Laurelines

Going Places

The thing about working on a Places Project, as I am, is that, well, you go places. And that going does interrupt the work flow (not to mention the blog stream!!), though it keeps the inspiration rushing at flood tide! So, it's a matter of trying to do both, of staying balanced. i won't always be at the flood tide stage and in fact, I see 2019 as more of a steady work year, with less travel. (But Iceland! Back to the source!)  More about that in December.

Anyway, here are some paintings, or parts of paintings, I've been making. I have so many more in process and am delighted and vastly relieved to feel that I am at last in a kind of flow here in the studio.  Withdrawing from illustrating and teaching and my various Other-oriented art activities this year has been a hard but very fruitful thing to do.

Before turning to Norway as a subject, I have been thinking of Wales. There is something so compelling to me about western coastal Wales. Like Norway, it is a land of pronounced darks and lights... or so I see it. And it appears, at my hands, to be a land of shards and angles, too,  and infinite atmospheres and textures. In short, it's heaven (one of several)  for me.

 

Lligwy Bay, afternoon drama. Acrylic on board, as are all of these paintings:

 

 

 Lligwy Bay, after rain:

 

Dulas Bay, blue hour. This is the very first stage of this painting. I have since gone farther, but haven't finished. I want to remember this early, airy stage! I love painting on natural wood surfaces.

 

And my latest start, a detail of larger painting... another dramatic sky over Lligwy Bay! The foreground of this painting isn't shown, but once it is done and the whole pulled together, I'll be so happy. Won't be long now.  Texture! Atmosphere!  Yes! You can see my mind is turning to Norway! My numinous places connect in many ways. 

A sketch of my dear friend Michael, a Yorkshireman who took Penelope, his love and my dear friend, around Yorkshire this past October. Yorkshire proved to be a magical place and one that I learned, to my great surprise, is a very important part of my life story!  I drew this in a delightful pub in Whitby, where Penelope, Michael and I had lunch one cold and rainy day.

And, last, an image I treasure from the Yorkshire trip: I'm in awe before Gordale Scar, imagining the ancient glacial melt processes that created this striking topography.

I'll be back in December! My emotional logjam has broken and I'm once again a member of the visible world!

Happy Fall-into-Winter to you!

Back on track:Norway story, continued

Summer heat has cast a pernicious spell on me, it's clear, but the winds are changing, the light is changing, and, finally unwilting, so am I.  Weather aside, reentry to normal life has been very difficult after such an exalted and inspiring time in Norway.

My chief reason for going on this trip was in pursuit of my Places Project,  to see and draw another vestige from the Caledonian Orogeny, circa 450-250 MYA.  I had fewer days to do this than I had for my first two drawings, made in Wales, one in Pembrokeshire, one on Anglesey.

The accordion sketchbook I drew in here was custom made for me by book artist friend Josh Hockensmith. It is 10 1/2' long when stretched to its full length and each page is bigger than those in the Seawhite of Brighton concertina books I used in my first two drawings. The paper is ivory and slightly toothed, not white and smooth, and so the resulting drawing has a slightly different look from the first two.

The rocks I drew were very different, too. The rocks in Wales were faceted, sharp, angular, with mostly smooth surfaces. The rocks in Norway were flowing, textured, and multi-colored in shades of grays, ochres, some siennas and subtle blues. These outcrops will lend themselves to later studio pieces, some collages, some linocuts, perhaps,  and I am looking forward to seeing what will emerge!

 

In between my days of Caledonian Orogeny drawing, I sketched, as you will have seen in my last post. Here are some miscellaneous moments, caught in my sketchbook. On a remote island in the Barents Sea, magenta saxifrage grew improbably and brashly between rocks in the tundra.

Later, in the Lofotens, I drew another view of the majestic Olstind mountain, seen from our cabin near Reine.

My husband and I love Bergen and it was in Bergen that I had this delicious vitello tonnato dish for lunch at a café near the Kode Museums. Note the candle, lit in the middle of the day in sunny, summery Bergen. This is one of the things I love about Scandinavia, the use of candles, a profound celebration of light, at all times of the year, at all times of the day, in the Polar Night or in the time of the Midnight Sun. I have taken this to my heart and I do the same thing in our home in North Carolina.

