More Abstract Expressionism

Playing around with ink and paper, and enjoying the lack of control. Most of them weren't fit to post. I always wish the gestures you can catch with spontaneous art processes could be controlled. Like writing and many other creative acts, you just do more of it and your percentage of successes goes up. Or you definition of success changes, perhaps.

This one reminds me of barbed wire I've photographed recently. I like it better than the first one, and I'll bet Gottlieb did a lot of clinkers too before he hit on a composition he liked.

Red Moon/Dandelion Sun

When I was studying art, I used to love Adolph Gottlieb, whom I emulated occasionally. I was taking calligraphy at the time, and we used to refer to his style as "Those Suns and Calligraphy like Gottlieb." While doodling past midnight a while back, I encountered this memory. I did the lines by marking across the edge of a piece of card stock, and continually changing the angle of the card. It's hard to explain, but try it some time as a way to fill the paper when nothing else occurs to you. Then the sun (or moon) seemed like the next step. You could do calligraphy in place of lines, but it would be more like a poster then, and the message of the words would predominate. Since the moon is full right now, maybe it's time for a mini-series in homage to Gottlieb. On reading his bio, I learned the following:
He was born in New York City, left high school in 1920 to work at odd jobs while taking night classes at the Art Students League with John Sloan and Robert Henri. He learned of the revolutionary breakthroughs in European painting & took a disappointing trip to Paris, (he met none of the French artists he had heard about.) Returned to the US to finish high school and continue painting. By 30's, Gottlieb exhibited regularly with "The Ten," a NY group of avant-garde painters. Around this time he also participated in the Federal Arts Project . After he moved to the Arizona desert in 1937 his work became more Surrealist and back in NY two years later he met European Surrealists who introduced him to the concept of the subconscious and the importance it can play in one's work.

Tree Poetry: More Experiments

I'm trying to learn more about Photoshop, because it takes my random works of art and gives them...stature. This is a photo of Eucalyptus leaf and bark, placed over the blue fabric photo I used under yesterday's "dancer". The third layer and the poem are on top. Trying to put it together was strange, because everything Photoshop feels so theoretical rather than real. You can create results you can't undertand, or don't see how to reverse, or in a format that seems to exclude certain uses of the image. But I still think artists can rejoice that there is such a good tool available to manipulate and multiply the uses of our images. Now, if I can just learn how to bend it to my will without letting it humiliate me too badly.

The poem, by the way, is one I started using for calligraphy practice so long ago, by Karle Wilson Baker. Whenever I set out to do lettering, this one creeps back out of my memory and onto the page. It's nice, though. It goes on for four more stanzas, but I always liked the first and third. Maybe I'll use the whole poem sometime.

Desert Dancer

I've set myself the task of learning a bit about using "layers" in Photoshop. The image in black and white is a sketch of a statue outside the Phoenix Art Museum. The Blue image above it is a snapshot of a beach wrap I picked up last summer at Venice Beach. The combined image at top was created (eventually) but I'm not sure how. I think it was necessary to save the blue layer as a PDF in order to add it to the drawing which was a JPEG. Then the whole thing was locked together but when I tried to add it to the blog, it was still a (forbidden) PDF, so I had to re-save the final image as a JPEG again. Oh, well ... I'm just glad I have something to show for my first attempt. Enjoy.

The Blues on Sunday

I was in a blue mood today, decided to take a walk around the lake down in the park. Fresh air, happy families, people fishing, ducks...

I ran across the above musicians practicing beneath a ramada. He was playing his upright bass while she leaned against the side, singing blues songs. I sat on the grass & from a distance drew these sketches. Back home, I arranged them on one of the backgrounds I have been experimenting with. This one is Speedball brown waterbase blockprint ink, swirled on with a paper towel. It reminds me of the color of a bass violin. When I was done, the paper plate I'd used to mix the paint looked interesting- so this abstract doodle in Prismacolor is the result.

I've been going through my sketchbooks, covering all the empty pages with different tones to make them more inviting. My tendency to use printer paper for art is a serious bad habit that needs to be corrected.

Hand, mine

What shall I say about this hand? It's holding a pen. When it writes (this hand), it pours out a great deal of nonsense, and a few marvelous insights. Sometimes it will neither write nor draw, but only hold a book to read. It works hard all day doing repetitive tasks and sometimes lifting heavy things, or sorting them. It likes to drive cars, stroke animals, pick up rocks. Yesterday afternoon it tapped nervously while waiting for something. Today it held onto a camera and took some wonderful pictures. Now it's typing up this note. Here is my hand.

