maira and more

i was watching jim search through the bargain books at barnes and nobel earlier in the week when i saw a drawing on a spine that looked familiar. hmmmm, what's that? oh my goodness, it's maira kalman's 'the principles of uncertainty' for $3.98! but i already have a copy! i can cut it up! no way! i can give it away! yes!

i'll send it to the first person who says they want it. if you lurk and would like it-- don't hesitate to unlurk! if you live outside the u.s., that's fine!

you can go here to read about it on amazon. this book is such a joy...



i scanned a few pages - it's impossible to pick favorites.

edited to add that it's found a new home in the u.k. - yippee!



i woke up this morning thinking that it's time to get out and wander, visit tree and rock friends that i haven't seen since early summer, before the days of sitting in the creek, beating the heat... we live a few hundred yards from the nat'l forest so it's easy to pack up some stuff and head out. i'm an angle-of-the-sun watcher, and i see it getting lower and lower. cool weather's not far off...

i didn't take a lot of pics, but here are a few.



just after i cross the creek, this soulful trailer.



walking up the dirt road in the nat'l forest, these burls on a stump. how have i missed this all these years?



about a mile up the road i get to the bearing tree. i love this tree and was very happy that they didn't cut it down last spring when they cut down dead trees along the road.



it's huge...



i got off the road and followed a small creek a mile or so west-- every pic that i took along the creek was a dud! but here i am, heading north and out in the sun again. these thistles turn out to be wonderfully photogenic, even in the bright sunlight.

you can see the lava rock outcroppings. i love these... juniper trees often live on these rocks. mindblowing...



a lone bud...



most of the flowers looked like this.

i sat under a juniper tree near these thistles for, well, quite a while. i had some crayons and i painted. eventually i walked back home in the glorious late afternoon sun. felt so great to be out wandering again...

mixin' it up

so much painting going on this past week... painting, wiping off, painting, smudging around... over and over... acrylics and watercolors on the same painting-- i'm loving that.



i started this one last week. many, many, many paintovers here. at this point i liked most of it, but definitely not that swirly stuff in the upper left corner... i liked the beak, but somehow it had to go. i wish i'd taken pictures from the beginning (jeane, you're inspiring me to document the process).



for now i'm settling on this... the upper left will likely change again, but for now this is okay. it looks better in person, and somehow seems like a spot that's holding potential, or possibility.

i used mostly acrylics, but a lot of watercolors (twinkling H20s and caran d'ache crayons) too. the chair was drawn with a caran d'ache crayon. the snake is the black stabilo pencil in my sidebar-- this pencil is so handy because if you don't like what you've drawn, it wipes right off with a damp paper towel. and, it draws on anything, even oil pastels. the flower is crayon and black pencil. a lot of twinkling H20 on the body of the bird/creature. when i was ready to move on from a layer i sprayed it with low odor matte krylon, which is good stuff for people who're sensitive to odors and chemicals. then i put matte gel medium on before painting again. the watercolors don't stick well to the krylon.

a simple little (4" x 6") painting. the tree, the door, the lavender swirlies in the roof are all caran d'ache crayons. oh, and so is that 'ghost' beside the tree. i thought 'hmmmm.... need some white here, so scribble scribble with the white crayon. a ghost! yeah!

more watercolors on acrylic and gel medium. i sprayed her with krylon last night and gel medium-ed her this morning. she needs something but i don't know what. she's just sort of suspended there. maybe i'll go hogwild with acrylics and cover most of it up? sure can't see what right now... if you can see it, please tell me! but, lol, it can't be too complicated!!



okay, here it is wednesday morning and i've started to paint out most of the sky. this morning it seemed obvious that it was overwhelming her... since painting between all of those branches will not be high on my list of things to do, i'm not sure what i'll do there - maybe sort of fade the white into the area.

because i got the gel medium so wet, the yellow started to buckle and raise up here. if you click you can see it better. i love this effect. if there's oil pastel under the gel medium it sometimes comes up entirely, but with paint underneath it just gets all wavy and buckly. the yellows are crayons, and the petals are H20s and crayons. that's my shadow in the lower left-- taking pics on my lap in the morning sun is my latest favorite thing : ).

another painting i was working on this morning... it's more subtle in person and i thought it would stay this way until...

i was messing around with this photo is PSE and saw it here (upper right). there's another bird at the bottom of the page! if you click you can see it easily.



it looks a little different here, but still there (bottom of the tail), so maybe another bird will go there. what a cool way to see what might be hidden in a piece... (in PSE, increase the contrast, click 'filter', 'stylize', 'find edges')



a parting shot taken on our way home from the big city (redding) yesterday. the angle of the sun made the back of this truck glow (we're on the wrong side of the road because we're slowly driving around a wreck). then i started thinking about how united van lines has been around for a looong time, and that their logo's always looked like this. the things that taking pics makes you think about!!!

white nectarines

my sister swears that virginia peaches are the nectar of the gods, but i feel sure that she's wrong and it's really white nectarines. have you ever had a bad one? have you ever had one that didn't knock your socks off with its beauty? i haven't... nirvana may well be a white nectarine orchard where the trees are loaded with fully ripe fruit year-round.



