Monoprint Madness!

The day after Christmas, there was no way in hell I was going anywhere near a retail establishment. As far as my domestic chores, I had decided the dust bunnies weren’t going anywhere and I needed to have some art time.

First, I finished off my volunteer sign-painting project (I put the free in freelance). Whew. What a relief to put that behind me. Then, I was free to unleash the dam of creativity that had been held back by obligation and holiday festivities (not complaining—just sayin') for what had felt like forever.

While in my self-imposed art deprivation period, I’d been thinking on what to do next. At first, I was craving the sensual pushing around of paint that acrylic affords. I had purchased some new brushes just before Christmas that were aching to be used and I was dying to try out. New brushes are a big deal for me. I have some—now that I think of it—that date back to brick-sized cell phones and the dark days before the internet (gasp). 

Despite the call of the brushes, deep down I really wanted to go back to experimenting with monoprints and monotypes. And so I did. 

Remember the boot? Well, it was time to put that drawing to use. I came across a technique where the paper is taped to one side of the plate. This maintains a static position so you can transfer multiple layers of registered color to the paper. From there, it’s FM (freaking magic), as you attempt find the perfect balance between paint, paper, and their respective moisture levels.

It's hard to tell, but my drawing is sitting under a plate of glass.

I started with a piece of glass as my plate. I painted the plate with watercolor, flopped the paper onto the plate and rubbed the back of the sheet vigorously. My first efforts were less than stellar. 

The paper wasn’t taking the paint. Instead of flowing onto the paper (like the book where I got the idea), it was mooshing it around on the surface of the plate and leaving weird sucked up pools of color.

Oh crap. This isn't working very well.

It was time to break out a more viscous paint. Unfortunately I had my oil-based printing inks mixed in with my water-based inks. Oops. No wonder I couldn't wash the color out of that brush. Yet this material faux pas became a happy accident as I discovered the oil-based paint was adhering better to the paper. Another oops—in my enthusiastic rubbing of the paper, I managed to crack my glass plate in half.

OK, you might not believe this, but now we're starting to get somewhere.

Once I’d done all the printing and plate damage I could do, I went back into the piece with Prismacolor, a waxy pencil that can fix a multitude of misprints and art accidents. I like the vibrant color and dramatic values.

10ish" X 12ish"
The fine blue line across the pole is where the plate cracked. Yikes.
This was printed on a heavy laid-pattern watercolor paper. See how the texture shines through?

Next, using a piece of Plexiglas for my plate, I redrew the image (backwards) directly on the surface with a litho crayon (think grease pencil or China Marker). I painted the image with turpentine to melt the lines and added tone with highly diluted oil paint. 

New plate, new technique.

After several impressions to develop the form and value, I set the print aside to dry and then tinted it with watercolor.

12" X 16" - Monoprint
I love the loose drawing-like quality of this piece. I also like that it is not backwards from my original drawing.

 

On the final piece, I brushed oil paint onto the plate in a thick layer. I blotted, wiped, and scraped away the paint; then, added value with washes of thinned paint. The blue in the background is also diluted oil color. I refined the image slightly with a litho crayon and watercolor.

12" X 16" - Monotype
I think this one is my favorite. Remember, with monotypes, there is only one. Each time, the image was re-drawn.

 It was a delightful afternoon of experimentation. By dinnertime, I was covered with paint up to my elbows with several smears decorating my cheeks. I was akin to a pig deep in a trough, paint flying instead of slop—although that might be debated by some. Ahhh. It was good, good fun. 

Until next year,
S

Out of My Element

This time of year, it’s more likely that I’m painting frosting on cookies than applying paint to canvas. Holiday prep takes away much of my art time—although I'm not complaining—I love the holidays, but I get a little crazy when I don’t have my studio time.

This year, in addition to the normal holiday activities, I have a volunteer project that is keeping me busy. I’m painting a sign that will be mounted on a small billboard at the entrance of town. The billboard welcomes folks to town and also serves as the gateway to our new Village Hike and Bike Trail.

Had I been asked to design and paint a woodsy kind of sign that represented our little mountain community, I would have been the perfect gal for the job. This project, however, is outside my skill set. It involves enlarging and recreating a sticker that declares Wrightwood as the Land of Four Seasons. Having “real weather” and trees that change color attracts a lot of people to our town—and that’s why we love it here.

