Laurelines

Copper runs through it, part two

Here I've been, in the studio, seeing what emerges from my Copper Mountain ideas and inner imagery, my drawings and photos, and the emotions I experienced in my Alaska residency.  I find it surprising how  all over the place they are, and, well, interesting, too... but then I would, wouldn't I? 

I've been trying to figure out how to deal with deeply staining and glossy paints... colors like phthalo turquoise, quinacridone burnt orange, and others that I haven't used much before in acrylic form. I want to layer them, but they don't layer well. They kill whatever colors I have painted under them and then there's that glossy sheen, which I hate. So, much mixing with white and other colors and experimenting has been going on here. I'm learning the best way to use them for my purposes.

I'm making lots of studies, but I also have a dozen or more big paintings started, waiting for me to figure out what the heck I'm doing. Here are some of the studies painted in my latest Stillman & Birn Alpha sketchbook, my treasured portable studio and lifeline: 

 I love the verdigris aspect of copper and go back and forth with it in my rendering of mountain shapes.

As I posted last time, I note that the coppery palette now crops up everywhere I put pen, pencil, or brush to paper. I don't mean it to, but I don't mind it,either. Here's a quick warm-up pen and ink sketch made last week with cad red, phthalo turquoise,  and ochre watercolors. 

I purposely didn't mention the fact in my last post that there is a connection between my copper theme and Wales. Both Alaska and Wales have a long history of copper mining, but since I don't do caves and deep underground, I thought I'd never be able to personally experience that fact of Welsh history in my visits there. But NOT SO! Peter Wakelin, Welsh scholar, author, and former head of Collections at the National Museum of Wales, was also head of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments  of Wales. He sent me a link to this video of Parys Mountain in Anglesey. Reader, I'm going!

 

Copper runs through it

Well, here I am with a post from February, which cheekily ended way too soon! 

For months I have been elatedly immersed in thoughts of copper and copper-related minerals and copper-related colors, ever since my residency in Alaska last August. One Alaskan sunset in particular was seared forever on my mind's eye and heart... the sky all tints and hues of orange, pink, red, and the glacial waters of Lake Clark looking like pale oxidized copper,  and then the mountains, Copper Mountain, in particular (yes! That is its name!) was set on coppery fire by that sun. It was one of those holy moments; I felt lifted to a world of thrilling and pure beauty.

And then, everywhere I looked afterwards, I saw copper... in the salmon leaping from the water, in the colors of the native blue geranium leaves as they turned autumnal, in the bonfire flames, and on and on. My work started to be filled with burnt orange, cadmium oranges and reds, phthalo turquoise, cobalt green, teal, burnt sienna, ochre... the orange/blue- to- red/green world I saw when I thought of Alaska.

This is a bonfire built the night of that coppery sunset.The magnificent fire was a brilliant celebration of that place, that day, that glory. Here we see my orange/turquoise palette in an early manifestation.

Below are two of many, many studies I'm working through to try to figure out my own idiom for expressing what I saw and felt in the coppery Alaska. In addition to those zillion studies of all sizes and impulses, I have 12 paintings in progress, filling up my studio walls and floor. Who knows which of these will end up resolved? I don't mind, though. This is the slow way I work. I am an eternal pioneer in the studio, scrabbling for ways to get where i want to go.

Here is copper in the vegetal world, spangles of it appearing overnight on the leaves of wild native geranium:

Later, on my trip to Austria, I was thrilled to learn that the Natural History Museum in Vienna has a vast mineralogical collection. I headed straight for the specimens that were copper-related. Oh, those colors, my new colors! I stood my ground there on the cold tile floor, sketching carefully for hours, as rivers of school children flowed everywhere around me. This was the micro view of my copper world and with my love of geology, I reveled in it.  Here are two spreads from my Vienna sketchbook:

Since my return, I've made several sketches, unrelated to my Alaska project, without realizing as I drew that I was still using my coppery palette!

A bystander at the Women's March in January asked me why I'd chosen the colors I used for my sketches. It was then that I realized what I'd done!

I want to finish at least SOME of the Copper Mountain series before I leave for Wales again in May. I'm slow, but I'm optimistic!

2017, the plan(s) and hopes for a newish year

I'm late posting my new year plans because I've been waylaid by flu for a good first ten days of the year.

 Waylaid times can be useful for thinking and such was the case for me. I started keeping a daily journal again. My writing had become sporadic and sparse in the busy, extroverted year that 2016 was. There were also world events that eclipsed my inner life, at least the act of thinking and writing about it. 

