Upon the Starry Bog

"Siabhra sails his boat till dawn upon the starry bog." 

(Siabhra is pronounced "Sheevra," and denotes a class of Irish fairy or spirit.)

The Green Man's Thorn

Well, this one has been on the easel for what feels like months. Much of that time it's been dormant, a subject of contemplation and equivocal feeling.  I've tweaked it recently and feel like I need to take it public. To continue with this project, I need to feel positive about the paintings I've done so far. I think that's finally happening.

The line of the lullaby is "Dusk is drawn, and the Green Man's thorn is wreathed in rings of fog." There are two more lines in the lullaby after this, so two more paintings await me!

The Corries --- Garten Mother's Lullaby

This is the song that I want to transform into a children's book. I have another painting in progress, but I haven't decided if it's done yet. I might go back and revamp the moon painting as well. But whenever I hear this song, I am inspired again to continue this project. It's not easy: I want every painting to stand on its own as a piece of art, out of the context of the lullaby and without the support of the other paintings. At the same time, all the paintings have to work together, be cohesive, and enhance the narrative of the lullaby. And be a decent book (I'm thinking a baby board book?)

Block Printing Tutorial

I've been wondering if anyone else is as clueless about "prints" as I am, or was.  Whenever I used to read the word "print," I thought, "reproduction" or "printout." I knew about screenprinting, and woodcut printing, but I just assumed that anyone making an original screenprint or woodcut print would *say* so.  So whenever I refer to my printed art as a "print," I try to communicate that it's not a computer-made reproduction.  I am also crossing my fingers that you know what the art involves.  Rather than rely on luck, how about a lesson in printing?

I don't profess to be an expert. I've read all of one book about printmaking, and have taken zero classes.  Nevertheless, I print. Here's how:

1.  I sit down with a piece of art linoleum or wood. I draw on it, or transfer a design with carbon paper, making sure my design is the mirror image of how I want it to be on the final product.

2. I start cutting out the design with the wood knives, creating shapes like you'd carve a pumpkin...the parts I shave out of the material are going to be paper-colored, and the parts that I leave behind are going to be colored. It's just like carving a rubber stamp.  I never fail to draw blood with those really sharp little carving knives.  One slip-up, and the whole block is ruined, or at least I have to adjust the design. Or I'm running for the first-aid kit.

3. When all the bits are carefully carved out, I can "ink" the block.  I can use acrylic paint if the viscosity is right, or printing ink, or even stamp-pad ink, rolled on with a rubber brayer. 

4.  I get out some smooth paper and try to line it up correctly over my block, before the ink or paint dries.  I press it down firmly on the block, then rub it all over with the back of a round wooden spoon.  Stamping the block onto the paper wouldn't work, there just isn't enough flexibility in the block to get an even transfer of ink to paper. 

5. I peel the print back and let it dry, or trash it if it didn't work. 

So when I say "hand-printed," "linotype," or "original woodblock print," this is what I mean!  I'm offering the greeting cards below for $4 each, and I hope you'll agree they're worth it.  They're 5x7 flat cards on pearlized gold paper, with matching envelopes. Each one is hand-printed using archival sepia-red ink, and signed and labeled on the back. The woodblock is my original work, titled "In the Moonlight."  Let me know if you're interested---I can mail a card to you for $0.50 extra.  I could also do a big batch for baby shower invitations or birth announcements. 

The Paley Moon

Here is the third painting in the Gartan Mother's Lullaby series. 

The line goes, "A leanbhan O, the paley moon hath brimmed her cusp in dew, and weeps to hear the sad sleep-tune I sing, O love, to you." "A leanbhan O" sounds like "aylee-on-van-o" and means "dear little child." Often this line appears in the second verse, but I've taken some creative liscense to place it in the first verse. Also, the poem might say "the pale half moon," but when sung by the Corries, it sounds like "paley." 

It's pretty hard to paint the moon, I discovered!  When a bright thing in a dark field is the subject of a painting, the viewer's eye stops right there and doesn't move around. And yet, what can the artist put in the surrounding area that will be 1) interesting, 2) not cliche, and 3) not too distracting?  I think this painting is pretty successful. I'd be interested to hear your comments! Thanks for coming to view it.

Aoibheall from the Gray Rock

Here is the second of the Gartan Mother's Lullaby series.  "Aoibheall" is pronounced "eval" but it refers to the queen of Irish fairies, hence the small fairy reference in the painting.

The line of the lullaby, in full, is "Aoibheall from the Gray Rock comes, to wrap the world in thrall."  While we Americans sometimes use the word "enthralled," we forget the origins, so it is lovely to come across the word "thrall" and remember that it is a spell of sorts, in which we are swaddled as dusk falls.

Aoibheall from the Gray Rock Comes.  11x14 watercolor. Not for sale.

Below, The Red Bee Hums, revisited. It took me a full two weeks to decide that I didn't like the intense red-violet of the painting I posted earlier. A good friend of mine, also an artist, suggested the bee could be more abstract, rather than literal.  I scrubbed out the bee and tried again for more ethereal abstraction.  I feel this version is more artful, the bee more fairy-like.

Paintings are like knitting, and other forms of art. If you are bothered by something wrong in the final product, there is no point clinging to it or saving it. You have to either re-do the whole thing or fix it.  So, forgive me for posting revisions.  That's the way it is!

The Red Bee Hums.  11x14 watercolor.  NFS.

The Red Bee Hums

I've started a new series!  From a poem, this is the first line: "Hush, O babe, while the red bee hums the silent twilight's fall." 

I am shooting for whimsy, magic, mystery...

The Red Bee Hums.  11x14 watercolor. Not for sale (yet).

