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The Pine Tree

3/1/2021

2 Comments

 
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The Pine Tree

"The Pine Tree" - charcoal and acrylic on Arches 300 lb watercolor paper, 15" x 22".  Available here and at Artfinder

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Come to me pine tree and we will never part

We'll put our roots down deep in each other's heart
from The Pine Tree by Johnny Cash



A recent walk through Powell Butte Nature Park has me filled with the scent of pine.  So many trees and branches of those great giants were on the forest floor after the big melt, and pine essence just saturated the atmosphere.  It was aroma-palooza!

So that prompted me to finalize this abstracted landscape, which was begun two posts ago with a double 3 minute sketch (two pieces at once using charcoal and water).  This stooped pine was from a hike on Silver Star Mountain, where the snow lay heavily on everything, making slouched figures from trees, long arms from branches, and a visual feast of sparkle in the sunlight.
For this piece, I decided to stick with a limited color palette: ultramarine blue, raw umber, titanium white and a small drop of dioxazine purple (which happened to be leftover and still wet on my paint palette).  The majority is painted with a wide, wet brush, with a bit of squeegee, some finger painting, and a small brush for a few finishing touches.  

It is a serene, simple piece.  Evocative of the hush and solitude of the mountain in winter, with nary a soul but my sister and me.

Note: demo video has an audio soundtrack!  Turn on the volume. :)
2 Comments

Learning to Be Astonished

2/25/2021

4 Comments

 
"Learning to be Astonished" - acrylic and charcoal on arches 300 lb watercolor paper, 15" x 22".  Available here and at Artfinder.

My work is loving the world...
Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me
Keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,
Which is mostly standing still and learning to be astonished.
--Mary Oliver from The Messenger


I am learning to be astonished.

Not by the state of the world, or politics or pandemics, which filled my astonishment quota in the past.  No, I am learning to be astonished by everything else.   By the evening light filtering through gnarled, bare trees.  By the tender green shoots springing up through ice and snow.  By the feel of a hand in mine.  Astonished by words of encouragement, a sweet smile from a stranger or a dog who gently ducks her head under my hand for a good rub.

I was too busy before to truly be astonished by these things.  I could see them, appreciate them.  But astonishment is new to me.  And there is space for it because I have slowed way down.
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Learning to Be Astonished
And isn't it lovely permission, Oliver's words, that our work is "mostly standing still and learning to be astonished"...permission to pause, savor, stand.  Let's stand here together, dear reader, in rapt astonishment. :)

About the art: Beginning with a Notan from a recent hike (and reader poll!  Thank you!) and applying the 3/5 rule for gestures with figures (3 minutes to capture the gist of it with charcoal and 5 min to lay in the values with a brush  water and titanium white).  Then deciding to do TWO at one time.  

The remainder of the piece was created with layers of acrylic paint, a water sprayer, layers of glaze (color diluted with matte medium) and a rubber wedge, paper towel, fingers and brushes.  Resisting the tiny details and heading toward abstraction, like standing on the edge of a cliff...is THIS too far?  How about THIS?  ha ha!
​

4 Comments

Start Close In

2/22/2021

4 Comments

 

"Start Close In" - acrylic on repurposed board, 11" x 26" x .75".  Ready to hang (sides are painting; no need to frame.  Hanging wire is attached)  Available here and at Artfinder.

Start close in,
don’t take
the second step
or the third,
start with the first
thing
close in,
the step
you don’t want to take.


Start with
the ground
you know,
the pale ground
beneath your feet,
your own
way to begin
the conversation.
from "Start Close In" by David Whyte
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Start Close In
This piece wasn't exactly supposed to happen.

​It began as a paint throwing (splattering, spreading, spraying, playing) experiment and then, as it tends to be, I saw a face in the paint.  A form, a pose,  a shape.  Honestly, one of a number of life drawing pose pics I've been contemplating was stuck in my head.  So I grabbed the paint (and not the camera, dang it) and just kept going.  

There is something about vulnerability in a male face, gesture, body, pose - that strength and softness in one that speaks to this tender hearted artist in loud voices that say PAINT ME.  And so, I did. :)
A pictorial history of the painting:
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4 Comments

Big Sky

2/18/2021

7 Comments

 
"Big Sky " - charcoal and acrylic on Arches 300 lb watercolor paper, 30" x 22".  Available here and at Artfinder.

