Spring Purge

The weather had turned rather miserable overnight, thwarting Jim's and my plans to join the Port Townsend Urban Sketchers for the last chance to record the major reconstruction through the middle of downtown.  So far there've been so many wonderful sketches from various artists through the months of chaos and heavy equipment invasion. I somehow haven't managed to get one yet! 

However, watching my neighbor set fire to the massive pile of slash between our properties, it occurred to me I could still scratch my itchy sketchy fingers today. The misty green foliage of Spring seemed to need mostly Conte Crayon to really bring out the contrast between the soft, wet buds, and the sharp, bright flames.  

Disrupting The Logical Mind

It's been an incredibly long time since I've posted here on my blog. No real excuse, just got out of the habit. It feels like one of those panic dreams where you realized you'd left your baby somewhere a couple months ago, and freak out, scrambling to find it again. Wondering if it's gone, or worse. 

I'm sure many others are feeling scrambled by the massive corona blasting us from the sun right now, and for the next several days. For me, I feel a little lost, forgetful, disoriented. Exhausted. But like tonight's posting, some old and cherished stuff is coming back to be attended to, also. I'm missing figurative imagery in my work. Other than my occasional sketches in public, people have mostly been  forgotten as a focus for me. When I sculpted, Human figures were nearly exclusively my favorite expression. 

I've been working on this substrate (board) for a couple weeks, now. I covered it with two coats of Gold Gesso my dear friend, Linda, gave me a sample of. I had a vision of cascading, textured...well, abstract sheets of stuff coming down from above, with abstract figurative images emerging from the shadows beneath, (yet to be painted in). Using Liquitex Modeling Paste, I scraped some onto the gesso with a rubber pottery rib, then impressed it with scrolly-patterned rubber texture sheets I have for printing. When they hardened, I sanded them smooth until the textures felt like polished Ivory or bone. Then I commenced to staining with acrylic inks, wiping back the high points with a damp cloth. When I was done, there was that feeling I had wasted a perfectly good board. I hate that "What was I thinking" feeling while painting.

Pulling out a frame, I slapped it on to give me some perspective. Maybe it wasn't quite so awful. I accidentally set the painting back on the table upside down.

There are my "figures"!  I have a feeling the Universe is having me paint abstracts upside down to disrupt the logical mind. This isn't the first time I turned a painting around and it made more sense than the other way.

Happy Vernal Equinox, everybody!

Sumac, Crocosmia, The Works

A dear artist friend and I have a difficult time getting together often enough to having a sketching date. Sometimes we meet in Port Townsend, which is roughly halfway between her and myself. It's about an hour and a half, give or take a ferry ride, for each of us to get there. Today, she suggested we have a sketch date simultaneously at 10 AM, where she was hiking near her end, and I decided I would go out on my deck and capture some of our garden before the approaching Fall season rewrites the garden's story altogether.  We each pulled our gear out and went to work.

 I have to admit, she had the advantage as far as scenery and solitude. I also had intermittent mist. I struggled with color and paint over the pre-textured background I chose to paint this over, and ended up with half my studio out on the deck. Mine was not as serene and gentle. It was starting to feel like a major project, and indeed it was by the time I took refuge inside to finish it. But I'm happy with it, and do feel like she and I were together on a sketching date! Next time I will leave the house so I'm not so tempted to drag the whole artillery caboodle out from my studio.

Galatea's Gaze

Recently an inspired group of Urban Sketchers descended on downtown Port Townsend, Washington, and spread out to capture their unique view of the town. I marched a couple blocks over to sit just above and behind the Haller fountain, otherwise known as Galatea. Not only was her little bronze tush worthy of rendering on my sketchpad, but I needed to utilize a page with a prior blocked-in square I had pre-textured with diluted acrylic inks and Cling Wrap, a week earlier. This method has been really fun to do, with sketching over the "texture" later.  (See April 28th's "Papaya Woman")

It turned out the way I'd randomly placed the texture was a perfect mystical framework for the view Galatea watched, eternally. As though she could maybe leap into that window and make her way back to the Strait of Juan de Fuca at the edge of town.

