Looking toward the light

Dear Family and Friends,

I ruined a postcard by spilling some black paint on it. Oddly, the mistake spoke to me. I saw a tree silhouette, and here it is. I painted the sky and cut out the bird in tiny pieces from a scrap of cotton I painted long ago.  (In reality the black looks blacker.) I like it -- best mistake I made today!

Love,

k

Bird

4" x 6"

multi-media

I prefer blooms

Dear Family and Friends,
This morning I came across the term doomscrolling, and I think I do it -- obsessively reading the bad news. I'm not sure I can stop. Maybe I don't even want to. I've been addicted to news since I was a kid, but I don't think it ever affected my mental state so long and deep as now. Maybe I shouldn't read online news sites for two hours each morning. (Yes! I do that!)

... on the other side of my brain, I paint.

Have you been doomscrolling?

Love,
k

Bright thoughts

8" x 8"

acrylic 

Did you ever think of painting with an onion?

This spring I took two of Esté MacLeod's online watercolor classes. Not only is she a delightful artist, she is an effective online teacher, and I recommend her classes.  These notes are for me, and they might inspire you as well. I want to remember what I learned -- many techniques apply to acrylic and other media as well as watercolor.

1. Wet on wet

Paint
Nickel Azo Yellow -- vibrant and transparent
Hansa Yellow -- opaque, so good for final details
Paynes Grey for shading under the fruit.

1. Draw a berry lightly if you like. Eventually skip this step.
2. Use a pointed mop brush to create a watery form. Sop up some water with paper towel. Avoid the areas where leaves will go.
3. Apply paint, red and yellows t, to see how they react with one another.
4. You can also print a strawberry shape, even using a berry cut in half.
5. Add leaves.

2. Handwriting and dip pen to create texture and shape 

Pineapple

Qunacridone gold deep and yellow ochre

1. Write the word pineapple or some other words to create the texture of a pineapple. Connect all the letters in rows that are close together. You can write sideways too. 
2. Use a dip pen with watercolor diluted with water. 

3. Pattern, masking, & printing with an onion!

Wet Paper

Stamping with Q-tip, TP roll, green onions!

Masking Fluid

Ultramarine, Pthalo blue, Paynes gray

fan and dagger brushes

Stamp with paint shapes in rows, Use vegetables, q-tips, 

Stamp with masking fluid

Dry completely.

Paint on top. 

Remove masking fluid when the paint on top of it is dry. 

Also, paint lines of water on the paper, leave for a few minutes so it gets absorbed. Dab paint on. Watch the paint flow.

When masking fluid is removed you can add more paint to the white parts.

Numbers inspire leaves and plants

4. Positive and negative shapes

Carbon copy paper for texture

1. Write the numbers 1 to 9
2. Turn the numbers into simple leaves, bigger than an inch. 
3. Pick out favorites.
4. Draw these again on a piece of paper. 
5. Put the carbon paper face down on sketchbook and go ver the outlines of the leaves so there is a template of shapes in the sketchbook.
6. Duplicate these shapes and cut them out.
7. Arrange on blank page into a symmetrical plant shape. No overlapping!
8. Place carbon paper on top of the plant shape laid out in separate paper forms. 
9. Create a texture to cover the entire area. Can use your nails, pencil, stone, wood, fork...
10. Lift carbon paper and stencil to reveal plant shape. 
11. Paint the textured background.
12. Create a stencil on one piece of paper to be used as a negative and positive shape.

5. Printed Wreath

Printing with potatoes, latex sponge

Yellows, viridian green, pthalo blue, paynes gray, red for accent

Mop brush

1. Draw a light circle, using dinner plate.
2. Print  a wreath of leaves clockwise. Use the leaf shapes cut into potatoes. 
3. Apply paint to potatoes with a mop brush.
4. Build up color: start with light colors and gradually add more layers.
5. Mask sections that will be printed over. 
6. Add details with designs painted onto a sponge, or paint directly onto the paper. May use dip pen.

6. Roundup: Tree of Life 

I didn't do this one yet...

Use some of the above techniques to create a tree. 

Keep it simple and then develop further. 

Draw in sketchbook for starters. 

Also may mix white acrylic High Flow with Paynes Gray, brown and a bit of red (for soft gray color) to create an opaque gouache.

#explorecolour

. 

Doing great, Right?

People ask me how I'm doing and I say Great, but there's a rumbling underneath that reply, like earth before a quake. I feel the uncertainty. Is it the same for you?

Here are some photos, including more paintings from the watercolor class.  I'm still working on the final project, a simple landscape.

Mixed media
10" x 14"

Watercolor
10" x 14"

The golden poppy is California's state flower
It's blooming now
This is near the American River

Zing! this morning on Capitol Mall

A neighbor left this thyme plant at my door today

Painting keeps me off the streets

Hi!
I've been taking a three-week online class about watercolor. The artist-teacher is Este MacLeod, and I am learning plenty. As a retired teacher, I can see that MacLeod has got this online class stuff down perfectly. I signed up for it before the little world-wide breather we're all taking, and timing couldn't be more perfect. Keeps me busy and off the streets.

Here are some pieces I've painted in the last two weeks. The class is about materials and technique, so I'm really just following Este's directions. She encourages free gesture, putting aside the inner critic, and having fun -- all the while layering colors, working with wetness, and getting to know different  brushes.

