A picture is worth a thousand words!

After sharing many art stories, personal memories, and my creative process through this blog over the past few years, I’ve made the move to a more visual platform. Please join me on Instagram @ashley_wolff_art to see my newest works-in-progress, creative explorations, books and more. The story continues…

• 

.

Día de los Muertos – Day of the Dead

Knowing Dawn for the past year has strengthened my affection for the traditions and rituals of Southwestern culture. For a New England girl, I am strongly attracted to that desert light, color, and imagery.

Enjoy Dawn’s Dia de los Muertos post and I invite you to follow her blog.

Dawn Wink: Dewdrops

Pan de muerto – decorated by Wynn

Calavera masks

‘Tis the season in our family to celebrate Día de los Muertos/Day of the Dead. Time to honor loved ones who have passed. Time to lay out a trail of marigold petals for the spirits to follow back home and to the altar. Time to create the altar with photos, foods, drink, and treasures. Our house fills with calaveras (skulls), even more than the usual.

Noé’s parents, Amadeo y Manuela Villarreal

A time to remember loved ones and the gift of their presence in our lives. Photos of Noé’s parents, both of our grandparents, and dear friends who have passed grace the altar. Noé tells stories of his parents, who raised five children while working as migrant farm workers throughout the U.S.  “No matter where we were working,” Noé says, “and a lot of times we lived in abandoned barns or…

View original post 402 more words

SkaDaMo~2014

Seabiscuit

another memorial-this time for all the dear, dead ponies.

Painting a Cottage Card

Last summer I was into drawing fairies. The mushrooms in my forest were transformed into moonlight bathtubs.

But this year I returned to ‘realism’ and featured the diminutive red eft. This brightly colored, juvenile phase of the Eastern Newt is on the move to winter quarters They are scuttling speedily along the mossy forest trails, looking for their new pond. 

I paint a lot of Cottage Cards each summer and send them to my special friends. To make it a little faster I do them in batches. Each one is different, but they all use the same basic elements and colors.

After I’ve drawn the image in pencil, I completely saturate the paper with clean water. Using gouache, I paint the orange eft-wet into wet. When the 1st wet layer has dried, I use a bright, mossy green to paint the background. reserving white areas as I go. I add various colors to the mushroom caps. The deep greens of the forest are added as an indigo layer in the far background.Purple-blue shadows under the mushroom caps and the eft’s body come next. A winding Partridge Berry vine is added to three of the four cards, along with some mossy texture. I use a gold ink pen to outline the eft’s eye and the red spots along her body. The final layer is a diluted wash of cobalt blue to focus attention on the red eft.

Now I remove the tape and, voila!

 

 

In Praise of the “Artist’s Fungus”

There is a particular type of shelf fungus growing around here in the woods that I call an Artist’s Fungus, also known as  Ganoderma applanatum, the artist’s conk. Artists have been drawing on these for many years.  I found some contemporary examples by Corey Corcoran that are weirdly cool:

This is an ephemeral medium-if you don’t etch them quickly they harden and are no longer workable.

Some have better contrast than others. This early one of a loon has faded into a uniform tan, but the design is still visible.

The white underside of the fungus turns dark when it is disturbed. A sharp object like a nail, jack knife, or exacto knife can be used to etch.

The side of a blade can create shadows, but lettering is hard for me.

some work better than others. Here the invasive weed Eurasian Milfoil‘s feathery textures work better than the gliding fish.

My favorite is my newest, a cat face and a tiny mouse on 2 separate fungi.

Purrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Related articles

• The Artist’s Conk (palymoth.com)
• Finding what is underneath (moonandshadow.wordpress.com)