If There Were No Lines

http://www.lightmanifest.blogspot.com/

There seems to be an engine that starts me seeing and wanting to draw. I've found a powerful one in my little digital camera. For years I "saw" but had nowhere to put the intensity. After a while, I learned to draw in my mind what I had no time to really draw: at various jobs, while raising kids, while remodeling houses, etc, etc.- all the things we do. Now making up for that is a big priority. The little camera, like a net gathers up all those fleeting impressions and saves them valiantly for me to process later. Framing things in the LCD monitor trains me, and this helps to decide what is interesting and worth further investigation. Learning from so many wonderful Flickr photographers is like being in a worldwide school. Here are three of my captured "sees" and what they led to. Using light and tone rather than line is very satisfying. It's a good reminder that most lines, like the boundaries of nations, are created in our minds.

Lines on Paper, Fallen Leaf

The most interesting ideas come when one has no intention of doing anything serious or "postable." I like the left side of the lettering, and with work, may be able to get the slant of the letters consistent. The graphite drawing was starting to smudge all over, so I laid a bunch of prismacolor on top in a warm cream shade, and then re-drew into that. Liked the texture of drawing back into the waxy pencil and it seemed be creating interesting effects. The leaf and its shadow was the first thing, lettering was an afterthought. I'm using that technique whereby you tie two pencils together and use that for calligraphy effects. My calligraphy skills, obviously, are rusty.

Original version: Take your pick

This is the original artwork for the one below. I guess it's a judgement call, but once I saw the black version, I just couldn't go back to this one...

Trick or Treat! A Spirited Illustration Friday Theme

For Illustration Friday, I drew this with Indigo Blue and Vermilion Red but succumbed to the temptation to invert the colors after it was scanned. It looks just like black light!! What fun...now I'm really getting into the Halloween "spirit."

Panic time: TAGGED!

I've been TAGGED by Meinhild in France at http://meinhild.wordpress.com/ ! My first tagging, so thankyou for the honor(I think) and here goes. I like what Bill Sharp did listing former jobs on his blog http://billsharp.wordpress.com/2007/10/20/tagged/, and listed a few myself....

Here are seven random things about myself, 4 of them old jobs:
1. Once helped an artist who designed Watergate Hearings parody “postage stamps." (I did the color separations - this was pre-Photoshop.)

2. I commercially cleaned swimming pools - including fishing dead salamanders out of icy skimmers barehanded, carrying nets and poles through shrubbery, and schmoozing irritable dogs.

3. Took my 2-year old to work with me in a harness and leash. (He forgives me)

4. Did darkroom processing in a warehouse for a guy who sold vintage fan magazines by mail.

Three other random facts:
5. My college French teacher looked down our throats with a flashlight to check for pronunciation flaws.

6. I have eaten the dreaded Durian Fruit & have photos to prove it (which will never see the light of day.)

7. I LOVE to drive under the approach path to airports and look up at the planes flying low overhead.

With thanks and apologies, I am tagging these inspiring bloggers:

1. Ganga Sunshine http://gangasunshine.blogspot.com/ for her lightheartedness, inspiring work, and encouraging comments.

2. Fellow Arizonan http://crimsoncat05.blogspot.com/ who does beautiful art papers and glazes that defy description: just go see them!

3. Nevada artist and librarian/traveler http://desertsuburbia.blogspot.com/, also visit her terrific bird-photography blog at http://pictographica.blogspot.com/)!

4. Jeannette, an awesome artist and adventurous lady at http://www.jimmyjanesays.com/sketchblog/, whose new blog from Japan, Alone in Kudamatsu, is on her profile page. I'm not going to actually "tag" you Jeannette, because you have plenty to do already, I'll bet.

5. Child of Atom at http://www.childofatom.blogspot.com/Thanks for his awesome subway sketches, which he has just started doing again.

Safe in the Center of the Fire

So many are facing unexpected challenges with the terrible fires in California. First I started looking at all the photos on Flickr. Then I decided to do something about it; not near the danger myself, to focus on the safety others can find in the midst of all that. May everyone find safety this week.

Run

I liked the look of this runner suspended above the ground to promote e-books at my library.

