Laurelines

The story unfolds at last: my garden book finished!

Phase two* of my art projects relating to my new home, my new garden, my new life is finished! Using a Seawhite of Brighton concertina sketchbook, as I love to do, I painted, drew, collaged a narrative of images from May to October. Starting with my grapevine in spring and ending with the same grapevine in fall, I chose highlights of the garden to include in the record, and with each spread, I chose whatever method and media I felt like . The result is 12', unfolded, of colors, shapes, movements, textures, and, since it is a pollinator garden, a few bugs and birds hover here and there.

 

The clip above was made in dim light and the resolution is not great, but you get an idea of the whole. Below are shots of half of the book unfolded in sunlight, in the very garden the book was made from and for. Below that are double spreads of a few key images,  scanned to give a more accurate idea of the colors.

 

For years, I have loved accordion books to record travel images as well as my Caledonian Orogeny drawings made on site in Wales and Norway.  Open these books up, and you find the very format for a story, moving from left to right. My blog's name is a clue to my love of the storyline, both visual and verbal, and these books give me a perfect springboard.

Here is one more example of my use of this format, my first record of the Caledonian Orogeny project, made on Whitesands Bay near St Davids, Wales, in 2017. Here you get a better sense of the spread, although this one is not completely extended either. It's hard to find a 12' long surface! 

Now I can move to phase 3 of my new house and garden art project: paintings made with pigment from the red clay soil we live on here and/or new pieces working with house and memory imagery.  I have started several of these and am eager to get back to them, now that the garden book is done!

 

*Phase one was the pair of portraits I made of the original owners of this 160 year-old house. 

 

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Surfacing from the maelstrom

Or as I like to call this period, My Cuisinart Life! Ouch, there are way too many, big and life-changing things going on.  I do feel like I've been tossed in a giant Cuisinart and chopped and mashed and swirled for several months. I assume I'll emerge relatively intact, but I know I'll be transformed. In many ways, it's been an exciting time. It's been stressful. It's been necessary. It's not over yet.

Anyway, I will tell more when I can, but for now, let me share a bit of what I've been working on in the studio and to say I'm so looking forward to a return, with my husband, to Norway in December!

I've got several paintings going in my Places Project, as I mentioned, and some of them are even finished! I'm applying for a show of this first phase of work, excluding, unfortunately, my Caledonian Orogeny drawings (they can't be exhibited in the place I'm applying to,  because of their unusual format.) But I've got several paintings, acrylic on board, of various sizes, and I will keep working on this series in the next year.

My trip to Norway is part of this Places Project... it's been several years since I was in Arctic Norway in the winter and I need to go back and get an inspiration re-infusion. And, my husband and I love that part of the world anyway, so it works out well.

Here are some of my finished pieces. I won't hog your bandwidth with photos of all of them.

 Polar Twilight 1. I've attached a number to this one, because I plan on making several more in this sub-series, after our trip to Norway. I can't WAIT.

More Norway:

Wales, a painting of a stormy scene from Anglesey I have shared only a detail of in the past:

More Wales. This painting was inspired by my polar swim on Whitesands Bay last New Year's Day:

On Whitesands Bay, one cold and damp day last January, the sky was covered in a network of chevron-shaped clouds:

Just to show there are blue skies in even my cold places, here's a painting I made of Dulas Bay in north Wales, after a recent autumn trip there.:

After Norway, I still have northern Scotland to go to, my last place in the work inspired by the Caledonian Orogeny. Not sure when that trip will happen. 

I'm now turning to that age-old question: which art supplies should I take on my coming Norwegian trip??!  This is an issue we traveling artists always wrestle with, but for me, who travels only with a carry_on (that has also to hold my winter gear!!) it's a real puzzler!

I'm so glad to have resurfaced and I send thanks and love to all who (still) follow my wanderer's (recently subterranean) life.

 

Starting the New Year in Wales, a glorious beginning

There's a lot of story to tell, too much to try to share tonight. 

But before I post a few sketches, I will share quickly some memories: my exhilarating polar swim in the Irish Sea on New Year's Day; seeing the Quadrantid Meteor showers on my birthday night while wrapped in many layers and sitting on the front lawn of our cottage on Whitesands Bay; with the help of a traveling professional astronomer on the same birthday night, seeing nebulae, a galaxy, the Milky Way in bright form, many constellations, the fuzzy green comet 46P/Wirtanen; at Evensong of the first Sunday of Christmas at St Davids Cathedral sitting in the choir stalls with choir and clergy, hearing hymns and the liturgy in both Welsh and English.

