this tree flag has been out two years now. look at how bright those caran d'ache crayons still are. jeez, this impresses me!
walking back... looking south i can see two valleys and mt. lassen, which last erupted in 1915.
anyway, this is the disintegration bundle that i buried last spring when everyone else in seth's collaboration was revealing theirs. i felt so grouchy this morning (not doing art, you know) i figured digging might help, so i dug it up. no way! not nearly disintegrated enough!
...all progress must come from deep within and cannot be pressed or hurried by anything. Everything is gestation and then bringing forth. To let each impression and each germ of a feeling come to completion, wholly in itself, in the dark, in the inexpressible, the unconscious, beyond the reach of one's own intelligence, and await with deep humility and patience the birth-hour of a new clarity: that alone is living the artist's life: in understanding as in creating. There is no measuring with time, no year matters, and ten years are nothing. Being an artist means, not reckoning and counting, but ripening like the tree which does not force its sap and stands confident in the storms of spring without the fear that after them may come no summer. It does come. But it comes only to the patient, who are there as though eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly still and wide.
mostly oil pastels and colored pencil, some acrylic, and a very little watercolor. 5 1/2" x 6 1/2"
i painted a few faces last week but mostly i worked on The Doll... i'd wanted to send her off last tuesday but she just wasn't ready.
oil pastels and colored pencil with a very tiny amount of caran d'ache crayons and koh-i-noor pastel pencil. 5" x 7"
i've been having a good time with oil pastels. this face and the top one were done almost completely with oil pastels. on both faces i only used watercolors in the eyes and lips... i also drew this face with the china marker first so i'd have to stick with what i drew - i want to loosen up more and erase less. i just got 'the power of your other hand' (thank you vivian for the heads up!) which is about drawing with your nondominant hand. i am so interested in this as this is the way that i usually draw.
i've only been out walking one day in the last week - i think it was maybe the day of the moon bombing, and between that and feeling generally tired and quiet, i didn't walk far once i reached the dry stream bed i'd headed for. walking upstream was out because it was uphill, and downhill was good but then there was walking back... so i went a few feet and laid down and looked up at the trees.
i took a picture of my traveling colored pencil kit for you. pencils, a paper stump for blending, a 'blending pencil' (i use it on the cheeks if nowhere else), a pencil sharpener, and a piece of muslin. the muslin is great for wiping off the wood before you draw on it. it works like a very fine sandpaper.
i dumped the pencils on the ground and he got away!
on my way home i stopped to feast on the scent of lichen on juniper, and oh what a feast it was.
and finally, thank you for your thoughts and suggestions a couple of posts ago - i appreciate them!
watercolor and acrylic paint, colored pencils, magazine scrap, oil pastels on muslin; approx. 4" x 6"
have you heard that NASA has sent a 'bomb laden missile' to the moon? yes, they have... you can read about it here, here, and here. and here at the NASA website... as you can see, the "projected impact at the lunar South Pole is currently: Oct 9, 2009 at 4:30 a.m. PDT."
i feel like i'm beginning to get the hang of image transfers using gel medium and paper.
all of these were done with colored pencils, oil pastels, caran d'ache crayons, and twinkling H2Os.
the back side of the face above - this was my first attempt at an image transfer using a transparency sheet. i let the gel medium dry before i took the transparency off, and it was practically cemented to the muslin. most of the image (a chagall painting) stuck to the transparency sheet, so i sewed it to the muslin.
i'm working on a doll for my mother's birthday and this is what she looks like now. she's upside down in a glass on the woodstove - i'm making sure her hair (yeah hair!) is dry before i paint her. in her brief life so far she's looked like trent lott, homer simpson, and abraham lincoln.
Practise what you know, and it will help to make clear what you do not know.