Burial II
Burial I
Burial I
Category Archives: My Art
Sketches from Friday at Northwind Arts Center
Figure in the Grass
I take my pencils and a sketchbook when I sit the Northwind Arts Center galleries once a month. Occasionally the exhibit inspires me directly, at other times work on display flavors my latest drawings as I draw at their (rather fabulous) desk. On Friday I started with the idea of working larger with my Grasses series. However I will probably need to take that into a new media: I can’t scale up the way I use pencils… and still have fun! Then my theme of wrapping and bandages entered my sketch. We’ll see if this works into a finished image at some point; I think it will appear again.
In fact I am doing some digital work with this scan, adjusting the the figure visibility a bit, while still keeping it lost in the grass…
Figure in the Grass, with digital mods
In the Print Shop …
Wheat Field with Poppies
Untitled, lino cut
Snakes in the Grass
I have been working on several new plates, mostly relief plates of various easy cut. But I have started on one low-tech etching plate and a collograph. I have only printed from these so far… But here is the scan of another plate:
Plate Scan: Kneeling Figure
Make a guess
Mind your own beeswax…
After the Spring Rain
I recall this as quite the favorite saying at some point in my childhood. But here beeswax is put to a different use. All the elements in the plate are coated with wax, and are the detritus in the gutter after a spring storm.
Bandages
The other piece is less obvious, and must be viewed more closely. Pieces of medical gauze drenched in melted beeswax wrap the spheres, which are scarred and marked with smears of brown & red, evoking wounds. Various small scraps of other material create texture and interest on these wounded globes…
Bandages, close-up
I have submitted this second piece, Bandages, to upcoming juried show at the Northwind Art Center. I don’t know if has enough impact or conveys the theme well enough. However it certainly fits the theme, being of a style, subject and medium that is “outside my comfort range”! I failed to get a hanger on the first piece in time to enter it.
My Grasses Series takes a turn
Outside my comfort zone: Dragons
Tangled Twigs VIII: Here there be Dragons
This piece started continues my Tangled Twigs series, but with a very different twist. Inspired by the theme of the upcoming juried show at a local gallery, I decided to emphasize color and fantasy. I am not comfortable working with either!
I don’t plan to enter the show at Northwinds Art Gallery, being a bit sour on juried shows at the moment, but I did need to find a way to proceed with this drawing. I was stuck, and perhaps winding down on this series, so here there be dragons!
Soft on Grey Art Board
Grasses V, mixed media on art board
This continuation of my texture meditations started with embossing & black conte crayon, then graphite pencil. It was very dull, but I did not want high contrast black & white, so I added a little color.
I used colored pencil (including metallics), pan pastel, and for the extra touch you cannot really see in this image a three colored silk threads…
Digital Effects to Amuse
Trying to get satisfaction…
This tangled twig drawing on paper evokes a nest of snakes … and it is getting more interesting. At first it was soft, delicate and irritatingly bland…
Tangled Twigs VI, maybe finished
I worked on it but my efforts to add & improve were failing, so I set it aside. Returning to it now, I am bolder with changes. The large ghost leaf/nest is a new major addition, and it has more contrast, and more but less vivid color.
Curly Twig Tangle VI, early draft
I don’t love it, and wish I had chosen different colors, but it does work better. The lower image is a scan of an early draft before the recent work.
Unfortunately the muted purple Prismacolor pencil I used is one that bleeds vivid magenta with spray fixative! It took a lot of work to mute that ghastly effect. I need to test my colors for this problem: it seems several purple shades do this, and there may be a few other colors that separate and bleed!