dry creek

April 7, 2009
Dry Creek, Gibson Ranch
morning
sunny, windy, light clouds, pollen high

(Playing with my little digital Nikon)

Out with Sparky, my latest canine companion: small, sturdy & cute enough to make up for any shortcomings (right now: looking for something smelly to roll in...)

Birds are singing, talking to each other, a jay chides among the songs - then a coast guard four engine prop plane roars overhead on final approach to remind me exactly where I am -

The oaks all have bright green spring leaves bursting out. The grasses all tall green and lush as well. Tiny flowers peek up - big black butterflies flit about in pairs.

Water flows past at a moderate pace, about as deep now as other years it's been in summer - this summer the creek is likely to earn it's Dry name.

Little flowers drop down from the oaks onto the beach I'm sitting on.

Sparky gets restless and wants to move on

ta-daa!

Finished the Sacramento News & Review newsstand today! Just need to put a clear coat on it...

I'm actually pretty pleased with how it all came out - I wasn't really stressing about this, just not really thinking about it at all, which put me in the perfect state of mind for creating.

So often, I find that the worst thing I can do is overthink a piece while I'm working on it. It's best to go in with a general plan, then just let it happen. That's what I did with this, simply because I had been so busy, I just didn't have the time to plan much beyond the basic idea -

turned out to be a pretty good thing.

newsstand news

So - now that my 50 artworks are done & I've shipped off 48 hand-embellished pigment prints for the new Ritz Carlton being built at Northstar, Tahoe, I think I can get back to things like blogging...

So now the deadline I'm working on is to paint a Sacramento News & Review newsstand, I've got until next Wednesday. Not that I haven't had access to the box before now, but I just had paying gigs to get done, so now I'm getting to the community service.

Actually a pretty cool thing, this is - I get to play and participate in another public art project. This is the first stage completed, where I've collaged all the elements onto the box.

And here's the Sparky-girl, the newest addition to our family & my studio. She's a two-year-old Staffordshire bull terrier who just loves everybody who comes in to the studio, humans and canines alike.

I'm continuing my "City of Trees" theme here - with images of Sacramento landmarks combined with leaf image transfers & bird sketches.

Sometimes Sparky feels the need to get involved in my creative process...

How can I tell her "no"?

So by the end of the studio day, I've gotten the first couple layers of glazes on, blocking out some painted elements and colors over the image transfers.

The front & top of the box - my web address on top, and the required "SN&R" to identify the box's eventual contents.

So far, so good - and it's nice to break out a bit larger than little wood panels...

love grows

Found time in between 6x6" panels to get another piece done, using the image I called "Tree Lovers" before - this one is called "Love Grows."

35 of 50

Been hard a work, too busy to blog much - I've gotten thirty five of the fifty completed now - you can see individual pieces on my Tree Stories blog. I'm calling the series "City of Trees"...


(you can click on this image to see it all bigger)

50-50

I got accepted to the 50-50 show at 20th Street Gallery here in Sac, where some seventy or so artists each have to create fifty artworks in fifty days. I'm doing mine in batches since I've got so many layers to do that no one piece could be finished in a single day...

tough little guy

It's the way he's staring the viewer down - no fear, and that unusual perspective made this sparrow a new challenge to draw.

Oh - and I got into the 50-50 show at 20th Street, so this gives me thirteen sparrow sketches to sprinkle through the fifty pieces - starting gun is in a couple days. I also got all my little contact photos printed yesterday, so I'm trying to get all the pieces together, ready to get started on the 30th.

in flight

trying something a little tougher in my quest for variety -

another finished piece

After painting for a few days and the addition of handwritten text, this piece is finished. (you can click on the image to see it larger) I call it "Trees Along the River" from the text that I added to it from Jeremiah.

"Blessed are those who trust in the Lord and have made the Lord their hope and confidence. They are like tree planted along the riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves sty green, and they never stop producing fruit."

You might also notice the sparrow - that little reminder of God's concern.

more sparrows

I'm trying to get some of these done every day until I have a bit of a selection for my different collages.

and then some sketching, too

I like the singing sparrow, myself.

studio hopping

This is my newest piece in progress, just got the basic collage elements down. I'm getting ready to go over to my friend Michelle MacKenzie's home studio for some creative fun. I've been wanting to see how she applies texture to her acrylic paintings with modeling paste. I've played some on my own, but I was curious to see how she handles the stuff & it's always fun to go to a friend's house to play.

I really like watching Michelle at work & getting a peek at another artist's creative process. Here she is hard at work, manipulating the modeling paste on a canvas.

Carving out a line...


Part of an artist's job is carefully considering the next step, here's Michelle in deep thought in her studio.