Well, I must say this project has been a struggle. The stylized pine tree in the middle was a snap, but the fine serif lettering encircling it—not so much. I have some major performance anxiety going on with this project. It’s not the people in cars whizzing by that will notice my lame vibrato letters, it’s the walkers who will pause and say, “Boy, they sure didn't hire a very good sign painting company for this.”

My hope is to finish it up this weekend. Paint, touch-up, and repaint—repeat as necessary—until the type looks like type instead of burbles. So, until the paint fumes start to get to me, I'll keep at it.

Meanwhile, that boot has been on my mind. The golden highlights of the sun where it lights the leather, the tidy eyelets, and the toe—molded by sweat into the shape of the wearer’s foot, scuffed by hard use. I know it will be an acrylic painting, because I'm craving the texture of paint pushed around by a stiff brush. Plus, I have some new brushes I’m dying to try out.

Sometimes my best paintings are the ones that burst forth after art deprivation periods. This year our last holiday hurrah is Christmas Eve (Quiche-mas Brunch for friends and family), after which we will enjoy a quiet Christmas day at home—just the two of us. If we’re lucky, it will snow. Clint will curl up on the couch with a book and I’ll head up to the studio for some creative time.

Cheers!

I Draw Everything But Flies

  
I think I first knew I wanted to be an artist when I was in second grade. When I finished coloring the cornucopia the teacher had mimeographed on the construction-paper cover of our Thanksgiving “What I'm Thankful For” booklet, I was quite impressed by my use of color and careful outlining of each component. It was so lovely, I wrote on the cover, just below the image: “For Sale”. I was thinking I could get about four bucks for it.

A few years later, when I was about 11, while working on my Animals in Pastel series, brightly colored cartoon-like images that flouted the conventions of realistic color, I declared to my parents that I was going to be an artist. My dad had a big grin on his face and said, “I have the perfect slogan to put on your signs.”

As soon as he said that, I knew it was going to be something embarrassing—or horrifying, or scary, or disgusting. I was an extremely sensitive child—overly so—I’m sure my family would say. My dad was an earthy, salty guy who came from the wrong side of the tracks as a kid. He didn’t pull any punches and called a spade a spade. Although I loved him dearly, he was a constant source of mortification for me. I never knew what he was going to say next—or to whom.

“I draw everything but flies,” he said, after a dramatic pause. Of course he was teasing, but I was beside myself. “Dad, I can't put that on my signs. That’s weird!”

The consummate salesman, he proceeded to outline the benefits of such a clever saying. I squirmed and murmured something acquiescent, but inside, I was not convinced, and determined that I would find a way to NOT show him my signs, which would NOT be tarnished by such a crude slogan.

And so today, I do pretty much draw everything but flies (having grown up terrified that if I did not bathe frequently enough, that prophecy would come true). Although most of the works I’ve shared with you are paintings, often there is a great deal of drawing that goes on in the development of a piece.

Drawing is the way to figure things out, understand the shapes, the light, and relationship of the two to one another. Drawing helps me figure out my composition and often leads me to the medium I will choose. In the background as I sketch, I’m thinking about which method and medium will take me where I want to go. Do I want to push around acrylic paint to create texture, flow brilliant transparent color across a page, or scrape away ink from a plate to create a less refined image?

There are times when the drawing stage is very short. I know exactly where I want to go and with which medium. Other times, I'm drawing and re-drawing for a while until finally, I feel I'm ready to move to the next step. Occasionally, I get stuck mid-painting, and have to stop to do another drawing to work out the problem spot.

Here's my current study, a boot someone slipped over a post on a gate at a cemetery out in the middle of nowhere. It seemed like a funny place to leave a boot, that's for sure. Once upon a time it wasn't nowhere; it was the Kern County Seat. Now it’s just a wide place in the road, known as Havilah. It's in the mountains between Bakersfield and Tehachapi along a road that winds through classic California hills sprinkled with oaks.

I’m not sure where I’m going with this yet, but when I get there, I’ll share it with you.

A Different View

We wound our way through the outer edges of Durango, past houses framed by woods and snuggled up to sweet meadows gone golden, where deer gave us just a glance, and dropped their heads once more to graze quietly.

