under the weather

Been a little under the weather, but here's what I was doing this weekend, when I felt better -



The latest from the heaven project with wet watercolors on my drawing table - though it's more often used as a painting table, but whatever -

And then the final images, after layering pencils over the dried watercolors -


River of Healing #1, a diptych with


River of Healing #2



And then


River of Life

There's lots of content in these images, which I'll be posting on the Visions of Heaven blog soon. Probably. ;)

Sat Oct 27

Sat Oct 27

digging around in my film stash to find film for the Mio, I discover a couple packs of "SX70" film - maybe Time Zero film? When I went to load up my SX70 - the camera - I discovered that I had film in it already - hmmm, no doubt all outdated but worth trying out -



Canna leaf out front - guess I'll play with the SX70 until the film runs out -



Then decided to draw on the piece of film I accidently ejected from the camera - oak leaves and acorns collected on recent wanderings.

river of life

Worked in the darkroom yesterday, so I picked up my prints today. Working on the Visions of Heaven project & got three images printed.



This is "River of Life" - contact print with an overlay of a map of where the rivers that are mentioned in Genesis could have been, and how they point to a potential site of Eden. Heaven & Eden were both referred to as "Paradise" suggesting that Eden could now be in Heaven...





This pair is a diptych, "River of Healing", again, contact prints with map overlays depicting rivers connected to the location of Eden. The overall size of each of these images is about 5" x 6".

Now I have to add some color!

little cool

Oct 22, 07
morning
Shingle Springs
little cool - clear - predicted high in the 70's today - no wind

Friend of a friend's home - out with plein air painters today for the first time in a long while.


Driveway leading up to the house, surrounded by oak woods -

Wandering around the property - the vineyard is past it's prime, leaves turning and grapes waiting to be harvested. A cow's lowing travels across the little valley. (I think it's called French Creek Valley.)



The ground is fairly dry - a little moisture from recent rains has encouraged fresh green grass shoots under the vines -





Farther down the hill, I hear lots of little birds in the nearby trees - see a couple sparrow types in the vineyard flitting about, others look more like some kind of fly catcher, no doubt finding insects about - as a bee buzzes by my head.



It's gotten warm enough to shed my jacket, a welcome light breeze brushes by.



Wandering all around the edges of the vineyard, back up to the top of the hill.



Sitting under the arbor, relaxed, chatting with artist friends about art, business, life - watching the light change on the hills on the other side of the little valley.

We take break for lunch, then I wander off a little farther.



The charms of quiet 'country' roads still exist - this would fit in the 'crazy woman in the middle of the road' series.

A car comes just as I snap the shutter, then I walk to the side - the car actually stops & the driver kindly asks if he can see, too.

While I sit to pull the print & scribble, the resident horses come to see what I'm up to, watching me over the fence.



Wandering back across the road for my next shot, a young dog on a walk with her mistress is a bit concerned about me as well, until she's allowed to smell me and see I'm alright.



On my walk out, the auto drive sees me again and wishes me well...


Technical Post Script: most of these images appear to be overexposed, which happens to be true of the positive Polaroid prints only. The particular film that I'm using, Polaroid PN, is a bit quirky exposure-wise, and the photographer can basically choose between a perfectly ptinted positive or a negative worth printing from. For myself, the negative is the ultimate goal, so the positive prints in my journal often appear very light - that just assures that the negative has all the detail it needs to print a wonderful darkroom print, which is my ultimate goal.

something new

In between house cleaning & laundry today, I managed to get a little production time in. I've been working on these Polaroid transfer art plaques. I start with small DaVinci boards, which I paint black, then collage a print from a Polaroid transfer onto the black board. It's a small decorative thing that I can sell for very affordable prices ($29 for a 6x8" and $39 for a 8x10".) Being on a budget myself, I want to be able to offer small affordable works of art.

My original Polaroid transfers had been filling that niche, but were actually undervalued; now I can sell them for more - probably still somewhat undervalued - but I like the idea of something for everyone's budget.



Anyway, these art plaques are fun & I pair up each image with an inspirational word that fits the piece, like the two in the front here are "love" and "joy."

wet mini series

More studio work today - and last night -



Wet watercolors on the New Jerusalem Palms mini series (and here you thought that was only on tv.)



This morning, I was working on two things at once - actually alternately, but saying at once is more impressive - in the foreground you can see the new Polaroid transfer wall art plaques I'm working on for a couple venues and back on my drawing table I'm doing the pencil work on the New Jerusalem Palms quartet.

By noon I've already finished the New Jerualem Palms, so I'll share...


My Father's House 1/5


Heavenly Homeland 1/5


City of God 1/5


Times of Refreshment 1/5

visions

This is actually what I just posted on the Visions of Heaven blog, but it's what I just did today, so I figured I'd put it here, too. To see the whole Visions of Heaven blog, go to www.heavenartproject.blogspot.com.

I spent a couple hours in the darkroom today, printing what I'm now calling my New Jerusalem Palms series. I've shared my journal pages of two of the four pieces already, so I'll share another today, then the uncolored prints (which are drying right now) and finally the finished pieces.


This is the page complete with overlay and miscellaneous notes. The Scripture I'm basing this image on is John 14:1-3, "Don't let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust also in me. There is more than enough room in my Father's home. If this were not so, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? When everything is ready, I will come and get you, so that you will always be with me where I am."


My first thought coming from this verse was of a long driveway lined with palms leading to a grand house, like can be found here in the Central Valley. Actually finding what I had in my head proved to be a challenge, and in looking for palms for other images in this series, I found my rows of palms and then thought I could overlay a small image of a home, or an architectural sketch but then realized I already had found an image of a mosaic map of ancient Jerusalem which portrayed buildings, bringing to my mind the idea of a home with many rooms, almost like a city...