Now that the weather has cooled, there is a real possibility of going outside and doing this too. The summer has been very hot, and hard on non-natives to the region, like me. Sometimes the coolest thing around was a Flickr photo of a cool forest in Canada or Alaska. Many thanks for the contact with wonderful artist-bloggers in Northern regions and distant (and cooler) countries: you helped me get through it!

Time to go out roaming and find some new creative raw material.

Chasing Cranes

Today I spent my lunch time chasing this construction crane to get photos.
The Valley is awash right now in these graceful monsters looming all around. I often see the most arresting images while on the freeway or at a traffic light. Today I tossed caution to the winds and tracked this one down. The crane, blue against a very blue sky, was difficult to photograph. There was even time to stay a bit and watch it lifting lengths of steel with its long cables. I took the photos as reference for a future project. Did this quickie sketch as soon as I got back to work....Next day off, another "chase" after a huge red one near the Airport.

Grow in the World

This is for the weekly "Illustration Friday" theme GROW.
I used a combination of methods for this. The line work is graphite pencil that I went over with colored pencil. The words are printed with a plain pencil (should probably by done in ink next time). Then I colored in parts of the letters with Prismacolors. I got stuck at this point and scanned it in and added fill colors in Photoshop. The diagonal lines are made with the "artistic" filter, on the rough pastel setting. I like the general idea, but can easily see how I'd do it differently next time. So much art seems to be try things, slip, fall down, get up, fall down, etc.

Just Playing Around

There is something undeniably attractive about drawing on photos from flyers, magazines, etc. Partly it is appealing because you can doodle from an existing image: in this case a face in a flyer. One thing led to another, a little black marker, a little highlighter and it looks odd and mysterious. Then I put it on top of a photo of fall leaves. So there you are, art that might not "mean anything", but insists on being anyway. Sometimes images suggest a meaning later on. Meanwhile, take advantage of any opportunity to draw purely for the entertainment value of it. I often forget how much fun it is to try a new idea.
When we were kids, we used to draw a weird mark or squiggle on paper and challenge each other to make a drawing out of it. This was a fragment of a photocopy of someone: (the top of his head appears in the lower left.) I drew it as a hill, added a tree, and a horizon line. Then I began erasing the halftone and enhanced it a bit with black pencil to make a moody sort of sky. Photographing it with this bamboo placemat as a mat makes it look more important than it really is. That's a good thing to remember: almost any artwork you are struggling with takes on stature if it is matted. Imagine it matted, and see if you can live with it.

Illustration Friday: Extremes

I just got in under the wire, submitting something for last Friday's theme, "Extremes." This one sat on my work table in various incarnations, finally beginning to speak to me late in the week. How do illustrators ever work on deadline? I'll never know. When partly finished, at left, I couldn't figure what to add next.The version I sent to Illustration Friday, below, may not be finished, either.

"Miserable Among Men Am I

If I Continue On This Way"

I wanted for the figure to seem vulnerable, and to be resisting extreme forces. The text on the 2 pillars are from the same book , entitled (I think) Zig Zag. The heavy letters at the top are from that title. The quote at the bottom just felt the way war feels, so I added it. Mixed media on Academie 80# sketchpad: Collage and colored pencil over a tea wash. I wanted to introduce more color, but couldn't decide which one, and didn't want to color it up unless I knew the "why" of additional color. I had an intense feeling about the subject, so maybe it's OK monochrome this time, except for Crimson Lake at the top.

Hospital World

Many artists whose sites I visit draw in waiting rooms. Or, while waiting for something to happen...like in a hospital. This is a particularly difficult challenge for me. When I have given up all control and am just waiting for the next thing to occur it's easy to use reading to "shut out", rather than deliberately to "see" in order to gather information. Besides, hospitals are notoriously bland-looking places, as if a committee convened long ago and agreed to use the most boring possible decor. It's also likely that the drawings will be uptight, but on the plus side, observing all the interesting medical equipment and trying to render it distracts you from worrying about other things.

Later, I added colored pencil and a quick wash with a tea bag. Yes, a tea bag.

Yellow Fork, Sleeping

Honestly, I fell asleep on the sofa drawing this. I 've fallen asleep reading, but never before with pencil in hand! In the interest of Science, I publish this just because it was so strange. Nice to know drawing can be that relaxing. I've been up the last few nights tending R., who just had surgery. He's getting better fast, and I'm doing lots of art to keep me occupied while I take time off with him.