World events loom huge today, but I separate from them by taking to the studio, to the outdoors, and to the balm of friendship. And on this page, here, with you.

Painting!

On the studio score, I'm very excited! All that pent-up painting energy, accumulated over the months of travel in the fall and winter, is coming out in leaps and pirouettes! My Places Project gave me so many opportunities to experiment and store up ideas and inspiration. In 2017, I'll be able to see what emerges from that in the form of more sustained pieces, paintings and such.

I was afraid that my trip to Wales might eclipse the ideas that occurred to me during my Alaskan residency, but no!! The Wales imagery and ideas seem to be patiently waiting in the queue for Alaska to happen first. I have several paintings started and a sketchbook bursting with color, texture, and compositional studies, but I resist the urge to share those here. Let us not queer the deal by showing too much, too soon. But the textures and the colors are giving me ecstasies of delight!

 

Drawing!

Oh, and I've been drawing, too. Drawing is central to my life. As I've said before, drawing is one of my earliest memories, and one of the happiest, of my often-challenging childhood. Here are two simple pencil drawings I made last week of our Jonas lost in Legoland!

Pop ups in my sketchbook!

I don't know exactly where the impulse came from, but I started making pop-up sketches in my sketchbook a few days ago and now I'm in love with that idea! Here are a couple of recent examples. The pop up approach seemed especially right for expressing that mental image I've had since October of jackdaws wheeling in the dawn sky at St.David's Head. Not that this one perfectly captures that image, but it's a start!

I wanted to learn more about this technique, so I bought two books on the subject and quickly learned I had been doing it all wrong! ;D. That didn't bother me a bit. I can carry on my way, but still add traditional techniques to my repertoire. Here are some early attempts at learning popups the normal way. Who knows where this will take me? I have no weighty plans or expectations. Pure play is what this is. But there WILL be more to come!

Illustration!

I'm going to carry on working for Charleston Style and Design. I love working with the AD and the editors there. It's a quarterly, so the timing perfectly suits my resolve to keep work for others at a minimum. There is ONE other job that I've been approached about and I'm very happy about it, but the when is uncertain. This year, for sure. Or, for maybe. I'll let you know more when I can.

My latest illustration accompanies an essay by Katherine Wilson on her mother's lifelong obsession with Italian style and notions of beauty. I am sharing a just a few of the many  draft sketches I made to show how, at my searching hand, Sophia Loren looked like Zsa Zsa Gabor, Gina Lollobrigida, and other anonymous retro beauties, until I got the style I wanted and a good enough likeness. 

Travel!

Because I found Wales deeply inspiring, I knew I had to get back and see where  those geology-based images would take me. So I have made arrangements to go back to Pembrokeshire for two weeks in May! And maybe in fall, too. We shall see. I long to go back to Norway and that will be my next big travel goal.

As long as I draw breath and can stride, I'll be on the move. Who knows what the future holds? And that last question, dear friends, will be last allusion I make here to the events of the world for a while.

Happy and safe 2017 to one and all! Thank you for your support and interest.

2016 turns to 2017

 And so do we all. This year has been a fraught one, to say the least. We have had way more than one year's share of loss, despair, and dread. I know that many of us around the world are looking to the new year for some, for any, relief. May we find it.

On a personal, artistic level, however, this year has been one of the fullest ever, with trips and work deriving from my Places Project. I began to experiment with painting and drawing with found, organic materials. I have a long way to go and, I assume, lots of time to continue with this. Mud, paint made from rocks and soil, sand, charred twigs, berry juice were some of my means along this path.

The red earth of North Carolina, gathered here from Peregrine Farm, is highly pigmented and is a total joy to smear and brush on surfaces. Soil from my area makes paint in this deep red and in various other ochre, umber, and sienna hues.

 Rows of celosia flowers at Peregrine Farm, supported by white plastic mesh made for a striking subject. Mixed media : mud, acrylic, watercolor, found charcoal on toned paper:

Other studies and sketches from Peregrine Farm can be seen here and here:

 In Alaska, at my residency at Chulitna Lodge on magnificent Lake Clark, there was peaty soil and sand to dip into. I brought back some soil I ground and dried for use in my studio this year. I overestimated what I could do pursuing these means in a limited period of time, restricted to materials I could pack in my carryon! I need to be somewhere for an extended period, with lots of space to work and to store materials. I am working on just such a scenario for myself for 2017.

View of Copper Mountain from across Lake Clark. Mixed media: watercolor, sand, soil.