Circling back to Longyearbyen, here is a drawing of a bus passenger, who was a wonderfully monumental figure, compelling to draw:

On the painting front, two recently finished pieces.The first is another work belonging to my Places Project. This is a Copper Mountain sunset painting, inspired by my artist residency in Alaska, fall before last:

The second is an example of What I Did for Love, a snowy owl painting requested by my four-year-old grandson Miles. I have two more requested owlish pieces to finish, but I am returning to Norway in the studio in the next days, too.

I won't wait so long to post again. Soon I am taking a shortish trip with two dear friends to Yorkshire, not on the trail of the Caledonian Orogeny. The main focus will be to spend time with my friends in the birthplace and childhood region of one of them. Though I have lived and traveled widely in the UK, I have never been to Yorkshire. It turns out that my long-ago ancestors from Norway, settled in Yorkshire (coincidentally near where we will be), before much later emigrating to the US, so I will be, in some small way, returning home. Who knew??? See you soon!

80° North, anyone? Art supplies for the Land of the Midnight Sun!

 

That's where we'll be the first part our trip!  Far, far, far northern Norway, off the mainland. I am going to try to get some sort of memento with that latitude engraved on it! I'm a north-going spirit, that's for sure. 

This being such a once-in-a-lifetime trip, I vow to document it fully in writing and sketches, in addition to the separate group of drawings I'll do for my Caledonian Orogeny project.

But what supplies to take with me?? I travel only with a carryon and that has to contain clothes for winter weather (still there in May and early June in Svalbard) as well as for cool spring days, which I hope we will find in the other parts of Norway we are going to. Yikes!

Wakeful at 2am today (and you can understand why!), I looked at past sketches of similar atmospheric situations. Here are my tentative choices. If you have any suggestions, by the way, please do make them!

I know you've seen most of these before, but bear with me. I have to think.;D

1. Caran d'Ache watercolor crayons: I use these often. Here are some examples from  the past:

Iceland, Budir Bay

More Iceland. Here there's a wash of Daniel Smith Lunar Black with the crayons. I'll take that and Lunar Blue and those will be my only watercolors. Right? I can add more washes later. if I want to.

 

Mt Hood, Oregon. Unlike my previous trips to Norway, which all took place in the Arctic Twilight, this trip will be, as I mentioned, under the Midnight Sun!

    2. Pentel pocket brush pen. These are practically extensions of my hands. I use them everywhere.

In Bergen, Norway, with white gel pen and watercolor wash

 

In E.Lansing, Michigan, with watercolor crayons! Two for the price of one!

    3. Inktense pencils? When you must have bursts of juicy color!

Don't you love how a mere spritz of water makes inktense sketches ebullient!

Inktense pencils at Carn Llidi, Wales. Speaking of atmospheric, as we were:

     4. Cretacolor Oil pencils in Nero. I have to have these for regular drawing, right?  With these, you can be both gestural and precise:

And I'll need these for my Caledonian Orogeny drawing, of course;

    5. Sketchbooks: I'll have a couple of custom handmade concertina sketchbooks for the rock drawings and then two Stillman & Birn softcover 8 x10s, one in gray, one in white.

    6. Blue and red colored pencils, not watercolor ones. Oh, let's add orange and green, too. I just like to draw with these and they come in handy if you want quick, dry color.

 

 Oh, I've given myself a headache now.

I'm serious... if you have any suggestions, any new products you like for travel sketches, or old favorites of yours (not watercolors, though, or fountain pens for this trip, unfortunately,) I'd love to have them!

Takk!

New moons and portals

I've been in a long new moon phase, hidden from sight, but very here. Just recently I've begun to see  the 15 or so (!) paintings I've been making start to gel a bit.  Of these, how many will eventually be finished, I have no idea. The ones that need to be finished will make themselves known and I will just keep at it until I know which they are.