Poppies At End Of Day

It's hard to describe how my focus has deepened and widened in recent months regarding my creativity. Particularly my way of painting and sketching. It's rather like the roots of my inspiration have finally broken through the crust of the earth, so to speak, and now draw nourishment from a deep zone there are no words for. Hopefully it will last awhile, and not leave me wondering what the hell happened to the Muse. At any rate, I'm having a great time, and I hope you all enjoy the result with me.

I'd come down to the studio this evening to fling paint and Gelli Plate print up a storm in my sketchbooks. But I got a glimpse of the poppy garden through the glass doors in the fading light, and just had to put them on a previously textured page of one of my books. Someone recently had advised this page would look really nice as a garden or woodland scene. And there you go. No coffee shops and Baristas for this verdant page!

New And Not So New Sketcher Friends

Though I'm not a coffee drinker, coffee shops are still one of my favorite places to sketch, especially with others. It was a particularly pleasant experience being invited to today's little sketch gathering at Hurricane Coffee Company in Sequim, WA, by my friend Gayle.  She and several of her artist friends I hadn't met yet, were joined by me and our mutual friend, Patty. 

I was delighted by the sharing of techniques, stories and tools today, something that has come to be for me the best part of gatherings like this. "Where did you buy that?" "How did you make that?" "Will you send me a link to that?" "I love that bag!" "Are you serious...just add WD40 to the paint?!"

We all come away all the richer for the encounter, our heads bursting with new ideas. 

Tuliary In Relief

This week's homework assignment was an opportunity to use one of my imaginary critters from last year, my Segmented Tuliary. This one was from a stencil I cut of the original sketch I'd painted and posted before http://elsbethmcleod.blogspot.com/2016/03/segmented-nocturnal-tuliary.html of the little guy. Laying the stencil on this previously stained page in my mixed media journal, I squeegeed Liquitex Modeling Paste through the openings of the stencil, then carefully lifted it off, leaving the segmented relief of the Tuliary on the page. When dry (the next day), I sanded the raised critter with very fine sand paper and jewelry polishing papers. I re-stained the framed inner square around it, wiping the ink off the raised subject afterward. 

This one isn't iridescent, and maybe not so nocturnal as the last. But still a lot of fun to make!

Papaya Woman

I'm having such fun learning to layer colors, textures and patterns on watercolor paper and sketch journals with these acrylic inks and paints! This was a few lessons worth of layering. The red rectangle was done with a mouth atomizer through heavy plastic (gutter guard) mesh, masked off with tape. The little woman character was from a sketch I did, transferred to printmaking paper and then colored with leftover dabs of diluted ink. Her hat and sandals are painted with gold gesso. The white paint over fleur de lis patterned stencil will receive journaled story or notes later. 

An Old Family Artform

Digging through a box of family photos recently, I pulled out what felt like a small brick from under a stack of prints from the 1980s. It was a carved, wood-mounted linoleum block for printing I had created around 1975. The edges of the surface were slightly chipped here and there, but generally in fair shape. The image was an intertwined couple, seated on the floor. It took me back to memories of linoleum block carvings my mother and my older sister had done in the mid- to late-'50s, for printing on cards or as indelible identification inside the cover of books we owned. I had done some in my teens, also, and then in my twenties, in the '70s. It was an art form I hadn't continued again.

Coincidentally, a neighbor friend had gathered with other mutual friends to share recently the linoleum block carving techniques the neighbor had learned at a workshop in Canada. I was disappointed I was going to miss the gathering, and was determined to get back some of that block-printing mojo anyway. Another friend heard me express this interest and directed me toward an online class teacher in Lino Block Printing, Tracey Fletcher King. I will be eternally grateful to that friend, as I am enjoying the class, and have learned how linoleum carving tools, materials and techniques have evolved since the 1970s! Don't you just love when things fall together like that?

The prints above are Shaman Woman and Shaman Man artist proofs. Some of my homework from Tracey's classy class. 

Red Dog Blue Dog (Effective Muse Traps)

It's been a relief to read from many of the Facebook artist friends I have around the world that my Mystery Of The Missing Muse symptoms aren't unique. It's been painful to be in the studio when she's not there. I settle into the normal routine. The paints, pencils and pens surround me, my favorite Gregorian chants on the CD player, a cup of tea at the ready standby (but not too close to the paint water jar). Birds attacking the bird feeder outside my window like it was the last day before a nuclear winter. All those perfect conditions. After an hour of shuffling collage papers and organizing my paints....crickets. Not a whisper from the Muse. Paper looks like paper. Watercolors look like stuff in tubes. Or a mess on a palette. No magic. 

