Channeling Sam Cannon

While looking for something else I discovered Sam Cannon’s artwork and fell in love with his imagery and calligraphy. His eloquently realized animals, with beautifully hand-lettered quotations, spoke to a desire in me to do likewise. His tiny Petal Paper originals were particularly appealing.

When I looked into channeling his style I found I was fresh out of Petal Paper, so I just made my own version by wetting watercolor paper and painting  loose leaves and flowers.

Using these backgrounds as inspiration, I added figures and quotes that particularly resonated with me, keeping faithfully to Sam Cannon’s style.

As the paintings developed I added more leaves, flowers and stems around the figures and calligraphy, making the most of my watercolors.

I love the distinctive Sam Cannon ‘font’ and line arrangement. I experimented with different tools for the calligraphy.

I tried a more traditional opaque gouache approach with the dip pen on brown paper for this garden painting.

My favorite Thoreau quote is painted with white ink and a brush on the woodpile. These chilly chickadees are drawn from the flocks right outside my window here in Vermont.

I am using Schminke Aqua Bronze Rich Gold and Silver gouache to paint the metallic accents.

I learn by copying and experimenting and evolving. I hope to keep moving ever further from copying Sam and more into being entirely me.

As always, you can find my work for sale at my Etsy shop.

 

Happy New Year, Roosters!

2017 is the Chinese Year of the  Rooster.

When I lived in San Francisco-a very Asian city, Chinese  New Year was a festive and LOUD time of year: think firecrackers, bell ringing, lion dances and exotic parades.

This is a Fire Rooster year. Fire Roosters are traditionally trustworthy, with a strong sense of timekeeping and responsibility at work. The other types are Wood Roosters, Earth Roosters, Gold Roosters and Water Roosters.

On the whole, Roosters are active, amusing, popular, healthy, outspoken, honest, loyal, talkative and charming. Many of my dearest friends are Fire Roosters.

Happy New Year, Roosters-

Cockadoodle~Doo!

a Fire Rooster, painted with gouache on paper

Since Roosters are also chickens, this post will celebrate these fascinating and delicious animals-among my very favorite to observe and draw.

A hen and rooster painted with gouache on brown paper

rooster painted with gouache on paper

a variety of poultry breeds drawn in colored pencil on brown paper

Buff Laced Bantam Rooster painted in gouache on paper

“Bless each wren, each rooster and hen” painted in gouache on black gesso. From the book: Home Sweet Home by Jean Marzollo and Ashley Wolff

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The Weird, Wonderful Wandering Ways of Watercolor.

Clean water

soft brushes

heavy paper

Cool vs Warm

Pthalo vs Ultramarine

Primaries,  secondaries, tertiaries, complements

and a huge variety of grays.

A brush charged with  water can lift a clean line or destroy a wash

A spray of rubbing alcohol doesn’t make a dent on a dry wash, but drip it onto wet paint and you have fantastic, blobby bullseyes.

A sprinkling of salt makes “stars” on a damp night sky.

Crumpled plastic wrap makes blocks and angles

Your smooth, even wash depends on keeping a wet ‘bead’ moving along under your brush.

Glazing color over color makes every possible combo, yet all you really need to make a whole spectrum are

Red          Yellow       Blue

Then layer red over blue, over yellow to create simple “shadow paintings”

Or use a “negative” painting technique that layers from light to dark to create a deep, mysterious painting.

• 

  make a simple design and float watercolors onto wet paper.

• 

  Paint around the positive shapes , adding more and more and darkening your washes each time.

• 

  keep adding more layers by drawing details into the negative spaces.

Or use a resist medium to create a design, then pour the paint on top .

• 

  draw with waterproof resist medium on clean paper.

• 

  pour a mix of red, yellow and blue watercolor over the resist drawing.

• 

  rub off the resist medium with a fingertip.

• 

  this simple owl is just a resist medium drawing with a single pour of watercolors.

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Goodbye Old Year, Hello New!

Father Time and Baby New Year

The old to the new,

The beard to the baby,

the wrinkled to the plump,

The tired to the fresh.

Father Time and Baby New Year from Frolic & Fun, 1897

What a weird, but wonderful image for the turn of the new year.

The old is always to the left, the new to the right.

I wanted to make my own version, so I used my own Baby Bear as the New year’s baby and his older self as the old year.

my quick thumbnail sketch

pencil on watercolor paper, with 1st wash

several washes-no line.

painting with line and some photoshopping

And finally,  two older images of an infant Miss Bindergarten,

and her grown up self wishing All Y’all

a Happy, Healthy 2016!

Please share the joy, Y’all!

 

Sleep

It’s late November here in Vermont ~ the time of year for hibernation.

Who hibernates? Bats, Bears,skunks, bees, snakes, and groundhogs to name a few.

Since moving from a mild California climate to the stricter seasonal progression of northern New England, I’ve become much more sympathetic to the concept of hibernation!

On the last day of Baby Bear Counts One, Mama and Baby Bear are ready to curl up and sleep the winter away.

Showing the process of sleeping is relatively easy, but showing dreaming was a challenge in Only The Cat Saw.  When I was a child I often dreamed of being near the ocean or swimming when I really needed to get up to urinate!

Enter a caption

Holly Taylor modeled as the sleeping Amy, way back in 1984

Amy, dreaming in Only The Cat Saw. Acrylic on paper

Of course, we sleep all year long, and humans enjoy it as much as animals. Mostly sleep happens when it is too dark to draw, but sometimes a nap overtakes us, and when it does I seize that moment of daylight stillness to draw.