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 There were wild currants to squash and smear to add color to drawings:

This and other spreads and studies from Alaska can be seen here and   :

 

 

In coastal Pembrokeshire, the world was rich with beautiful mud and rocks that told stories 450 million years old. I was in ecstasy there and have just made plans to return for two weeks in May to continue those explorations.

Above, I paint and draw with sand and rocks and below I smear in my sketchbook mud from the source of sacred St. Non's well near St. Davids, with blackberry stain added for color.

Other paintings and studies from the 12' long accordion sketchbook

I used in Wales appear here.

I enjoyed another year of working with Charleston Style and Design Magazine, producing illustrations that allowed me to stretch and play and that were such fun to do

 

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I led my second three-part drawing series at the Nasher Museum of Art in September and it was a lovely, successful experience, just as last year's was. It is a thrill to work with enthusiastic students from all ages and backgrounds. 

 

 

Alaska, part two, sketches and studies continued

Here is the second and last batch of studies from Alaska. I wanted to post them before September completely sweeps me away with planning my drawing classes for the Nasher Museum of Art and pulling things together for David's and my trip to coastal Wales two days after the 3-part series ends!

I have some painting ideas growing out of my time in Alaska and evolving from my sketches and studies... and I need to get the rough lineaments of these down in the studio before I head for Wales. So, hurrying along I go.

For now, here are two more gestural mountain studies. The sky in Alaska was where most of the actual, visible energy of the place manifested. The mountain peaks held and exuded their own energy, of course,  but what was surprising in Alaska was that the water itself was pretty calm. This is not always the case with Lake Clark, but compared to the sea, the lake's drama is simply going to be more subdued in most cases. Somehow, this had not occurred to me before I went!

I had packed a Strathmore sketchbook filled with gray-toned paper, but I used it less often than I thought I would. That brown craft paper was so much sturdier!

The angular peakiness of the mountains became more and more apparent as I drew. My curving, swooping gestural style ceded to the reality of those chiseled shapes as the days went by.

Sitting on the deck of the bathhouse one late afternoon, I grabbed some pencils and sketched a view of the mountains, seen through the branches of an Alaskan spruce.

Oh, I had fun drawing with charred wood from our bonfire! Here are two more found charcoal sketches:

And a quick shot similar to the one I posted last time, of two sketchbook spreads, the pages of which won't fit on my scanner:

I'll be posting work made by the participants in my drawing series at the Nasher over the next three weeks. I had forgotten to take photos of the drawings last time and I won't make that mistake again. We are going to have a wonderful series and I want to share it with you!

Alaska, part one, sketches and studies, means and materials

Note: You do have to click on the thumbnails here to see the full pieces. They are too wide for this format.

 

Well, Alaska was humbling! And thrilling and unforgettable. I'm so grateful for the time I had there.  I wish it had been longer.  

Humbling for the obvious reasons of the place's grandeur and uniqueness, but on a work level, too,  because constricted packing space and travel exigencies naturally limited the kinds of materials I could take with me. The upside of that is that I made do with what I had... and that is a very Alaskan trait!

Here are samples of studies and sketches I made, direct and immediate responses to what I saw, in no particular order. 

At the last minute, I decided to throw in a pad of heavy craft paper and I'm very glad I did! It is so sturdy and, being toned, it provided instant atmospherics and drama.

 

The paper's brown tones seemed to bring out my hitherto completely unsuspected inner Maynard Dixon, a twentieth-century painter of the American west!

 The craft paper stood up well to the charcoal stubs I harvested from a fire pit, using them as drawing tools:

I brought loose sheets of heavyish watercolor paper and was able to make some studies with paint made from soil.I brought back soil, rocks, and found charcoal to continue these experiments at home.

I collected wild currants and smashed them and used their pulp to add color to this ink sketch of fireweed:

In a sketchbook made for me by a good friend especially for this trip, I turned to more colorful subjects:

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More to come of Alaska and its aftermath!

July: images and experiments

All images after the first one derive from Peregrine Farm, first of the places for my Places Project, which I began a few months ago. Alaska in August and Wales in October are next on my agenda.

But first: For the Summer 2016 issue of Charleston Style & Design Magazine, I was to illustrate an essay by Judy Kurtz Goldman on mothers and daughters and their gardens, in particular, the story of the garden of the author's late mother. Her mother had had an unusual way of waving the garden hose in arcs above her head as she watered her flowers and this is something the daughter does, too. "I wish [my mother] could stand beside me on a hot July afternoon and feel the spray from my garden hose.  I'd thank her for this wonderful things she's passed down to me, as we both squint at the arc of water crossing itself over and over."