This process is very slow but it appears to be mine for now, so I accept it. Deadlines and rushing can come later.

Here's a detail of one of these in progress. This is one of what I call 'portal paintings,' small at 12" x12", but big enough for me to squeeze through to the next incarnation. All of the pieces I'm working on are inspired by my numinous places, this one in particular is inspired by a bay in northern Wales.

 

 

I've also been learning to make linocuts and I love that medium! After a semester long ago spent learning etching and aquatint, and workshops in lithography, and silkscreen, I've finally found the  printmaking method that calls to me. I feel it lends itself very well to my Caledonian Orogeny project, as a way of working back in the studio, after making  my on-site drawings.

Here's an example of what I mean.

 

Here's another. I beg your indulgence...I LOVE learning this art form and I love tweaking for color and texture changes! I will force myself to stop at posting two here.

 

 

My garden will be on view this weekend to at least 1300 visitors, so I have had garden prep very much in my life these past months. I am sharing, therefore, two garden images, one from my journal documenting two recent plant acquisitions and one sketch I made a couple of years ago at J C Raulston Arboretum, a sketch I recently rediscovered under a pile of other work.

My trip to VERY northern Norway is coming up in May! To say I'm excited is an egregious understatement. I have lots more to tell before I go and I will!

January/February, on paper and in color

I've had a good beginning of the year so far, a combination of studio time (feeling my way with matte acrylic paint, which I love) and drawing and sketching, some examples of which follow! 

Another early morning warm up in my studio: I loved making this tea light sketch with acrylics and brush pen on toned Stillman & Birn paper:

Stillman & Birn journal again, this time a collaged spread, with deep red accents on that matte gray paper:

Finding energy and joy in small things, such as this arrangement at my dear friends Jeffery and Stanley's house. Their place is full of artfully and heartfully arranged objects from their charmed lives. I will go back often  to draw there:

Here's a shift in mood! Just returned from a whirlwind trip to New York to see the David Hockney show at the Met, and made some sketches while there. I was delighted by several marble portrait busts of men with cascades of curls (wigs, of course) and wish I'd had days to sketch more of them! Drawn on site, red and blue gouache added later.

Breakfast was a sketchable affair, I felt, with those gestural pearly white globes, Vermont farm poached eggs, and other fun colors and shapes:

Last trip sketch, my patient, calm husband at JFK, waiting for our flight back home, reads on his Kindle:

Finally, my illustration for the Winter 2018 issue of Charleston Style & Design Magazine, accompanying a lovely essay by Patrice Gopo, writing of her travel and fulfillment dreams for her young daughter. This will be my last CS & D illustration until summer when I look forward to getting back on board with that lovely magazine. For the next months travel and other work will be on my front burners.

2017 into 2018: The straight way was lost

 

In the middle of the journey of my life,

I came to myself in a dark wood

And the straight way was lost.

Adapted from a translation of Dante's "Inferno,"  Canto I.

  

Not exactly lost, and the chronology is off, but it's just that a new, indirect, and wavy way seems to be taking over here. I believe it comes from that life force, the c'hi, that I sense so palpably in my numinous places, and which inspires me in my art life.

Well, I can't be in my numinous places (Norway, Wales, Iceland, Scotland, etc) every minute of the day, so I'm figuring out how to find charged experiences here, at home, in my daily life. And now, at the beginning of a new year,  I've started following this barely-intuited way, this wavy, meandering way, in my journal/sketchbook.

I feel a huge burden of guilt over unfinished paintings from the past year and more and this guilt has made it ever harder to return to that unfinished work. So, I'm going back, via this new way, to basics and to joy. 

The way appeared one very cold day on my late afternoon walk. Here is what I saw: 

  

I read the message in these lines and now I draw, paint, make marks, collecting my own images, from what I see around me, not just anything my eye happens upon, but scenes and objects that seem charged with a special energy, for whatever reason... and record them in my journal, to find out who... and where... I am.  Again.

I'm not making huge pronouncements or plans for now, just going step by wavy step. And I'm developing an awareness for presence of the c'hi in, say, a plate of apples.