how did i miss this photo after our ashland trip? everything was pink from the red umbrella over the table. i artified it a bit, but the basic pinkness of everything is natural.

i could sit here and eat a white nectarine...

ode to caran d'ache crayons

caught up in an Art Storm, i've gotten my caran d'ache neocolor II crayons out again. it would not be an overstatement to say that these are my 'beloved' crayons.

the sun was shining on them this morning as i had them in my lap, so i snapped some pics. they've been from east coast to west and back, and many places inbetween. i left the pics large so you can click on them to see evidence of their useful lives...



greens, blues, and purples in the caran d'ache tin that holds 30 colors...



reds, oranges, yellows, and metallics in a wooden box that was originally a traveling ACEO kit, made by lisa luree -- how could i resist this box and the tiny mechanical pencil that came with it?



browns, ochres, umber, and miscellaneous neutrals -- i got to know ochre and umber through these crayons. this box held tubes of oil paint at one time, and was given to me by a beautiful soul who worked at belltower art in port townsend, WA.



the page on the right is the first page i painted where i realized the wonderful effect they have when used directly on matte gel medium -- just dip the crayon in water and paint to your heart's content. (is this painting or drawing? i don't know...) the pic at the top of the post shows the crayons at work this morning on acrylic paint and matte gel medium...

thank you, lisa for turning me on to these wonderful crayons!

inside out and upside down

wow, so much to catch up on... it seems like it's been a whirlwind of activity since we got back from our trip. i feel like my painting/creative energy has been turned inside out and upside down...

first something from our trip... i painted this in my green travel journal while we were at the cafe (with the great coffee and delicious scones). drew it with my left hand so i wouldn't get hung up on the Perfect thing.



when we got back, the first thing i did was finish the soul journal page i was working on. our 'assignment' was to cut out silhouettes from a magazine and use them as stencils. what i ended up doing was ripping the silhouettes out of the page i'd originally stenciled them on, and gluing them onto the front and back a sheet of st. armand paper. (satisfied my need for texture)

i glued the figure over the stencil spot on this side (she was covered with black paint at this point). i liked it better this way.



this side is a true stencil.

early in the week robyn at art propelled gave me a heads up about kelly snelling's blog, soul humming, which was full of great info about the jesse reno workshop she'd just attended. from kelly's i went to blogs by other people who'd attended the workshop, and came away fully inspired! on the same day my friend anna (one of the ashland artists whose work is below) told me about studio sfumato. whoa!!!!!! after exploring their website i was about to explode with inspired goodness!!




so i got out the acrylics and started to paint...



and paint...



and paint...

i was completely engrossed in the process of painting these -- i had so much fun! and there are many more in different stages of finished-ness... the last two may or may not be finished. the top one is mail art, so it's (almost) outta here.

yeah, i've got my eye on jesse's website for news of upcoming classes...



some mail goodness that arrived yesterday from kate at this disordered life -- you should've seen my eyes light up at the sight of this envelope!



her zine was inside, along with some extra bits and bobs, one of which went on the back of the (yet to be written on) painting/post card above. nice, huh? thanks, kate!!

one last thing... jeane, at art it shows the progression of one of her pieces here. i met jeane when i was living in port townsend, WA... she's a tremendously talented artist whose paintings evolve over time. i'd be surprised if this one stays the way it is, but i'll keep checking to find out. she's going to show us what happens with it over the next two months.

it's happenin'...

HERE!

check it out!!!

ashland and back home

but first i must announce who the heart and bone are going to live with!

kathy, my friend, are you reading this? yup! they're coming your way! kathy van kleeck (kvk jewelry) is the name i pulled from the cup, i mean hat. i think that this is all quite serendipitous because on friday i received a wonderful package of beach treasures from her...



she sent two marbles, a bone, multiple pieces of the opaque celadon glass that i love, and pieces of pottery -- not just any pottery pieces, but green ones -- my favorite!! thank you kathy! so glad my little offering will soon be on its way to you!



yeah, she made the little holder for the 'crystal ball' marble. is that cool or what? everything's sitting on the tin they came in... how could i not get carried away taking pics?

thank you everyone who left a comment! i am truly grateful for all of you...



now we're back on I-5, about halfway between ashland and mt. shasta, near the end of the first day. this is the last pic i took... the moon was gorgeous, and look at that mountain. another volcanic peak, but i don't know the name of it.

fast forward to the next morning at 10 a.m.. i'm at my friend anna's house, and roxanne from river garden studio is there, as well as a woman named margie. we're all there to talk about forming some kind of an art group.

i'm going to show you some of the art that these amazing women created...















was i excited after being with these kindred spirits? you guess!!!

we're meeting again in a month, and between now and then we're each going to be working on a book/journal.



this was taken on the final leg of the trip home. i was so tired at this point i could hardly muster the energy to get my camera. was it in my purse? my art bag? on the back floor? or maybe i left it somewhere. oh my, it seemed overwhelming to try and track it down. but that moon... how could i resist? so i scrounged around in my art bag, and sure enough, there it was. one last shot.