 Continuing with my plan to use materials from the places I immerse myself in, in combination with the elements earth, air, fire, and water... in one guise or another... I made another cyanotype with love-in-a-mist from Betsy's flower fields. The image, an arrangement of flowers and cut paper placed on photo-sensitive paper, is developed in sunlight.

Later in the month, I sat and drew in the celosia fields. Here I fell for the brash and blazing reds of the blossoms as well as for the accidental beauty of the white mesh fabric used to support the tall stems as they grew. This was found sculpture! On Strathmore toned paper, I used paint made from soil I gathered from the farm as well as crayons and pencil.

The days I visited the farm to draw celosia flowers were very hot. I tried to convey the sense of red hot air in this drawing, made on site using a multi-leaded colored pencil, with red acrylic paint added later in the studio.

Drawing with charcoal made from charred blueberry branches found on the farm, I sketched a plowed and open field edged by a road leading to the Alex and Betsy's house. The reddish paint was made with field soil and the ochre paint was made with soil I collected near the farm's creek beds.

 Here's another drawing of celosia flowers growing through a grid of white plastic mesh. Drawn with watercolor crayons, painted with paint made from field soil and a final layer of acrylic paint.

Not all of my experiments were successful, but isn't that what experiments are for, to try stuff and see?

Here's a case in point,  a collage I made of purple and red lettuces growing in a field. I had been attracted to the wavy, concentric shapes of the lettuce heads, and to their jewel-like colors.  For these, I drew from my studio stash of leftover painted paper, cutting the paper into lettuce-inspired shapes.  As in the images above, the field's earth is painted with earth from the field itself!  That is what I love about this project... playing with found, organic materials in combination with more conventional media, to try to render the energy and essential nature of these places that are meaningful to me.

I leave for my art residency in Alaska in a few days! Trying to work out which art supplies to take is my challenge. I will report back on what I chose soon! Happy August!

My Places Project part 1: Beginner's Mind

"In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's there are few."  from Shunryu Suzuki's Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind: Informal Talks on Zen Meditation and Practice.

 

For my Places Project, I'm choosing locations that, for all sorts of reasons, send my heart reeling. Alaska, Wales, and Bavaria are on the horizon in the coming months. I'm sticking closer to home for now. 

For this work, I'm adopting Beginner's Mind, reaching back to the four-year-old Laura with her box of unlimited possibilities, aka the 48 crayons. I want her spontaneous response to her surroundings, a response unfettered by the history of stylistic shticks and tricks that any artist working for a while has. Shorthand techniques are useful, but rely on them too much and your art becomes inert. Inert is the opposite of what I want my work to be.

My first numinous place is Peregrine Farm, in Alamance County, about 30 minutes from my house.  This is land owned by friends of ours, Alex and Betsy Hitt, who have farmed it for 35 years.  Their place exerts a pull you'd have to call spiritual. Here there is natural and human-made beauty, order, and, though it's a mightily productive farm, here there is peace. 

The things Alex and Betsy grow are of a rare quality, both in taste and in appearance. Terroir is at work here. It is a concept usually applied to wine, but I think it explains so much about anything alive and issuing from the earth.  

noun ter·roir \ˌter-ˈwär\

1. :  the combination of factors including soil, climate, and sunlight that gives [....] distinctive character

 

I want to embody (literally!) in my art this phenomenon of terroir, a distant country cousin to the ch'i, and to do so, I start with la terre itself, the soil.

Soil is our everyday experience of our earth, whether we are just trodding on it or working it for a purpose.  This spring I have been digging soil, collecting rocks, and making my own paint out of that very earth where the Peregrine lettuce and the flowers and the peppers grow.

This is my first time making  paint and I feel like a magician.

 I am bowled over by the granulation of my paints made from the earth! I could make them more refined, but then I would lose what I love most... a sense of the paint's/soil's essential nature and energy. 

  

 Soil into paint is just the beginning. I'm also making drawing tools and materials out of found objects, like the incidentally formed charcoal Alex led me to in his 35-year-old burned brush pile.

Here is a sketch of Big Branch, a tributary of the Haw River that provides one of Peregrine Farm's boundary lines. Sitting on a large rock in the middle of the creek, I drew with a piece of burned blueberry bush from Alex's ash pile. Later, I will make ink out of some of those ashes and I will draw with it, too. 