It's a happy life.

 

Pink hyacinth in pot wrapped in pink foil, mixed media on toned paper:

Bowl of nuts with nutcracker, mixed media on toned paper:

Angel drawing after Melozzo da Forli, mixed media on toned paper:

Apples and tangerines on blue plate, mixed media on toned paper:

My new challenge is to be open to charged places and objects and settings near to home. Then, when I get back to Norway this May, I'll be more than ready to receive it!

Happy New Year! May we be filled with energy and joy.

Going to the source: Part 2 of the Caledonian Orogeny in Wales

After a  busy November, I'm finally able to turn back to Wales and that ancient mountain range, once as high as the Himalayas, that dominates my imagination.

Below is a wobbly handheld video of the 12' long drawing I made in a concertina sketchbook over a few days on Anglesey in October. This is the second of two such drawings, the other having been made in Pembrokeshire this past May. I am also reposting the earlier one, for comparison.

 

 

The outcrops on Whitesands Bay are a giant's cornucopia of thousands of rocks of all shapes and every orientation! That landscape is a feast for eyes such as mine.

Here is a still of the Anglesey rock deformations, which are calmer, more markedly horizontal, but still breathtaking to my eyes:

These drawings are made on site, frequently with strong winds whipping my hair across my eyes, my hands struggling to hold a very long, folded (and unfolding at the wrong moments) sketchbook, working fast while the conditions are right.

There weren't huge problems in Pembrokeshire, other than frequentish rain, because the beach was very deep and I didn't have to pay attention to tide times. But on Anglesey, it was quite a different story. Finding time when it wasn't raining AND when it was low tide was difficult.

I post this photo of myself having just THEN completed the drawing, in spite of the challenges of weather, tide, and limited time. My relief and happiness are evident! This was our very last day on Anglesey, thus my very last chance to finish the drawing. The weather had been forecast to be rainy, but, look, it was perfect!

Next stop on the Caledonian trail is northern Norway. Near Bodø is the dramatic outcrop pictured below, part of our mountain building event that spanned a couple of millions of years and great distances.

Big thanks to Battleboy on Flickr, who gave me permission to use his stunning photo, taken from a boat. 

Brilliant Norwegian photographer Reidar Hernes lives in Bodø and is helping me research possibilities for me to be able to stand on land and draw these deformations. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

This time I will use a different drawing surface: still a concertina sketchbook, but one not as long and with bigger pages, I think.

I leave this post with two images of the two books: different, connected.  We will see what awaits us in Norway.

September: Moving forward

A late-breaking illustration job meant I had to press Pause on my painting series, but  I've finished the illustrations and am turning my thoughts towards my upcoming trip to North Wales!  I will share the illustrations I've done this summer once they are published this October. They are colorful and fun!

Before anything else, I want to tell you about a new book on sketching landscapes by my good friend and excellent American artist Virginia Hein. Her book 5-Minute Sketching: Landscapes is one of the best out there on the topic of sketching. And since there is a vast flotilla of books out there on that topic, that is saying a lot!

Virginia teaches at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, was for many years a toy designer, and is a prolific urban sketcher with a worldwide reputation and following. Her book is thoughtfully and gracefully written and is brimming with tips and suggestions and many, many illustrations of her own and of artists around the world. I am extremely proud to be one of her contributing artists.

 Here are two of several of my images that appear in Virginia's book:

I sincerely recommend this book for anyone interested in rendering landscapes of all kinds. Virginia has a fresh, energetic, and inspiring way of thinking and teaching. No matter how many landscape drawing and sketching and painting books you might have in your personal library, you will love this one, I promise you!

Now for thoughts of Wales! I am taking two Seawhite concertina sketchbooks so I can make more 12' long drawings of the kind I made on Whitesands Bay last May..weather, as always, permitting. Other art gear I hope to fit into my carryon:

See those little tubes of Winsor Newton paint? I have a hankering to try gouache. We'll see what happens. 