We were ooo'ing and ahhh'ing and dreaming—as usual—about winning the lotto and buying a place with some land around it. There would be a really big garden for me, and a workshop for Clint. Maybe some chickens and a few goats. 

The road took a sharp bend and rose over an old stone bridge softened by lichens in every shade of green. A plaque declared gold had been discovered there a long time ago. The road found the highway and we headed north to Silverton.

The road between Durango and Silverton is a picture postcard the entire way. We’re talking a John Denver song kind of landscape. The mountains tower over thick stands of pine and aspen; a creamy fondant of snow covers all but a little of the ground and ridges. The exposed rock and patches of soil are a warm and rich contrast in the morning sun.

I have never seen aspens bunched as thickly as those we saw along this road: straight, smooth, and bright, with warm halos of tiny naked branches, dense as hair. I imagined the trees in spring, an intense swath of green, glowing against the red and gold earth.

The shapes of these mountains are very different from the ones at home; stacked plates of sandstone, instead of shards of schist. These are old mountains that have seen many things and have many stories to tell.

How do you take something that grand and postcard-like and paint it so it’s new? How do you transform it from a Scenes-of-America calendar image or set it apart from the “Great Photos You Must See” e-mails?

I can't tell you how many paintings of aspens I saw in Colorado and Arizona; and they all looked the same. I know I’ve painted “the aspens” in the same way. But, once you’ve done that and gotten it out of your system, it’s time to move on to new ways of expressing things that have been painted a billion times in the same way—that is if you want to grow as an artist.

There are plenty of artists who find a theme that appeals to the masses and proceed to paint the same subject over and over—simply because they can sell the crap out of these cookie cutter paintings and make millions (treacle-y storybook cottages with glowing windows and heavy-bodied Native American women studying pottery come to mind).

As for me, I’m still working on that puzzle—growing as an artist, not painting cottages—and probably will be for the rest of my life.

When I approached this subject, I decided to break the larger image into four small canvases (5" X 5"). It’s a quadtych. Kind of like a diptych, only doubled. I wanted to make each painting stand on it’s own AND work as a unit. I know it's a little hard to see here, and they need a few finishing touches, so you'll just have to come to my next show to see the final result. What do you think?

Blowing on the Coals

Beneath the Willows

Watercolor + Ink

9" X 12"

Coming back to a painting that's gone cold is like coming back to a plate of food after a long unexpected but important phone call has interrupted your dinner. The enthusiasm when you first sat down is lost when you return to the once appealing, now congealing meal.
 

Nonetheless, one has to give it the old college try—especially when you have a promising start on a piece. It's always fun to start a painting, but when time is short and you are dealing with the distractions that come with plein-air painting (like bugs, wind, and darkness), you are sometimes forced to set a piece aside before it's well established. That’s what happened here. It was cool, windy, and the sun was going down—so it was getting colder. I had to call it quits because I was shivering and my bottom was getting numb from sitting on the damp soil.

This piece was beyond cold. It was a dry, shrunken crust on the creative dinner plate. I won’t even show you the before painting, because it is so different from the result. The piece started out loose and filled with rich, warm colors. It became cooler upon my return to it—literally and figuratively. I found myself reaching back through thick cobwebs to remember the color and the value that I had not quite captured. I tried to put myself back into the mood of the place and recapture what first inspired me to sit in that spot beneath the willows at Lone Pine Creek.

I’m not sure that this painting will make the final cut, but I thought I would share it anyway. A little view behind the curtain at one of the pieces I’m not sure I would call a success. I’ll put it away and look at it again in a month or two, though it may end up in the collage pile. We’ll see.

I hope this does not portend another dry spell, because I’ve plenty of inspiring photos to work from after our recent trips. I guess I’m not sure what I want to do next. I’ll just have to head up to the studio and see where my art takes me next.

Finding the Center

When I first saw the bands of color the old ones would watch from their hilltop, I felt it in my center, a vibration of excitement just below my breastbone. I felt this was a place of important beginnings.

The landscape rolling by was a handful of sticks from my favorite box of pastels. Dusty and crisp and brilliant: red earth, dotted with velvet junipers anchored by inky shadows, glowing sage, and sun-bleached yellow grasses, lighting the rolling hills spattered with lava and sandstone. So much more than any photo or painting could ever say.

