to paint what's outside your windows. I fell in love with spent hibiscus blossoms I saw everywhere in Hawaii. When I came home, I bought a hibsicus plant, put it in a pot on my terrace and waited for the blossoms to fall. There are also lily petals and blossoms and some from a local, hardier hibiscus pictured here. You want some dried blossoms? I'm your girl.

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And here's our sweet baby Jonas, at five weeks old, in his cuddly bear coat. 

Watermarks sails today!

I'm delighted to announce my participation in a new group art blog called Watermarks, which starts today. We are nine artists all working, to greater and lesser degrees and in a variety of mediums, on the theme of water. Watermarks was conceived by English painter Vivien Blackburn and was nursed into being by Chicago artist Lindsay Olson and English artist and art blogger extraordinaire Katherine Tyrrell. For the complete list of participants, please visit the Mother Ship/blog today and come aboard as we sail into new waters, together and separately, over the next days and months.

Today's inaugural post will be followed by a succession of individual artists' introductory posts,  appearing throughout the week.

Can I get a 'bon voyage' anyone?