Love,
k
#exploreshapes  #explorecolour

26 hats

26 mushrooms

weaving letters

my favorite so far

Love this kind of graceful azalea 

supposed to resemble Polish embroidery

The sun

my second-favorite so far

Only in Miami: Remember those flamingos at the race track?

x

Miami memories!

Here's a contour drawing of a flamingo. I colored it with Copic markers. 

x

Scribble and paint

Written yesterday:
Dear Friends,
It’s 4 p.m., and soon I’m driving to Woodland, to attend a benefit for the ArtFarm project that I love. It’s the program that welcomes artists to spend time at Yolo County farms. Yolo is next to Sacramento County; the counties meet in the middle of the Sacramento River. There will be displays and tastings from farms and wineries — if I remember right, there’s lots of food, and music too. And an art auction, at the Hotel Woodland.  I expect the whole scene to remind me of small farm towns in Ohio.  I’m meeting Mary Kaye and Leigh there. 
Here’s some scribble and paint. Can’t keep away from colors! 
Love,
k

For the love of pink and blue

Written last night:

Dear Friends,

Here are some flowers I’m painting. Looks like I’m favoring pink and blue!

Love,
k

11" x 14"
acrylic on canvas

16" x 20"

acrylic on canvas

9" x 12"

acrylic on canvas board

Alex Styrsky: art hot and cool

Dear Friends,

Yesterday I took the train to San Francisco for the opening of an exhibit of mixed-media art by Bay Area artist Alex Styrsky, son of my good friends Pam and Joe. (Pam and I started teaching at Carrollton in Miami  on the same day and have been friends, along with Clark and Joe, ever since.) 

In his artist statement Alex says he is influenced by the Miami colors of his youth and the messy virtuosity of Bay Area Abstraction. I like that his work is large and mostly bright. Using paint, found papers and other materials, Alex coolly works outside the lines.

To see the art in person, go to the First Unitarian Universalist Society, 1187 Franklin St., San Francisco.

Love,

k

Madrigal
52" x 58"

Hodos
(I had to look it up!)
44" x 45"

Blue Medicine
42" x 60"

Leda
40" x 60"

Sunspots
44" x 50"

The Veil
66" x 48"
diptych

Eleuthra
48" x 48"

Alex Styrsky

Must Valentines be red?

Written last night:
Dear Friends,

I’m sitting in the easy chair in the kitchen — one of my favorite spaces. It’s cold (51°) and slightly windy here, but probably colder and windier where you are.  Siri says Columbus, Ohio, will get a high of 53° on Tuesday, dipping soon after to a low of 19°. 

It was a peaceful day — All I did (mostly) was make hearts — not exactly Valentines, but kind of. I painted gold and turquoise and even black, and I love them all, but it made me realize that Valentines are red and white, just like Christmas is red and green. Can’t mess with it, but I tried. Here are some. They are postcard size, 4” x 6”.

Love,

k

From panic to pears

Written last night:
Dear Friends,

When I first moved to Sacramento I panicked over everything, big and small. It’s getting better, so good that now I can even tolerate the inevitable computer glitches  (One took an hour of phone calls today) 

… I've been meditating 15 minutes each morning ... I like the pointlessness of just sitting ... 

I also drew and painted pears. 

Love,

k

3.5" x 5"

ink and watercolor

12" x 12"

pencil

Apples to apples

Written last night:
Dear Friends,

Today I finished that book about habits (The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg); I read it because these past two years have made me realize how crucial routines are. Basically the book said we do things because they give us a reward. So to establish a routine we have to make sure we get a reward. Simple, huh? And he wrote a whole book about it.

I finished the apple collage this afternoon, except for a final coat of varnish and a frame. I like it, even though it’s not as smooth as the under-painting. Good art is supposed to look wonderful from a distance, and then be interesting when you get up close too. Collage is ready-made for that, since you only see the details of small pieces up close. I’m going to make a few more collages and also paint a simple apple, as Mary suggests. Thanks, Mary.

Love,

k

The collage, above

The underpainting, below

Sweet, cool, casual

Written last night: 
Dear Friends,

It was so cool that you needed a sweater this evening. Everyone is saying this is not normal, but nobody’s complaining.

My mind is jumping around. (I’m watching the news.) 

It was an uneventful day — for me. I loved having an impromptu dinner with family in the courtyard restaurant around the corner, and talking on the phone with friends. Small pleasures are big. 

Love,

k

12" x 12"

Pecans with brown sugar

I was making these for a friend, but ... 

I burned a few. (They're still good.)

Words and glitter and paint

Written last night:

Dear Friends,

Words and glitter and paint! It sounds like art a kid would make … a slightly older kid … me.

Here’s part of my latest painting. It’s got lines of poems referring to stars; here, Andrew Marvell’s The Definition of Love  and Juliet in Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

I know — it looks kind of messy. 

Love,

k

Painting that made me forget about zucchini

Written last night:
Dear Friends,

It’s hot here, but cool in the morning and evening. 

Yesterday the police broke up the demonstration in front of the ICE offices across the street. Tonight they’re back, on a smaller, quiet scale, and without the line of tents along the sidewalk.

I just got home from dinner with Mary Kaye and Leigh. We went to Frank Fat’s a few blocks from here. They said it used to be a politicians’ hangout, but they don’t think politicians hang out anywhere anymore.

Earlier today I had fun painting.

Love,

k

Sunflowers at night

20" x 20"