My dear friend Linda and I have been in long conversations regarding Muse Traps, recently. What to do to tempt the Muse into getting involved again. We've pretty much agreed Ms. "M" doesn't like formality much. She's a sucker for play and novelty. She is a kid in her essence, and quite seductive.  This is why she is so often found in the company of children. I remember that. As scary as my mom or the elementary school principal was, their authority was outranked by the whisperings of the Muse. 

What would a kid do in my studio shoes? I brought down the metal lunch pail I keep my stamping sheets and pads in from the supply shelf. I found recently that these intricately patterned rubber sheets meant for impressing Precious Metal Clay jewelry (you can find them on www.cooltools.us, they have small and larger ones) were perfect for stamping ink. And they are wide enough for some serious (oops, sorry, Ms. M) playful applications. And if I take a sheet of paper towel and carefully tear an opening out of the middle and use as a template to stamp through onto my sketchpad or watercolor paper, I can do multiple images that afterward lend themselves to all kinds of fun and embellishment.

Ms. M is leaning against the door frame of the studio, pretending she's not stealing glances at my stamping fun. 

Just Let Go

This morning my husband and I watched out the kitchen window, bemused, while a small squirrel wore itself to a frazzle, defending the hanging new birdfeeder from hungry birds, who flocked from all zones of the frozen forest to restore the calories their little bodies had used up getting through the night. Squirrel can’t even stop and enjoy the seed, as there are so many others who are waiting to take it from him. His poor little brain is scorched from the worry and vigilance and anger. Because Squirrel had become bolder in recent months in asking us to donate to its well-being, to the point it was nearly underfoot as we walked up and down our porch stairs (we did little to encourage this behavior), the squirrel regarded anything we offered Nature as it’s own personal stash. An intelligent and self-serving little bugger, Squirrel had a longer range plan in mind for it’s getting through the cold months. Most seed it gathered was put into the ground as soon as possible. The various branches of The First Savings Bank of Mulch.  This is a tactic that has served squirrels quite well for millennia, I am sure. And not being tribal creatures by nature, their nature is to take care of themselves. Period. Sharing the wealth is not an option. Their future is not the wellbeing of community, their future is stored seed at a time when there is no food, and snow and ice cover everything. 

And so Squirrel has no alternative, with this artificially-provided container of seed, than to chase off all the other creatures that want to share from it also. For Squirrel, this container of seed is likely all that will be, ever. Squirrel can’t remember that somehow, there was always a fresh container of food that magically appeared. Every day. Squirrel can't even reflect on the forest being heavy with fir cones, full of seeds. Faced with accumulated wealth, Squirrel is also faced with the fear it can be taken away.

Squirrel is not evolved enough to have a Faith.

Fondly Known As "Archie"

My "sculptural" paintings took a bit of a turn this last couple weeks when I decided to grow the relief images on the surface of my hardboards and actually make the sculptural parts...well, really sculptural.  I spent some time in the back studio, wadding Skratch into a mold I'd made years ago of a small head on one of my existing ceramic sculptures, "David Finds His Soul", which still stands in Art On The Boulevard gallery in Vancouver, WA.  A face that bears more than a small resemblance to my deceased husband, Neil.

I was able to adhere the resulting head to an acrylic and modeling paste painting I'd set aside a few weeks ago, that I was uninspired to finish until now. Using drywall mud on the surface, the Skratch head stuck nicely.  The organic patterns I had planned, that were to trail out from his shoulders, refused to be anything but architectural. Arches grew. And as no title has since come to mind for this piece, I'll just use the name Jim came up with, Archie.

It took a few days to "see" that there needed to be a hand, and that the hand held a tree, so I promptly painted one, before the image in my mind shifted again.  It's like that. Sometimes the image stays for a few days, or a few weeks, waiting for me to put it down on the painting, and sometimes it shifts. Now and again the next image is better, and often it isn't. It can certainly dessert me, and leave me with, "I have no idea what to put there!"