More blueberry bush charcoal put to work:

In keeping with the many possibilities of Beginner's Mind, I am branching out in lots of directions. In early May, I made use of rainwater I collected and the sun to produce my own images of Betsy's gorgeous anemones:

Mixed media: watercolor and rainwater:

Cyanotype: sun and anemones:

I'm at the beginning of Beginner's Mind, on this Places path. I'm where I need to be.

 

I'll be back soon with more images from Peregrine Farm and some thoughts about origins. Happy June to you!

2016: Time out. Time in. Begin again.

 

It’s late for my yearly post about my art (art AND life. I don't separate them any longer) plans for the new year.  That’s because I am moving into a new phase, one in which there are no clear roads and goals.

And that, for me now, is a GOOD thing. Control? Let it go.

The primary direction I’ll be taking, as I hoped it would be last year, will be inner.  The work I’ll be making will come from me and not for jobs. There are millions of people who can make illustrations, but there is only one person who can paint the paintings that are inside me, waiting to take shape and draw breath. 

Of course, this is close to what I said LAST year:

and some from the year before. I got off my intended track, but that, too, is life. Nothing is lost. I learned a lot.

As for my work, I (almost) don’t have a clue what’s waiting to be born and therein lies the excitement as well as the anxiety. I have the mountain series in mind, as with last year, and I’m going to get back to it. But maybe re-addressing this idea, to this point not fully realized, is itself just a step along the way, maybe it will point me in other directions, whatever and wherever they are.

 

To support this inward journey, I’m doing all sorts of things: meditating daily, reading widely on the topic of mindfulness meditation and lovingkindness meditation, books by Tara Brach and Pema Chödrön. I’m taking a year-long online course called Foundations of Wellbeing by Rick Hanson, author of another of my favorite books, Buddha’s Brain. I’m thrilled by all that we are learning about the brain and Rick Hanson, as a noted neuropsychologist and author of several books, is in the forefront of that field.

I’m walking a lot, as usual, working out, and eating really healthy things, even healthier than I always have.

I’m trying to demote myself from Type A to Type C, or at least to Type B-. My immune system is not fond of stress.

I’m continuing to keep my journal, my Big Fat Black Journal, as I call it. As I've said so many times, it is my true lifeline, connecting me with my deeper self and with all the richness as well as the scary awfulness of this world we share.

 

I’ll still be illustrating some, but only those things that speak to me, that make me happy, and that aren’t so time-consuming that I’m knocked sideways. Here's my illustration for the current issue of Charleston Style & Design. I'm working on another for the spring issue, even as we speak. The people there are a joy to work with.

 

I’ll be teaching some drawing classes and leading sketching sessions at the Nasher Museum again. My focus in the fall series will be drawing with nontraditional materials.

 

Some of my work will be in two books to be published this year. More details as I know them.

I’ll be experimenting some with making my own paints and pigments and drawing materials and supports from natural materials. This interest comes from my growing awareness of the importance of place to me.  I would like to draw and paint with the materials that are literally derived from the numinous places of my life. And I’m going to travel to some of those numinous places, too.

 

I’m taking a silk-screen workshop and I’m keeping my antennae up for other new learning experiences, new ways to make art.

 

It’s 2016 and this is my one and only life. I’m raising my hand now and I’m saying, “Here.”

 

Happy 2016 to you. May you find peace, love, fulfillment this year and every year.

December in Bavaria: my sketches and good wishes to you!

Happy end of 2015 and happy tomorrow and the new year! I am just getting this post in in the nick of time... before the clock delivers us to 2016 in this part of the world! The sketches from our trip to Bavaria earlier this month are a fitting way for me to end this year's blog posts. We LOVED being in that part of the world. It is where I spent some of the happiest moments of my childhood and now, of my adulthood. We have already made plans to go back next December. It is not the home of my deep heart the way Norway is, but it is important to me, emotionally, aesthetically, and intellectually. Magnificent natural beauty! History! Great art and architecture! Interesting food and drink! Yes to Bavaria! And Austria, too! I'm not through with you yet!

Oh, the delicious confections in Munich! We succumbed, often.

The rococco grotto at the Residenz Museum in Munich wowed me with its rich textures and quirky figures!

Garmisch-Partenkirchen is a place personally important to me. David and I spent the day there, wandering, sketching, eating, drinking. Of course!

 

More Bavarian dining and sketching:

And just a quick sketch of the mountain shapes that thrilled me there. I have more of these. They will provide lots of visual and emotional information for later paintings.

I am so excited about 2016. I will tell more in the next few days. Happy, happier, happiest new year to all of you!