We came to the place where the old ones lived and prayed. Stone terraces where they watched the light change on the mesas and wondered if there would be enough food for the winter. Would there be enough rain?  

Only whispers of their spirits remained, though. All but a trace had been wiped away by the “new ones” in microfiber, pushing strollers, while dragging children who cried for sodas. Some of the essence had been erased by the government, who re-mortared the rocks to “mitigate liability”, thereby sterilizing the experience to make it safe for the masses.

Near the quiet end of what should have been earth, but was an asphalt skin, we escaped the new ones who didn’t want to stray too far from the parking area. It was there we found the crack in the earth. It was there, that I smelled my mother and felt her breath blow blissfully in my face.

Although bricked over and grated to protect the public from their own stupid selves, we encountered the blow hole—an opening into a deep place in the earth where a cavity  exists that reacts to barometric pressure. When the barometric pressure is high, air rushes out of the gap. When the pressure is low and the earth’s crust relaxes, the gap sucks air into the earth.

That’s the science, but for me, it was a deep, spiritual experience. I felt my mother. I smelled her. I felt her life force, her energy, her love. Not the woman that carried me into this world, but my mother, the earth. The mother I cling to that nourishes me and keeps me grounded. 

Another One Behind Us

Well, we made it through another show. The lights and easels have been put away, and other than we’ll be eating leftover egg rolls for the next couple of weeks, things are pretty much back to normal around here.

There’s always a little bit of a let down when it’s all over. I’m a little lost, feeling as if I should be doing something, like cleaning or labeling, or wiping down frames or cutting up vegetables, or scrubbing bathrooms.

As I’ve mentioned, the closer we are to the show, the tighter I’m wound up. Adding to my pre-show anxiety, on Friday, the day before the show, we got three inches of snow. Yes, snow. Southern California city folk are known for freaking out about weather and we were expecting a passel of flatlanders (as we mountain folk affectionately call them). Attendance could end up being mighty skimpy.

Would they still show up? Local news was turning this little bit of early snow into the storm of the century. A news crew from one of the L.A. stations had been camped out in the grocery store parking lot for two days waiting for the storm. They kept asking residents if they thought it was going to snow. One of our local ladies responded, “Hell if I know. Ask the guy upstairs!” The reporter looked at her blankly, wondering who this guy was and where this “upstairs” place was.

Luckily, my fears were unfounded. We had a great turn out and people stayed and stayed. Just the way we like it.

Anyway, back to the show…I experienced something odd this year. I’m not one of those artists who have a problem selling my paintings. Some artists are reluctant to part with their “babies”, but I paint so darn much that I’m always running out of space. I have to sell them—or move to a warehouse—and that’s not going to happen. Of course, I have a stronger attachment to some pieces more than others, but in the end, I’d really rather share them with others.

This year was different though. I definitely felt a pang when a couple of my Mt. Whitney pieces were carried out the door. The hugeness of that entire experience had spilled out of my soul and into those paintings. The sweat, guts, anxiety, and exhilaration—plus a chunk of my heart—it was all there in the art I made.

Yet, here is the best and most amazingly cosmic part: some of these paintings were purchased as gifts for a young couple that hiked Mt. Whitney just one month before us. They too had trained hard for more than a year. It was a huge accomplishment for them too. How perfect is that?

It seems so right that so many of the pieces went to kindred spirits.

A Quick Message from My Evil Twin

Domeland Sunset

9" X 12"

Monotype

We are less than two days away from the show and my evil twin is here cursing and whining and growling as we prepare. This behavior will take place right up until the first guest arrives, when she (the evil one, not the guest) will magically melt away, and the sweet and pleasant me once again takes control. Because then, it’s all gravy, baby. I drink champagne, visit with long lost friends, and get to know new ones. We have fun and if I’m lucky, a few people buy my paintings.

In the meantime, in my never-ending search to overdo it and tendency to freak out about wanting everything to be perfect, I drive myself and everyone around me (Clint) a little crazy. In the end, it all turns out fine (I just keep telling myself that).

This week I had only a nanosecond of art time. Remember the Domeland Wilderness? This is one of the monoprints I did when I first returned, filled with memory and spirit of the burnt, silvery, and twisted Diva trees that watch over the Domeland.