That cloud, that cloud--
Looks like Ireland.
C'mon and blow it a kiss now
But quick
'Cause it's changing in the Big Sky
It's changing in the Big Sky now.
We're looking at the Big Sky.

from Big Sky by Kate Bush

​
The hiking skies have been dazzling lately.  It might be their penchant to blossom before big storms, or maybe it is just the art gods smiling down and providing photo inspiration for me.  Either way, I've been lucky enough to stand under some big skies.


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Big Sky
Whether it is a big sky over the ocean or a big sky on top of a mountain, my heart leaps and my eyes widen and I have to stop and ogle.  The thing about skies is - they change in a second.  The sunlight shifts, the clouds morph and move, the mists overcome the light...you have a second to capture that image.  Or an hour to stand slack-jawed and just watch its splendor.  It is the cure for many things, these big skies.  Go out there and get one for yourself.  Let me know what you see. :)

About the art:  using an inspiration photo turned into a notan from a recent hike, I decided to apply the 3 min gesture/5 min shadow paint technique I used in figures recently to an abstracted landscape.  This portion is captured in the GoPro video (left).  Then using a limited palette and building big sky and sea.   Painting with brushes, damp and paint-laden bunched up paper towels, rubber wedge, squeegee and fingers.  Liberal use of water spray..  Pushing and pulling lights and darks until...well, until the tension was resolved.   I am feeling much less tense now.  ha ha!
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notan
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charcoal and titanium white
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adding layers
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more layers
7 Comments

Robustly Vulnerable

2/15/2021

4 Comments

 
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Robustly Vulnerable
"Robustly Vulnerable" - charcoal and acrylic on Arches 300 lb watercolor paper, 22" x 30".  Sold.


In love we subvert the everyday structures of the life we had built so carefully and raze them to foundations on which a new, shared life can be built again. Unrequited love has its own form of fearful falling, but falling into a full felt and reciprocated love we face the most difficult, most revealing and most beautiful questions of all: are we large enough and generous enough and present enough; are we deserving enough, and ready enough and robustly vulnerable enough, to hold the joy, the future grief, and the overwhelming sense of privileged blessing that lies in that embrace? - DAVID WHYTE

I spend a lot of time contemplating vulnerability and its exquisiteness in relationships.  The moments I remember most in life are almost inevitably those when the inner self (my self, yourself, himself, herself) spills over and transforms the outer - with a touch, with a smile, with tears or becoming overwhelmed, undone, melted - and few people can describe the depth of that moment better than David Whyte.  This quote left me quite overwhelmed.  The idea of robust vulnerability - oh.

​This painting came about just before reading the quote.  I love when the universe does that - provides the words to describe what the paint revealed.


About the art:  beginning with a three minute gesture drawing in brown charcoal, then coming in with a wet brush and some titanium white acrylic paint to start forming the shadows and layers.  Resisting the urge to over-work the face and form - painting in from the outside to refine angles and shapes.  Liberal use of the water sprayer to provide texture.  Using the squeegee to drag the paint and blur harsh lines.  Walking away while some of the paper and charcoal are still showing.  Always chasing the elusive place where emotion and realism are just palpable on the edge of abstraction.
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4 Comments

Everyone is a Hunter

2/11/2021

4 Comments

 
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notans from hiking photos
Everyone is a hunter
Some hunt for love
Some hunt for independence
Some hunt for a sense of purpose
Some hunt for the truth
We shouldn’t be afraid of the hunt
Wherever it takes us
Or whatever it makes us
Find what matters

And keep hunting

(Source: something I watched on tv.  I was so busy writing down the dialogue that I forgot to write down the source.  ha! Whatever the source, the words are not mine)


This week I spent a lot of time hunting.  

Hunting for beauty, for light, for composition.  Hunting for that feeling you get when you've pushed your body a little beyond what it wants to do.  Hunting for sun on my face, snow crunching under my boots, mud squishing as I lift my foot. Hunting for deep, meaningful connection and lightheartedness and earnestness.  Hunting for a quiet mind and peaceful heart.  

And  hunting took me into the frozen tundra of Silver Star Mountain and then to the warm sun and mud of the Oregon Coast.  My feet were made for tromping.

I've written here often about the softening of my edges and the opening of my heart.   And what I found in my hunting is this:  it takes me a little longer to process these experiences lately because they soak in well beyond my surface.  There is so much...so very much...exquisiteness and beauty and sound and scent and texture and feeling and OH OH OH.  