I just gave this the "values test" (removing the color in Photoshop to check contrast) and it failed miserably. So this time I'm getting by on a wing and a prayer ... and a yellow fork.

Illustration Friday: "Open"

I've had a idea in mind for this week's illustration theme. This is truly from a doodle, but I scanned it into Photoshop, inverted it to make two of them, flipped one, and did a photomerge. This is my submission for the theme "Open." When you open the portal that confines a force, be sure you know whether its opposite is also being set free...with unforseeable results. Below are the two drawings I started with:

This is what can happen when you do two versions of something and can't decide which one you prefer: use both! Prismacolor pencils on calligraphy practice paper. Inverted and photomerged in Photoshop.

Working Out the Theme

This week I've concentrated on having something to say; the theme for Illustration Friday is "Open." One idea was to show a child, open to learning and paying attention. R. is a teacher, and often tells me the kids he teaches are tuning out and have stopped being open to learning. So I wanted to show a child who is still open to that. First, I found a face and expression that was right, and worked out the skin tones. Then what I wanted him doing with his hands, and then what the pose would be. I haven't put it all together yet, but these are the parts.

Un Cafecito?

This was directly inspired by Belkis Ramirez, whose woodcut is on the cover of "A Cafecito Story" by Julia Alvarez. My version got a little colorful, but is in keeping with my wish to learn how to use color, and express feelings and thoughts more effectively through color.

Here's the entire drawing, but I cropped the top off. Which one works better?

There are many good lines in the book, which Julia Alvarez wrote in Spanish and English side-by-side.

"Read this book while sipping a cup of great coffee grown under birdsong. Then close your eyes and listen for your own song."

..."Lea este libro mientras saborea una taza de un maravilloso cafe crecido bajo el canto de las aves. Entonces, cierre los ojos y escuche su propio canto."

8 1/2 x 11, Prismacolor pencil on colored paper.

Illustration Friday- "The Blues"

It's funny how life works sometimes. I've been kicking around ideas for the weekly illustration theme. While doing so, I was slashing loose drawings with these Rembrandt oil pastels. I tried ironing the drawing onto another surface, but it wouldn't transfer. So I drew into it some more. Then I started trimming off edges right and left, till all that remained was the central image. Then a phrase from a discarded library book page surfaced, and fit the image, so it got added. Oh, OK, so it is The Blues. I was trying way too hard. When I slowed down it caught me.

Confidence

My next attempt, with a softer paper. I imagine these two people are confiding in each other, and confidence also means I am trying to be more confident in using a new medium.

I read this blog tonight, and took to heart her advice to get to the desk and "do something, anything." So, here it is...something done with confidence. Thanks, Samantha Kira!

Marching on, into Muddy Waters

I joined Wet Canvas, and thought I'd better just work with what's at hand, so hauled out these Rembrandt oil pastels.
It can only get better from here, judging from these beginnings. I put some gesso on the page first. Of course I know I ought to be using a real support: one of the expensive sounding papers, or masonite but consider it my freeing-up exercise.

Tonight there were spectacular sunsets across the valley, but still enough heat to keep birds gathered underneath a nearby palm.

Illustration Friday: Juggle

This week's Illustration Friday theme is "Juggling." Since time and priority juggling is an everyday reality, I started with that. But, ordinary carnival jugglers were out of the question. There always seems to be something to gain and something lost in everyday juggling. So I thought, why not go for the really big stakes? World juggling. So my subject is playing for very high stakes.

It is also a stretch for me, using colors more vibrant than I usually do.
Gesso on cardboard and Prismacolor pencil, 8 1/2 x 11.

Jazz Musician, Listening

This is an experiment using colored pencil with Golden Gesso for Pastel on a square of 7 x 7 inch cardboard. I've never used gesso before, but like the way it multiplies and randomizes the effects you can get with your pencil strokes. The subject is someone I have probably seen somewhere, but for the purposes of the exercise, I imagine him as a Jazzman, listening for just the right note.

The Nighttime House

At night time, my house has a life of its own. Here are four of the things it does while the residents of the house are sleeping, ...or trying to. Since I was still awake, I was a witness. I think some interesting drawings or paintings could come from this, but meanwhile, the photos capture that mood.

Alternatives

Or, maybe I should have selected less information, focusing on a more intimate view of the subject: