The Ruins of Wide Ruin

Wide Ruin

12" X 9"

Watercolor

We exited I-40, the drab road that shows you the turned backs of little towns. If you never got off the freeway, you’d never see the pretty faces, only the stone backs of towns fringed by gas stations and sad restaurants struggling by on people passing through.

North we went, into the Navaho nation.  It felt good to get off the freeway.

“Just a few more miles to the turn-off,” I told Clint after consulting the map. We weren’t far from the freeway and already the scenery had improved. The flat dry earth transformed into gentle rolling hills with folds of green grasses‑-the shrubs and trees just beginning to set energized buds of brilliant green.

We were going to Wide Ruin: a place where a once well-known trading post had been. We followed an old truck, plodding along slower than necessary. The curves and bumps in the road prevented us from passing. We came upon “The Turn-Off”, a dirt road angling off to the right.

“Maybe there’s a new one now, maybe they rebuilt it; it’s been years since it burned down,” said Clint. 

Wide Ruin is known for a specific style of rug weaving: pieces with bands of earthy colors, bound by narrow, contrasting rows to delineate the color shifts. I’d come to know the attributes and appreciate the subtle beauty of these weavings under Clint’s tutelage.

The road was bumpy, with deep tire ruts squished into the surface after the last rain. A few side grooves still held water, while the center was a map of deep cracks. The truck ahead of us had turned off on the same road. The driver sped up, now more comfortable with the rugged road close to home.

The track curved back around to the north and down into a dip. Here we found these adobe ruins. Were these the remains of the trading post? Or, the ugly leftovers of an Indian school? Was this a place where they force-fed Christianity and took away the People's culture, their language?

I was captivated by the long shadows, the brilliance of the sun, and the faded-to-a-memory adobe walls.

“Stop! Stop! I have to take a picture!”

Though I’d hoped for a dusty surprise of a trading post, this was all we found in Wide Ruin. The map showed the road was supposed to loop back to the highway, but all we found was a school with warning signs that demanded we register at the office. We turned around, drove back past the ruins of Wide Ruin, and bumped our way back to the highway.

A Left Turn

Distant Dreams

9" X 12"

Mixed Media

 
This piece ended up a long way from where it started. Is it a monotype, mixed media, or both? There's so much mix of the media, I'm leaning toward the latter.

I'd been dreaming about using the creamy printmaking paper and sepia ink I had on hand. So, I pulled out a metal plate, rolled a gooey layer of ink over it, and began scraping away the pigment to create the image. It was a water-based ink, which turned out to be runny and messy. As I scraped, the ink stubbornly flowed back into place. It was taking so long, I ended up wiping out some of the ink so that I could manage to make a print sometime before Christmas. By the time I was ready to put it on the etching press, there was more ink on me than the plate.

I gently placed the plate face up on the bed of the press, centering the beloved paper over the image (without adding too many fingerprints!). Then, I flopped the padding over the top of it and cranked the drum down so it would apply pressure to the ink-paper sandwich. A few good turns one way, then the next, and it was time for the reveal.

Oh my. It was a blurry mess. In printmaking, you dampen the paper to soften it and make it more receptive to your medium. There's a fine line between damp and too damp. I kinda over did it.

Yet I didn't give up on it (dang that paper is expensive!). After it dried a bit I went back in with watercolor to tint it here and there. Then I broke out the prismacolor pencils to bring back a little of the detail I'd lost.

I think I was able to save it. What do you think?

Rejoicing in Spring

 

Desert Mallow

9" X 12"

Watercolor

When in Vegas, some people gamble, see shows, or do things they can't talk about after they leave. Me? I paint. I leave the gaudy strip of decadence behind and head out to Red Rock Canyon. It is a peaceful place with hiking trails, a fabulous visitor’s center, and plenty of places to stop and take in the scenery. As far as I’m concerned, it’s the hottest spot in Vegas.

This trip, I only had about three hours of free time, so I passed on visiting one of my favorite places along the way, Cactus Joe’s (a story in itself), in favor of getting in as much painting time as possible. I stopped at a picnic area near the park entrance, tromped off the asphalt, and found a reasonably flat rock, where I set up my gear for painting.

It was one of those perfect spring days: the first of the spring flowers were blooming and the crisp blue sky’s fluffy clouds cast dramatic shadows across the rusty monoliths that frame the canyon. The changing light was stunning, making my tummy tingle with joy. I was so wrapped up in watching the shadows change I forgot to take photos.

For my subject, I settled on a nearby Desert Mallow erupting with small, but brilliant orange blossoms. Most of the year, you wouldn’t give Mallow a second glance. The tightly crinkled dusty leaves, designed to hold on to every bit of moisture, aren’t much to look at. However, in early spring, while there is still moisture left in the ground from winter, they unfurl and soften—just a little—complementing the blooms that bob in the breeze. The flowers are an airy and delicate contrast to the sparse stems and leaves.

Spring is slow to come to Wrightwood. Though the apple trees are blooming and the daffodils are about done, Mother Nature can throw us a snowstorm without warning just to humble us. In early spring, I crave blossoms and budding sprouts of lime green.

This heavenly day was cut shorter than anticipated, yet I still had enough time to complete this watercolor. The next day, we were heading to Flagstaff and on to Durango, where I was inspired by a well-known local artist that has me pondering my next painting…

Roadside Canvas

 Roadside Canvas

12" X 9"

Mixed Media

This is a departure from my usual subject matter. Though I love old, broken down buildings, I do not draw or paint them very often. 

Once, when I was in visiting my grandparents in Pennsylvania, I took dozens of photos of dilapidated barns and farmhouses. My grandpa finally said to me, "You know I could take you by some nice barns that aren't all worn out if you want some good photos."

"No, Papa. That's OK. I like the old ones."

This piece is a mix of watercolor, acrylic, and colored pencil—and yes, I used opaque white. It's a small piece, so I needed the pencil to help capture the detail and the white paint for contrast against the warm weathered brick and stone.

It is an old Standard Oil gas station on Highway 160 at Cow Springs on the Navaho Nation. I tried to find out more about it, but all I found were a bajillion photos of the ruins taken over the years by people on their way somewhere else. 

Some day I'd like to stop and look around rather than frantically snapping photos while whizzing by at 65 mph. We too, were on our way to Colorado, racing against the daylight, so there was no stopping for photos.

Like this old station, I'm at a crossroads once again, not sure where I want to go next with my art. We were planning a camping trip where I hoped to get some plein air* painting in, but we had to cancel it. Sigh. I get some of my greatest inspiration on our trips to the wide-open spaces.

However, I have plenty of images for inspiration right here at home. And some lovely creamy printmaking paper that is begging me to take another run at monoprinting. I’m thinking about what I might do with some sepia ink and that yummy paper…if only I could go up to the studio right now. 

* We do have a road trip planned in the near future where I hope to spend time sitting in the dirt with my watercolors.

An Echo and Musings on White

Church Rock Echo

10" X 8"

Acrylic on Paper

If repetition is good for the soul, as they say, then I'm doing some good soul building. These days I have the urge to explore the same subject in multiple ways. I wonder why? Is there is more to learn? Is it that I can't let go of the subject until I've painted it out of my system? So it is with Church Rock. It's stuck in my head like a bad commercial jingle; only I’m content to let it stay there a while.

My second run at the rock resulted in an acrylic painting on watercolor paper. It is much smaller than the first piece, only 10" X 8" as opposed to 24" X 18". I think it packs a punch in its own diminutive way.

Acrylic on paper is a lot of fun. You can get rich, dark tones without tedium of building it up in layers of watercolor, which always tends to dry lighter than expected. Acrylic affords the delight of transparent colors and glazes, yet you don't have to worry about lifting color or overworking the paper. And, one of my favorite things, you can break the art rules by adding white back into a piece—something strictly verboten in watercolor. Oh, you can do it. But there are risks.

I knew a guy the art police put away for years for that—using opaque white in a watercolor piece. But then, he was an illustrator and they just can't help themselves. Illustrators use whatever it takes to achieve an effect: coffee, ashes, onion skins, gauche, carbon dust—wildly combining media and whatever is at hand. I trained as an illustrator, so I can say these things. I've combined all kinds of odds and ends to render something just right.

The White Thing was big around the art department when I was in college. On the fine art side of the fence they rallied for the purity of the materials. There was no integration of transparent and opaque paint. There were a few rule-breakers, but the purists ruled the land in those days.

On the other side of the debate, the devil-may-care illustration gang—always looking for new ways to combine materials that broke “the rules”.

My studies stuck me between the two camps. I felt vaguely guilty when working on my illustration projects—the fine art police at the back of my mind. Yet, illustration gave me the freedom that fine art forbade. I lived in two worlds.

Sometime after college, I decided it was worth the risk to use white in a watercolor piece, which led me to experiment with acrylic on paper. My first piece was waterfall in a deeply shaded canyon. It was the perfect subject for acrylic on paper. The rocks were painted loosely and transparently. The shadows moved from transparent layers to deep opacity. And then, I gleefully painted the waterfall in opaque whites tempered by transparent blues. It was wonderfully brilliant against the background, with all the drama an illustration can muster, yet appropriately fine artly executed.

I grew more confident. Sure, I had some terrible failures, but I learned how to judiciously use opaque white in my works on paper. I then realized it was not the art police that I needed to fear. The anti-white edict was for our own protection. It was to make us better artists, to grow our skills with transparent media. To teach us joy in the purity of the white of the paper, to appreciate the texture, luminance, and interplay of light. It taught us to mix the perfect value and apply the paint mindfully.

And so, while thinking on the path of white/no white, I started a new watercolor. I knew going in I would need to mix media to create the right texture, because the subject takes me into new ground: a decrepit building scrawled with graffiti. The basic painting is there. The question now is what media will I introduce to get where I want to go without creating something I’ll have to toss into the trash…