Since the late 70s I’ve drawn people and creatures I love while they were sleeping.

Here is a selection.

watercolor sketch of my sister Peregrine, asleep on the couch after wisdom tooth removal..

watercolor sketch of my sister Peregrine.

this drawing of Rowan reminds me of Amy’s pose. Colored pencil on brown paper

Brennan, asleep. Colored pencil on brown paper

Rowan, asleep. Colored pencil on brown paper.

Sabin, asleep. Marker on brown paper.

Tula napping. Watercolor on brown paper

Nutkin, sleeping. Acrylic on paper.

Wildridge kitten, sleeping. Gouache on brown paper.

How I Paint with Gouache in my Brown Paper Sketchbook

A friend asked me to do a step-by-step on my sketchbook painting technique.

The point was made that one rarely sees the underlying drawing or the build up of paint in an artist’s work–just the finished product. I have posted step-by-steps of my niece’s murals and cottage cards, so here goes another.

I drew the pony with a 3H pencil. It is hard and light and good for the underlying sketch.

Using gouache as if it were watercolor, mainly burnt sienna and cobalt blue, I added the 1st set of darks.

I use a smallish palette of colors, mainly primaries. I love gouache because it works well both transparently and opaquely.

Using cobalt blue and yellow ochre I filled in a background.

The pony’s spots seemed kind of flat, so I washed some orange over them and added darkest darks using  a small liner brush with indigo and burnt sienna.

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SkaDaMo~2014

Why draw?

for practice, for fun, for history and remembrance, to be in the moment–all good reasons.

Add one more.

To be part of a pop-up, temporary community of kindred spirits during a very dark, very chilly month.

I may not be present  and accounted for on every day this month. but I will try to do SkaDaMo 2014 with as much verve as possible.

My first weekend of November was spent in Florence, MA with dear RISD friends: Barb and Maureen. We spent happy hours in Maureen’s kitchen, which sports an impressive pot and pan collection.

Barb enjoys her coffee black.

Maureen grows her own thyme.

I look forward to the rest of this month.

#SkaDaMo

The Joy of Beaches in Winter

Christmas at the beach-a California tradition.

Big storms sweep in from the west and huge tides bring in piles of tangled kelp and other beach debris.

The impossibly tangled piles buzz with Kelp Flies.

The Kelp’s gas bladders keep the long stem or stipes, floating upright in the water.

Northern California beaches are not known for shells but there are dense mussel beds and those shells are easy to find.  This sketch includes a scrap of Abalone shell, fish spine bones and crab claws.

I love collecting this sort of beach debris for my Beach Portraits.

And then there are the Harbor Seals, who haul themselves up to nap on the sunny rocks.

And sometimes there are the husbands, who nap anywhere they like.

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Snow!

As a Vermont Girl, I know my snow.

I’ve been figuring out ways to draw and paint snow, in all its shapes and forms, my entire life.

There are lots of kinds of snow.

The 1st snows of autumn, that slowly cover the still-green grass, frost bitten plants, and leaf strewn ground.

When Lucy Goes Out Walking

December snows, that slowly fill up the woods~until we trudge through it to find a perfect Christmas tree,

A Year of Beasts

Or February snow, deep and light enough to race a sled through,

When Lucy Goes Out Walking

Or use as a smooth, white, picnic blanket for the birds.

A Year of Birds

I’ve painted snow as the natural habitat for Polar Bears,

I Love my Mommy Because

And gray wolves.

I Love my Daddy Because

And painted it in totally unexpected places, like a usually sunny day in Jamaica!

Doctor Bird

I’ve sat in my car and drawn a snowy scene from life.

White horse in snow. Gouache on brown paper

And I ended my new book, Baby Bear Counts One, with 10, big snowflakes, falling slowly enough for a surprised bear cub to count them.

Baby Bear Counts One

But turn the page and watch as the snow picks up, swirling in curtains across the mouth of the den,

Baby Bear Counts One 

And finally, the flakes are falling so fast that there are…

Baby Bear Counts One

Too many to count!

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A Thanksgiving Visit to Plimoth Plantation with Goody O’Grumpity

In 1993 my imagination was living in Plimoth Plantation.

I was illustrating a a poem by Carol Ryrie Brink. She is best known for her novel Caddie Woodlawn, which won the Newbery Medal in 1936. She also wrote a short, melodic poem called Goody O’Grumpity and I illustrated it as a picture book.

The communal beehive oven was at the center of the village and Goody bakes her “cake” among the nicely burned down coals.

I thought the strong, black lines of my linoleum cuts paired with the rich, autumnal watercolor, would compliment the linear quality of the mostly wooden and thatch built village of Plimoth Plantation. My neighbor, Marty, posed as Goody, in a homemade costume. Brennan and Rowan made appearances and so did a lovely Border Collie.

You can spot Rowan, then only 3, as the little curly head peeking over the fence and pointing. Boys and girls wore long dresses and caps until the boys were older and switched to breeches.

“And throughout the land went such a smell, of citron and spice~ no words can tell

How cinnamon bark and lemon rind, and round, brown nutmegs grated fine

A wonderful haunting perfume wove, together with allspice, ginger and clove,

When Goody but opened the door of her stove.”

If you want to try to make Goody’s cake, really a sweet bread, here is Plimoth Plantation’s own recipe, reprinted in the book.

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