Creating shapes with the side of her palette knife.

My piece after playing with the modeling paste, applying it with a palette knife & creating texture with a sea sponge, to give it a more organic quality - thanks Michelle!

You can see the texture better in a closer photo.

ready to apply

I've been working on a couple pieces to apply to 20th Street Gallery's 3rd Annual 50-50 show, where each selected artist creates 50 artworks in 50 days. Part of the application process is submitting one sample 6x6" piece, so I did three so I could submit the one I felt was strongest.

These are the fruits of my labor, now I'll turn in my application packet and see what happens... I've put so much thought into the project that I think I'll do it myself regardless of whether or not I get into the actual show. Part of the application describes my theme & what my plan is for the show:

This series will be called "city of Trees" and I will be creating a mixed media collages, each having several elements:

1) One of twenty or more original black & white photographs. Images are of trees in urban/suburban settings to bring attention to the importance of our urban forests. Photos would largely be from the greater Sacramento area but might include trees in other cities.

2) Laser copies of original sketches of small birds. Bird images have two layers of meaning; the first connection of birds nesting in trees, creating their own "city" and the second, a reference to Matthew 10:29-31 that tells of God's attention to little sparrows and that he has even more concern for every human.

3) Pieces of maps, ideally of the place where each image was taken, to help create a sense of place.

4) Actual plant material linked to the tree photo either by species or form.

5) Consistent limited palette applied with colored pencils and acrylic glazes to unify each piece and the series as a whole.


I'll let you know what happens...

pratice

practice, practice... fun!

sunny new studio

So - here's the new studio downstairs at the SAC building - all painted shades of sunshine, because Angela & I both like how our artwork looks on yellow walls at home.

It's our first Second Saturday together in our new studio, time for a shot of the girls together - me on the left, Angela taller than me even with my tall heels on - such is my life. ;)

Celebrating Angela's big step into the world of art studios - here flanked by friends, Gail to the left, then Angela, Jesse & Kristen Hoard, her metal sculpting mentor (and one of my best buds, too.)

(The night progresses & we all get a little blurry, or at least the photos do! That's me to the far right, not taking the photo...)

We hope you get to come down & see it all in person soon - Studio 5B at the Sacramento Art Complex, 2110 K Street, Sacramento CA 95816. (Call for an appointment or to make sure we're there, first!)

sparrow sketch

working on more sparrow sketching for future use...

sketchbook

More sparrows

sharing visions

Today I helped hang some of my original "Visions" with some newer visions at Oak Hills Church in Folsom. I've been planning to write a new artist's statement and this was finally the impetus to do so:

When I first started working as a visual artist, I didn’t sit down and say, “I’m going to try to put the spiritual world into my artwork” or “I think I’ll make the invisible visible” but that is exactly where I have found myself. As I created my art, I was just reacting to what I saw and felt at a particular time and place and it wasn’t until much later and after much reflection that I even had an idea of what it was that I was doing.

For a long time, I thought I was just reacting to nature and my love plants and growing things, then I began to realize that those times outside and alone were the times I felt closest to God, without the distractions of other people, and I was wanting to recreate that feeling through my art. I found myself longing for Eden, for a time to walk in the garden with God, enjoying the earth as it once was and a relationship with each other as it was intended to be; I was saddened that Eden was lost but somehow felt like it wasn’t completely out of reach, that somehow God could make it happen again.

All of this thought process happened over the passage of years, and finally I found myself in a Bible study of heaven when the “aha!” moment happened. All of those years, I had been trying to catch a glimpse of heaven, just getting a tiny taste of the goodness to come, and preserving it in my artwork.

I decided to become more intentional in my work, and then encouraged a group of artists at my church to join me in my quest to share our visions of heaven with others. “Visions of Heaven” originally was a group art project by Covenant Artists based on a Biblical study of Heaven. We wanted it to be God working through us, so our whole process began and ended with prayer and was thoroughly rooted in Scripture. It was a year-long project that culminated in a group showing at our own church as well as at the Artisan Gallery, but it was just a beginning for me.



Now, every piece of artwork I create is an effort to experience and share a little bit of heaven. I believe that one day this poor old planet will be made new again, cleaned up and perfected, and that if we look hard enough, we can see how wonderful it will be. My process for creating art often reflects the dichotomy of the old becoming new again; my black and white negatives are often less than perfect, like this earth right now, then I add to them, using them to make something wonderful and new, rich with color and texture in a way photographs just can’t be when untouched. It’s a little like the way God will take the old earth, and reunite it with paradise, restoring Eden on earth and fulfilling the longing that he’s put in my heart.