Finally, two quick and happy recent drawings, using my Koh-i-noor Magic Pencil with multi-colored lead. Hmm, I think I'd better pack that one for Wales, too!

See you soon!

In a liminal state

Here it is, the end of one of my favorite months, the eve of another.

I am standing on a threshold, with loose ends to tie up before I leave for Wales and some miscellany to share.

Having finished my summer workload, I turned back to Alaska-inspired paintings. I felt as though I had, literally and figuratively, painted myself into a corner with the Copper Mountain series and their restrictive color palette. These are self-imposed restrictions, needless to say, and so are readily set aside for a while.

As a way to sneak up on and vanquish my stymied and procrastinating self, I turned away from orange and verdigris and thought about the cool blues and greens and earth tones that characterized 99.99% of the Alaska I experienced while I was there!

More studies. The trick is to keep the energy and verve of studies in my final paintings... that has been the hitch with the Copper Mountain series so far. Nevertheless, I persist.

Study of Lake Clark, Alaska and its turquoise waters and dramatic sky:

 

Standing here today, I believe I see some thoughts of Wales sneaking into this study! Liminal states are like that, with their rearview glances to the past and their earnest wonderings about the future.

I mentioned last time my brush pen technique as a solution for the garden illustrations I had to do and that worked well. I actually simplified shapes and tones and ended up with not a lot of nuance, but some fresh and light-spirited images which went well with the tone of the essay.

I can't share the final illustrations until they are published this fall, but here is a collage I made of leftovers from the process, all pasted into my journal/sketchbook. Color and light and simple shapes dominate here.

 

Having lately rediscovered my beloved brush pen for pleasure drawing I vow to make more drawings with it. Here is one of my daughter Kate from a few days ago. Pentel pocket brush pen and Caran d'Ache watersoluble crayons:

So now, again, back to the painting studio and to thoughts and plans for my upcoming trip to north Wales. See you soon!

Brush pen memories

Help! I'm working on illustrations to go along with the essay on my garden that I wrote for Charleston Style & Design's upcoming fall issue. Deadline: NOW or a time very much like it.

I have made dozens and zillions of drafts for these, mainly because I can't settle on the technique I want to use. My collage approach doesn't fit with this subject and the format of these images. My studio floor, the repository for rejected drafts, is a mess, 

What to do??!! Last night, I thought, "brush pen, why not?" I love working with my Pentel pocket brush pen. It feels almost like an extension of my drawing hand. I've used it for lots of sketch subjects and some illustrations over the years. I looked back at my Flickr account to remind myself of the ways I had done this and was waylaid by memories.

May I share some of these rediscovered images and memories with you?

Below: In Pasadena,a cactus garden, part of the larger Huntington Gardens, that I visited with my friend and brilliant artist Virginia Hein on a sketching jaunt fall before last. This brings back such wonderful memories of our time together.

I had hesitated to try brush pen with my current assignment because I wasn't sure I could get the nuances I want with it. But this sketch managed nuance!

Next a scene from Oakland Bay from 2015. I was visiting my daughter Cecelia. Looking at this, I am instantly back in that day, in that place. And I miss my daughter so much. Some nuance here, too!

In another vein, a portrait sketch of Sir Walter Raleigh for the cover of Walter Magazine in 2013. I submitted several images. They chose another one for the cover, but I have always loved this Sir Walter's sassy and flourishy attitude.

Jumping again to a quite different topic, here's a pretty atmospheric, nuancy sketch of a scene in Iceland. Drawing in the twilight, especially the Northern twilight.. aahhh. Heaven. 

The sketch below is another one-way express ticket to the past. David and I were traveling in the Dordogne with our friends Moreton and Drake. Moreton drew me as I drew this scene on the river near Bouziès. I spy nuance! Fabulous memories here, too!:

Finally, speaking of being overtaken by memories, I saw this pen and ink and crayon drawing of our Miles three or so years ago and, though it's not a brush pen drawing, it IS a drawing of a beloved baby, so that counts for a lot, doesn't it? Memories.

Back to work now, keeping my fingers crossed that my brush pen and I will get this done!