"Archie" has some deep meaning for me, and maybe one day I'll be able to verbalize it. I'll let you know, just as soon as I understand it myself.

I spent the afternoon yesterday with my sweet friend, Linda Tennant, and she pointed out to me how very nice silver Gilder's Paste would work rubbed on the edges of the painting. It brought it all together, giving Archie an added dimensional glow. It's subtle, but dramatic in it's way.  Sadly, the edges were cropped for this photo Jim took with his Lumix, so you'll have to take my word for it.   

Madonna Of The Muffin Huts

This is another playful use of textural impressions on Hard Gesso, with sculptural details using Modeling Paste. FW Acrylic Inks washed on and wiped off repeatedly, details enhanced afterward.  

Just as I enjoy splashing primary colors onto wet watercolor paper and letting them blend, later creating images and scenes from what is already there, I'm having a great time with troweling on Modeling Paste with palette knife and painting images into the result.  

It took me awhile to locate the baby. The woman's posture and the child's gaze directed me to where there was one missing. It's funny how one little added detail will suddenly give a painting a story!

Sculptural Paintings

Despite the ongoing racket and activity of Jim's and my roof being torn off and rebuilt by our handyman and roofing crew this last several days, I still creep along at a steady pace with my painting, whenever I can sneak down to the studio. Often this happens from 6 o'clock until 8:30 or 9PM. Jim and I installed some new lighting in the studio, so now I can see with breathtaking clarity the details and colors of my work! And the mistakes!! Yow.

The Golden Modeling Paste I used on the series of Cuneiform and Cave Painting pieces that now hang at Olympic Cellars Winery, I've started using sculpturally. I mean, painting the paste on with palette knifes to create more than just textures. Certainly a good marriage of my old and my new career skills!  

The above paintings are titled, "Blue Laurel" and "Nomadic Couple". The faces of "Nomadic Couple" weren't exactly easy to whip out with the palette knife, so dental tools were employed to carve and refine their delicate features. 

I love how the initial image on the board flows out like a dream image. And as I've said previously, it's safer to not judge it, and try to "fix" it. Afterward, sometimes after several days, the painting strikes me with a message. Maybe a metaphor that has meaning to me.  And sometimes the meaning eludes me, as it's perhaps intended for someone else.  These works, like my sculptures, are alive. They find their own way through the world, bring something to someone else. Like R2D2. 

"My Father's Sacred Ashes"

Another painting finished, using the Crackle Paste. I see so much online and on Facebook regarding "Intuitive Painting", and wondered what the heck that was.  The funny thing is, I've been working like that for a very long time.  It occurred to me that my sculpture has been that for decades, and now my painting fits that description, pretty much.  If it's what I think it is.  In my case, I simply get into the "zone" and put on canvas, board or paper impulsive imagery. Usually the first thing that comes to mind is the best one. The moment I stop to wonder about whether that idea is appropriate or what it means, or question the impulse and try to make it "better", it goes sour. Looks lame. And usually, when I wait expectantly, I get a title. Or often it will plop into my head as I am finishing the painting. I've given up wondering what the title means, or if others are going to expect an explanation. Years ago at gallery openings, when patrons asked what inspired me to sculpt what they saw on the pedestals, or what a title means, I finally got to the point I would shrug.  Strangely, most were pretty happy with that. Some nodded mysteriously, like we were both party to an intriguing secret. 

Maybe we are.

New Work, "Serious Painting"

Recently I discovered through a friend, a brilliant artist whom I know only through Facebook, a Golden medium I didn't know about.  It's called Modeling Paste, and comes in a flexible version, for canvas or paper, and a version that's only for hard surfaces.  I like them both. But the hard version is a little more fun, and I've begun painting on hardboard surfaces, anyway.  After the gesso is dry, I trowel on the paste, and let it set for a couple days. It can be carved or sanded, and stains beautifully. I've used FW Acrylic Inks on them, mostly.  