The color was inspired by the heart-tickling sunset we witnessed the second night we were there. That day, as we hiked down from Church Dome, in the distance, bruised clouds dumped rain in a ring around us. 

When we returned to camp and started dinner, the sun disappeared and we had a spattering of rain—nothing more. As the sun dropped, peeking between the cloud layer and the horizon, the world filled with orange and violet light. Occasional flickers of lightning backlit the trees.

We rushed out to the open meadow to watch the show. Then, the clouds shifted and a lavender rain shower veiled the sun, which still cast its brilliant color further west where the clouds had cleared. We watched the light and color show until dark and tramped back to camp to sit by the fire—until the moon rose (that’s another story).

It had to be one of my top ten best ever sunsets.

The Artist's Muse

 "His Right Foot"

Pencil and Ink

8" X 10"

About a year before we were married, my art show included some watercolor paintings of Clint, sans clothing. I wished I’d photographed them, because I thought they were exquisite (said without a shred of modesty). They were small paintings, only 4" X 6". Both were somewhat abstract with one capturing the curve of his hip, and the other his chest. The color was rich, the rendering loose, and the passion quite evident.

I was a little short of work that year, having spent more time with Clint than my art materials. On a whim, I put them on display. Very different from much of my work, they caught the eye of our neighbors, who bought them for the townhouse they were decorating.* I was delighted—because they liked them—but sad at the same time, because these pieces came from the heart and I would miss them.

Of course, the question came up (with the answer most likely known), as to who posed for these pieces. I smiled like the cat with the canary in its mouth and said, "Clint, of course."

Later during a lull in the show, I told Clint. He was horrified. "You told them it was me?"

"Well sweetie, I think they pretty well figured that out on their own," I replied. “And if I'm going to use you as a model, people ARE going to see you naked in my paintings."

Clint had posed for me a few times. However, there was one small problem, I couldn't get him to sit still long enough. He'd try, that's for sure; book in hand, he'd find a comfy position on the futon in the studio, but he just couldn't stay in one position. And I couldn't work fast enough to capture anything before he'd move.

At one point, I tried to focus on his feet, which were benignly hanging off the end of the couch. To my dismay, they moved more than anything else did: jiggling, shifting, stretching, and rubbing one another, ankles twisting, toes pointing and then flexing. I never knew feet could move that much when “at rest”. I decided, as much as I wanted to use him as a model, I would just have to paint him from still shots of my memory.

Anyhoo, back to the show…later that day, a quiet and tiny woman in her 70s that we invited also commented on the paintings, which now bore a “sold” sign. Whenever we would see her around town, she’d light up and say, “Hi Clint!” It was actually very cute and touching. She greeted him up on her tiptoes in excitement, bouncing like a teenager with a crush. She always looked at me vaguely, trying to remember my name. Clint and what’s-her-face. Very nice woman, but I'm sure she came to the show to see Clint.

I told her the story about the paintings and how Clint was so adorably embarrassed by the neighbors knowing it was him—and my response to him about being known as my model. In her soft southern accent she said, “Ah'm sure he has a very nice physique.” I assured her he did.

* By the way, these neighbors have been huge supporters of my art, having purchased several pieces. Thanks, Neighbors!

Another Magical Moon

 Moonset

Watercolor

9" X 12"

When we returned to Lone Pine, the gods smiled down on us with a near full moon, just starting to wane. We’ve had wonderful moon karma on our trips, and this trip was no exception.

Just as we settled into our sleeping bags, after inhaling a meal of fresh grilled trout and enjoying a spell of spectacular star watching, the moon rose magically in the exact center of the window of our tent. It was as though the cosmos had led us to pitch our tent in the perfect spot to frame the moon.

Once a few years ago, a similar event happened when we were camped at Valley of Fire in Nevada. An enormous golden moon rose from the perfect center of a prominent notch in the rocks that surrounded the bowl where we were camped. It was astounding and beautiful. And although the moon had risen from that notch many times throughout time, we were lucky enough to be there that very night to see it happen.

—

The next morning in Lone Pine, high thin clouds gave us an all day show as the wind pushed and pulled them into interesting shapes. It made the light soft and gentled the heat of the sun. As the moon made its way across the sky, just before it dropped behind the ridge I quickly broke out my watercolors and did this painting.

It was a divine trip.