I walked and walked and walked and walked some more until my heart was overspilling.  My husband and I slept deeply in that quiet, safe, numinous place. 

It's been another rough re-entry to real life (like the one from Norway last year) but I have several paintings going, a few from before the trip, but several newly started ones, all inspired by Wales. This circular and multi-pronged approach has me nudging each one along until I finish one, then another, then two more, etc. I'm happy in the studio.

So, sketches, just a few. I spent more time being, being outside, walking, resting, being with my husband, taking it all in.

Looking out over the Irish Sea to Ramsey Island and beyond, from the warmth of our cottage by the sea. This is white marker and pencil on brown paper. In real life, the sketch goes across the gutter of the sketchbook, making a double spread. I will add the other side later. 

Brush pen sketch made on site at Whitesands Bay, color added later.  These rocks and the ones below are old friends. They figured in the 12' long concertina sketchbook I made in May 2017, part of my Caledonian Orogeny project!

The first thing I bought on New Year's Eve day were two votive candles and holders. With these and the wood fire burning in our cottage living room, we had light and warmth.

After the polar swim on New Year's Day, I was cold and starving, so David and I repaired to our favorite St Davids café at Oriel y Parc and had lunch. I drew the family at the next table.

Sketch of St Davids Head, made standing on Whitesands Beach in the cold and wind. This and the one above are roughly and quickly drawn (the cold! the wind!), with color added later.

I'll be staying at home more this year, finishing paintings, being with family and friends, walking and trying to get more sleep! Wales spoiled me in that way and in so many others.

A tardy, but very Happy New Year's greeting to you!

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!

Norway in May and June: first glimpses

Well, those were three glorious weeks! My Inner Adventurer emerged big time, much to my delight! i'm still crowing with pleasure and pride over kayaking in polar waters! We went just beyond the 80th parallel, as I mentioned we would and it was all that I had dreamed of! It was celestial. It was never to be forgotten.

More later about all of that. For now, a scattering of sketches,  quiet glimpses of things we saw and did when we weren't being swept away by magnificence. 

A large carved wooden sculpture called Kongetorsk, (cod is one of the traditional mainstays of Norwegian cuisine, commerce, and culture) located in a small square in Bergen, is a favorite subject of mine.  David and I woke up early so I could draw it before clumps of view-obscuring tourists arrived.

I had *drawn this one December a few years ago, so it was fun to revisit and draw it again! See below for earlier drawing.

Oh, man, trying to capture the splendor of that scenery in a little sketchbook seemed futile, but I made what I call little mnemonic devices... images that endlessly reopen to me the moments of being there.

 

We visited a toy museum at the tiny village we stayed in near Reine, in the Lofoten Islands. I made friends with Dagmar Gylseth, the owner of Sakrisøy rorbuer (fishing cabins and cottages) there and drew this little scene from her marvelous museum. What a moving experience to be surrounded by her collection of hundreds of artifacts of Norwegian childhood.  Their stories and their meaning were palpable in the atmosphere there.

While in the Lofotens, David and I had our evening meals at Underhuset, the fabulous restaurant which is owned and run by Dagmar and her son Michael. Fresh seafood was offered in abundance! In fact, I ate seafood and fish three times a day most days throughout the trip. I expect gills, fins, and shells to sprout on my person at any moment! And I'll put my current Omega 3 count up against yours any day!

We went to a lecture on the geology of Svalbard given by a French geologist on board our ship and while I listened, I drew. Geology! Svalbard! Caledonian Orogeny! All my favorite subjects!

Rounding out this miscellany of moments on our Norwegian trip is a sketch I made in Bergen, at one of the city's art museums, during the last days of our visit. Shiny, compelling objects that here, too, arrested my eye and my imagination.

I have several more sketches as well as the accordion sketchbook I made of Caledonian Orogenic outcrops and will share those in the next days. I have begun some studio pieces as well, deriving from the images I lived and breathed and stored in my mind's eye.

Balancing my accordion sketchbook... Laura on the rocks! More to come! Come back soon!!

 

*Here's the same cod sculpture pictured above, but drawn on an earlier, winter trip. 

*

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!

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.