On the heels of this wonderful discovery, I woke up with a dream image of sort of Human figure cuneiform images in my mind.  You know that moment when you're just becoming conscious and there's this last "stamp" of image that appears, not connected to a dream at all? I took it as an imprint from the Muse herself, and went with it.  Why not? So the first image above sports the female versions on the top and the male below.  Well, I only woke up seeing the male versions, to be truthful, but when I laid the pen to paper, later, the female came quite readily. The female second from the right appears to be pregnant, and holds a lamp, together with her sister to the left. The males always seem to be dancing, ceremonially, and some hold staffs, with two matching, side by side. 

In the second image, the painting has fossil/cave painting figures, that seem to be flowing into the depths of a cave.  I know if I try to interpret these, I'd be wrong, so I'll leave that to the viewer!  

Crackled Earth, Suspended Trees

What a relief it is that our sulky, hot-tempered El Nino has taken his toys and gone home, leaving us waiting for what his sister has in mind for us, the rest of the year. She is more prone to tearful rages, but is often more cool and aloof.  We'll see.  Looks like she has already started her gentle rains in our Pacific Northwest.

I have been playing more seriously with Golden textural mediums, acrylic bases for paintings on hardboard surfaces, lately.  I'm having a lot of fun with the crackle paste, which shrinks a bit as it dries, leaving a crazed surface similar to the glaze at the bottom of a Japanese tea bowl.  I discovered how staining the surface on one side with a diluted mix of water and instant espresso crystals immediately draws the dark liquid across through the cracks in a very dramatic way!  This acrylic painting was inspired by a little sketch I did on a sticky note sheet a number of months ago.  I like it so much, and I take it as a good sign that each time I study it, theme and variations of this image pops into my imagination, wanting to be expressed. SOON!

Cradled hardboard with espresso and acrylic paint, 8" x 10" 

Creative Transparency

Some of my best ideas come either in the shower, or out walking on our property.  Or when the rain is showering me as I walk on our property. Forest and water seem to be great conduits for the Muse, and I'll take all the conductivity I can get.  

Today there were some pretty phenomenal images that passed through my mind, and as usual, about 82% of them were gone by the time I was sitting at my drafting table, but the gist was layers of images painted on transparencies, laid over each other and scanned. I have water media polyester transparency film here in the studio that I've done nothing with but cut stencils out of, so that seemed a good place to start.  Don't believe them when they claim one can watercolor on them.  What a mess! However, some of this image of a woman was watercolor, and when I realized how awful that was, I reinforced with acrylic paint on the back of the film.  Much better!  Still not like paper, but more versatile in that, well, you can layer it over other background stuff! I took some of my Masa Printmaking Paper I have crinkled and done paint spills on in the past, and laid the face over it before scanning.  Even the signature was slipped in at the last minute, white Liquetex Ink on a transparency

bit, like a physical watermark! It's sort of disconcerting I don't have a "hard copy" of this image, but the upside is, I can re-use the bits and pieces over and over, in different ways.  

Temple Attendants

It's been awhile since I posted here, it seems so easy to get carried away with life, forgetting the priorities and habitual joys that have defined it until, like Wile E. Coyote, I looked down and saw my trajectory had taken me off the cliff and into space. My feet forgot somewhere along the past weeks that they were no longer touching "ground".

On a vacation visit to Lake Crescent, Washington, recently, Jim and I stayed in accommodations near the lake, enjoying a few days of rest.  Jim got some nice photography time in, and I tried out a new sketchbook I'd ordered, designed for wet media.  It sucked.  The sizing on and in the paper was so water-resistant, the watercolors slid around and nearly came off the surface again with each paint stroke. Hmm.  What to do with this book? Oh, yeah, mixed media! Or, whatever wonderful wet media I love to play with.  So this sub-standard book has become a perfect place to practice collage and acrylic painting techniques.  

Or acrylic ink stamping. Or whatever.  I refer to this study as "Temple Attendants".  Not sure what their story is. It's waiting to be written.

An Old Friend

I stumbled across an image of a sculpture I'd created maybe fifteen years ago, and sold at one of my fave galleries so soon after he was completed, I never got a chance to get him to the pro photographer in time.  Fortunately, my dear Neil was a fair photographer, and we did get this image of "Milestone" before he was gone.  He's about 21inches tall, I think.  I wonder how my children are all faring out there in the world, snug in their homes, scattered around the globe.