So I created an overlay based on the mosaic to use with the palm trees and also create another visual reference to Jerusalem. Of course, the images never work out quite the same in the darkroom as they do in my journal. In this case, the image of the palms was too busy when the overlay was completely over it, but I like the effect on the wide black border around the image, so I cut a hole in the overlay to allow the palms to come through more readable.

It's really exciting for me to have all the pieces come together after messing around with them. This whole conceptual process is new to me, but I'm finding it rewarding in a whole new way.

midmorning

10.15.07
midmorning
Dry Creek in Gibson Ranch
cool, breezy, "chance of rain" light clounds (wind from the north)
sounds of the creek gurgling over a fallen log
a fishing bird of some kind flies up & down the creek



Seems like things aren't going to be easy today. The first exposure I made of this tree, I found my film rollers frozen together with guck & had to clean them - lost that piece of film altogether. The second exposure I could have sworn I focused but apparently not.



Exposure number three was not aligned properly - half onto one sheet of film half onto the next,



giving a double exposure effect for number four.



Today, five times is a charm, then I rest the coated positive under the edge of another & end up with this final -

Not eager to stay in that spot longer, I wander down creek, plenty of people wandering here today, too, most enjoying each other's peace.




Finally I find another spot to take time in - this time it's just routine issues of shooting into the sun that I have to contend with and it only takes two exposures.



I'm sitting on a sand bar, mostly dry now but apparently wet not long ago when it rained this past week. The creek in general appears to have run a bit higher then.

As I've walked, I've found that under nearly every oak tree is a mess of fallen acorns. Apparently the squirrels and birds can't work fast enough to collect them all, though I've seen a couple working at it. As I sit, I regularly hear the sound of falling acorns, cracking as they hit wood, crashing through dry bush, splashing into the creek.

accidental discovery

Today wasn't so much a creative day, but I found one of the most wonderful art galleries ever, completely by accident. The plan was for the kids & I to go have lunch with Scott in Grass Valley, where he's working these days, then spend some time this afternoon at the Empire Mine. Some of the trees are starting to turn and with the kids out of school this week, I thought it would be a good thing for all of us. Unfortunatly, it decided to rain today, so hiking around in the woods just didn't seem like so much fun.

So I convinced my young teens that it would be fun to go to Nevada City and wander around the old town there, poke through some shops and by the way, maybe find an art gallery or two. As providence would have it, the parking spot I managed to work my way into was right in front of an art gallery. I'd never even heard of it before, but it was raining & it looked like as good a place as any to duck into. The sign on the door said Mowen Solinksy Gallery, and immediately the work inside began to draw us in, deeper and deeper.

Besides all the inviting artwork, I began to see work from artist's that I recognized and very much respect. Carol Aust, a friend of a friend, has some wonderful figurative paintings there in her rich pallette, including paintings on the center pages of books that just blew me away. Then some photoraphs pulled me to them, and I saw the work of Steve Solinsky, which seemed familiar to me, both the name & the work. I'm a little slow sometimes, so it took me some time to realize that Steve is a fellow member at Viewpoint and had work at the KVIE art auction that I recently helped at. I also saw work from Huntington Witherall, whose work is going up at Viewpoint this month.

By now even my teens were enjoying themselves and we spent a serious amount of time pointing out interesting artworks to each other. Deidre and I both really enjoyed the mixed media constructions by Teresa Eaton, the textures and earthy colors of her woven looking works with boxes in the center reminded me of finding treasures in my grandfather's garage. Phillip and I found a couple watercolors with such intricate details of dotted patterns on an intricate fish's scales, that we were thoroughly impressed with the time and talent such work required. The colors were vivid and bright and the overall effect was stunning, but I forgot the artist's name.

We also found really amazing wirework, and glass and I saw lovely pieces by my friend Joseph Bellacera as well, which Dee also happened to be drawn to. We were like little children in a candy store - oh look at this! every step of the way. If you ever find yourself near Nevada City, it's more than worth the time to visit this lovely gallery. I even found their website (www.mowensolinskygallery.com) but it's not near as good as going there.

new for smith

Last night I finished framing all six new pieces for the Smith Gallery, here's "California State Palms" ready for the frame:



Now all six are ready to go - I'll get them out to Smith Gallery & then you can see it all on the walls there.

cathedral

Finished the last piece for Smith Gallery today, "Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament". Painted it yesterday, you can actually see pools of wet paint:


And finished with pencils today, harder to see the new color strokes, unless you look very carefully in the trees, and you can see new color in the rooftop to the far right:


Always more impressive in person, and then more so matted and framed on a gallery wall - which will all be done in less than a week.

studio work

Busy yesterday with more painting & coloring, among other things, like going to the grocery store.



Waiting for watercolors to dry on shot of the Crest Theater in downtown Sacramento.



Deidre takes a shot of me putting pencil detail onto the Crest. This is one of the pieces that will be at Smith Gallery by the end of next week. I picked up matboard & frames this morning, need to finish one more piece, then put it all together!

still wandering

Expanding the scope of this blog to include studio shots, comments on what I'm working on, whatever - still wandering, of course.



Here's what it looked like at my drawing table earlier - right after I finished painting this piece of City Hall - part of my Sacramento Landmarks series that I've been working on. You can see the watercolor 'films' that I used all stacked on top of my painting box.



Same piece a few hours later, added a significant amount of colored pencils after the watercolors dried. I might add some oil pastel later, I'll have to study it for a while then decide. Next I'll have two more pieces to finish, then mat & frame six works altogether by about this same time next week so I can get it all up on the walls of Smith Gallery for Second Saturday.

Art under deadline!