So, as I process it all today, I contemplate the next painting. With more images to choose from than an artist maybe has a right to have, I've narrowed it down to the three here.  Notanized photographs from these hikes, with interesting compositions and values and line and shape.  Not too busy, not too simple.  I will put these on the wall of my studio to contemplate.  But, dear reader, if you have an opinion on which notan is most interesting, let me know in the comments below.   Wherever your weekend takes you - happy hunting!
4 Comments

Soft and Unrepeatable

2/8/2021

4 Comments

 
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Soft and Unrepeatable
" Soft and Unrepeatable. - charcoal and acrylic paint on Arches 300 lb watercolor paper, 22" x 30".  Available here and at Artfinder.


“We waste so much energy trying to cover up who we are when beneath every attitude is the want to be loved, and beneath every anger is a wound to be healed and beneath every sadness is the fear that there will not be enough time.

When we hesitate in being direct, we unknowingly slip something on, some added layer of protection that keeps us from feeling the world, and often that thin covering is the beginning of a loneliness which, if not put down, diminishes our chances of joy.

It’s like wearing gloves every time we touch something, and then, forgetting we chose to put them on, we complain that nothing feels quite real. Our challenge each day is not to get dressed to face the world but to unglove ourselves so that the doorknob feels cold and the car handle feels wet and the kiss goodbye feels like the lips of another being, soft and unrepeatable.” 
​

― Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have

​
​
I spent a day at the beach being uncovered.

I mean, I was wearing all the requisite gear for a brisk day on the Oregon coast, but my self was bare.

My eyes were bared to the beauty of a silvery sun reflecting on water-laden sand.  My hands were bared to the feeling of kelp under my fingers, its aloe vera-ness and rubbery strength.  My legs were bared to allow skipping and dancing through waves and sculpted sand.  My feet were bared to the feeling of seawater soaking through boots and wool socks.  My heart was bared to my companion, to his soulful dog, to my own spirit's longing.  My face was bared to the caress of wind and sun on my cheeks.  I felt everything.

Nepo's metaphorical gloves are gone.  My heart feels as expansive as the sky. It is the best kind of overwhelm.
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notanized image for size perspective
About the art:  beginning with a 3 minute timer and a chunky piece of charcoal - capturing the gesture quickly.  Adding a 5 minute timer to dilute the charcoal with titanium white and add some basic shadows and structure to the piece.  Without adjusting too much the work of the combined 8 minutes, adding color and texture in a limited palette with liberal use of the sprayer bottle.  Resisting the urge to become more realistic.  And, once again, artist neglects to film the final portion.  Oy.
4 Comments

Just Let Everything

2/4/2021

6 Comments

 
Just Let Everything" - acrylic and charcoal on cradled birchwood panel, 11" x 14" x .75".  Ready to hang (sides are bare birchwood; no need to frame.  Hanging wire attached). Available here and at Artfinder.


Maybe we shouldn't try to understand everything.
And just let everything wash over us.

- BRIAN RUTENBERG


I don't know about you, dear reader, but I spend a lot of time trying to understand things.  

That means reading about things, talking about things, thinking about things, making decisions about things, mulling things over, rolling things around on my tongue.  Trying things on, turning things over, pulling things inside out.  But during these snail-paced pandemic times, I am determined to also try just letting everything wash over me.  Which looks a lot like naming a thing and then letting it be.  Or not naming it and letting it be.  Just feeling it and letting it, well, stay or go or morph or bloom or even die.
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Just Let Everything
And what I've learned is this:  sometimes a thing will reveal itself when I stop trying to understand it.  WHAT?  That's some sort of zen magic there. Doing NOTHING and learning SOMETHING?   But here's the rub - the reading, mulling, talking and thinking about things opens a world of ways of viewing those things.  So that when I do (finally, reluctantly sometimes) just let a thing BE and it reveals or resolves, it is only because I tried to understand that I can recognize what just happened.

Sigh.  Life is messy.  We might as well be covered in paint.

About the art:  Beginning with an inspiration photo and a chunky piece of charcoal, working quickly to "catch" the gesture without overly defining it.  Coming in with color to refine a bit and then jumping off from there.  I got SO excited about the process and the paint that I neglected to film the final color applications.  Oy!  That's what happens when a painter is in charge of the video. :)
6 Comments

REACH

2/1/2021

7 Comments

 

​"Reach" - acrylic on cradled birchwood panel,  11" x 14" x .75".  Ready to hang (sides are painted; no need to frame.  Hanging wire attached). Available here and at Artfinder.
“There are things you can’t reach. But
You can reach out to them, and all day long.
The wind, the bird flying away. The idea of god.
And it can keep you busy as anything else, and happier.
I look; morning to night I am never done with looking.
Looking I mean not just standing around, but standing around
As though with your arms open.”

― Mary Oliver

​This week in the studio I am channeling the color palettes of Seba Urgurtan  (more specifically her 2014 figurative work) along with a continued effort to merge background with foreground in a figurative piece.  Learning to embrace 80 million layers of very similar colors in slightly varying hues, and falling in love with the way those layers build and peek and sing and soothe.  

​(Many thanks to reader and artist extraordinaire  Trina Tarlton for introducing me to the work of Urgurtan!)
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Reach
The pose of this piece attracted me to the words of Oliver, which of course felt a little like the universe expounding on my own life and the desire to keep reaching out...or, rather,  "standing around as though with (my) arms open."   I am learning, lately, to look with my arms open.  And by arms I also mean heart and mind and life and spirit.  The more I stand with arms open, looking, the more I see and feel and know exquisite things I never dreamed of before.  

Along with that, of course, I also see and feel and know sorrow, pain, longing, loneliness, doubt and grief. My own and also the feelings of those my arms reach for and hold tenderly.   And yet, in the slow, careful pace of a pandemic, there is time to process all the things and give them each  attention.  It feels right, this pace.  I'm pretty sure my current spirit creature is snail or sloth or slow loris.  Bring it on, universe, but slowly. :)

​While I get back to work on videos, enjoy a little pictorial history of this painting:
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​​Thank you to everyone who participated in the Get the Gallery cyber Art Drop!  Wonder  Mike's sticky paws selected two winners at random from all of those who shared GTG's Facebook art posts.  Congratulations Angela V. and Debra H!  You will each receive one of these mixed media creations in the mail.  Hooray!
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Lions and Ants

1/28/2021

4 Comments

 
 It's the end of JENUARY at Get the Gallery , where this artist has been tickled and delighted to be named Artist of the Month.  After a fun art drop in the Denver area (congratulations lucky art hunter!), we're going to end the month with a virtual art drop!

Go to Get the Gallery's Facebook page and find a piece of art you love!  Share it to your own page and tag me!  My studio hound, Wonder Mike, will choose TWO taggers to receive these mixed media pieces in the mail.  Woot!  Read? Set?  Share and TAG!

Once a hunter met a lion near the hungry critter's lair, and the
way that lion mauled him was decidedly unfair; but the hunter
never whimpered when the surgeons, with their thread, sewed up
forty-seven gashes in his mutilated head; and he showed the
scars in triumph, and they gave him pleasant fame, and he
always blessed the lion that had camped upon his frame. Once
that hunter, absent minded, sat upon a hill of ants, and about
a million bit him, and you should have seen him dance! And he
used up lots of language of a deep magenta tint, and
apostrophized the insects in a style unfit to print. And it's
thus with worldly troubles; when the big ones come along, we
serenely go to meet them, feeling valiant, bold and strong, but
the weary little worries with their poisoned stings and smarts,
put the lid upon our courage, make us gray, and break our
hearts. - "
Lions and Ants", by Walt Mason
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I've been pondering my ability to fiercely slay big challenges, but be anxious and nearly undone by the small ones.  Oy!  Mason's words captured this so well for me.  I smile at the thought of "lots of language of a deep magenta tint."   

I mean, we've been weathering a pandemic, political, social and racial issues, wildfires (here on the west coast) gun violence and (insert your current "lion" here).  You, dear reader, are finding ways every day to make the best of it, get involved, keep yourself sane, stay healthy AND find joy!  (I see you out there - well done, you!)

And yet, if you're like me... some small thing can cause the heart to crumble a little and have you wondering how the heck CALM was maintained when dealing with the lion.  This week, I am going to examine those "weary little worries" and find the beauty and the lesson in them.  Like our fluttery, creepy-crawly insect friends, there are golden nuggets there.

About the art:  these insect studies were created as inspiration for a graphic novel project (currently in process).  Pen and ink and watercolor on watercolor paper, with hand printed paper collage.  In the moth piece, old-timey cap=gun caps were detonated with a rock on the paper to leave a tiny vertical trail.  Because with mixed media, anything goes!
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