Aquarius Takes Out the Compost

I have been in a rut for a while, and this is the first painting I've done in more than a month, I think.  Things are busy, and I've been a bit directionless, or maybe too involved in the novels I'm reading?

I really like my parkland series (see summer posts), but they were more of a technical exercise than an expression of my whole creative mind. I think my true "style" has a bit more abstraction and symbolism in it. But what, how, and how much?  The more techniques and approaches I learn about, the harder it is to find my voice.  But I like the start I've made with the painting below.

This painting emerged from a sketch I did when I was relaxed and unpressured. In fact, I have a bunch of sketches of myself (essentially) that I might parlay into a new series.

Aquarius Takes Out the Compost:  11x14 watercolor, $100.

I like the scratchiness, the lines and swirly shapes, and the ethereal quality. I think I am inspired by fall!
I hope you like it, too.

Malakoff Diggins

OK, so this series has expanded way beyond Zion NP.  Maybe I should call it my American Parks series.  This scene is from Malakoff Diggins State Historic Park, here in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Since Harry was one year old, we have spent a camping weekend here every September to celebrate his birthday.  The Diggins, depicted here, is a massive valley created by feverish hydraulic gold mining of the 1800s and early 1900s. Miners reduced a mountain to a ghostly canyon of white rock where now mineral pools glow with weird colors, where willows grow and bears forage among rusting mining equipment. See the high line of trees on the horizon? That was the ground level before the miners came. The park centers on the ghost town of North Bloomfield, where apple and pear trees grow wild and where the park rangers, a married couple, lead visitors in ice-cream churning and candle-dipping.

Malakoff Diggins.  11x14 watercolor. $500. 10% of the proceeds of this sale will be donated to the California State Parks Foundation!  Go to www.etsy.com/shop/joyfulmind to purchase.  Thank you to www.painttheparks.com for organizing artists and art lovers in defense of our natural places.

The really sad aspect of this image is that, after this Labor Day, neither our family nor yours will ever see this sight under the stewardship of the people of California. This is a protest painting.  Our short-sighted leaders have put this park on the chopping block, to save a few pennies. The price will be the death of this public resource. All over the state, the greatest idea and a defining characteristic of America is being sold out for short-term gain.  I guess it's ironic that our modern politicians are showing the same irreverence for the same land that the miners who created the Diggins showed. Maybe someday we'll have a State Historic Park there, enshrining our own foolishness.  I doubt it will be as beautiful.  Ooof, I really want to cry! 

I have spent this series doing pretty realistic (slightly impressionist) paintings of favorite places. The places carry the paintings. I am going to do a few more like this, and then slowly, like a swimmer who knows the water is cold, I am going to start getting funky again.  :)




BTW:

HEATHER OGSTON OWNS THE SOLE COPYRIGHT FOR ALL THE IMAGES ON THIS BLOG.

Among the Giants

This painting is loosely in the same series with the Zion ones, but you'll notice I've changed locations, harkening back to a family vacation we took near the giant redwoods of northern California.  I've deliberately used a rainbow of colors to evoke the textures and patterns of redwood bark, some of which is burned almost black. The little girl is, nominally, my niece Annabel. I am hoping her inclusion adds a sense of scale, as well as a feeling of wonder, to the painting.

Among the Giants.  11x14 watercolor.  $100.

High Refuge

This one is for Philip, my husband's brother.  Although he provided the reference photo, I have also passed this tree several times on the way up to the summit of Mount Lassen, a dormant northern California volcano in the Cascade Range and the namesake of one of our favorite National Parks.  The tree provides a rare spot of deep shade on the exposed, rocky slope of the mountain.  It's probably located at about 9,000 feet above sea level. The trail takes the hiker up 2,000 feet in 2 miles, ending on a treeless, windblown summit at 10,000 feet.

This tree was difficult to render in a painting, which is why I jumped at the challenge. The unusual form defies most mental Platonic forms of "Tree" and makes the image harder to read.  The deep shadows became shapes of their own against a pale background. On top of those considerations, the dominant "real" colors of this landscape are concrete gray and dark brown-green.  So, as a painter, I added my own emotional feeling for this place through the use of color, as well as by playing with the forms a little to create a working composition.  I like how the shade worked out.

I think I have returned to the technical roots of watercolor painting with this latest series (doing washes, starting with light values and adding darker values, etc.). While I love some of my recent, more abstract work, I felt pulled in different directions by different technical approaches and levels of abstraction and surrealism.  What I have kept from all my exploration are two jewels:  pattern and texture. I like to score and scratch and drybrush my paintings, and I like landscapes and other subjects with unusual and intriguing patterns of line, detail, and form. 

Please let me know how you perceive this latest series; I would enjoy your comments and critique.

From Bryce

Here's another painting inspired by our Southwest trip:  this tree was perched just so in Bryce Canyon National Park. I've always been enthralled by trees...such personality! Trees such as this are so tenacious and wise-seeming. 

Here's another vocabulary word for you:  krummholz.  It is the term describing the growth form of a windblown, stunted tree in difficult environs.  Love that krummholz!

Tenacious.  Watercolor 11x14.  $100.

Desert Under Sea

I just worked on this painting some more. It's the first time I've posted something to this blog without being sure it was done. That's a lesson for me to sit on my hands a little before I put something out there for everyone to see.  Anyway, I've left the version 1.0 up, so you can see the contrast between it and the "final" product.  Maybe I'll do more and post a 3.0!

BTW, this is a perfect opportunity to introduce one of my favorite words to the world:  "Bonnarding." The French painter Bonnard had the honor of seeing his art hung in the Louvre during his lifetime. But he wasn't satisfied, ultimately, that the painting was truly finished, regardless of the opinion of the Louvre's curator.  He arranged a distraction for the guards, and "finished" his painting surreptitiously as it hung on the wall in the gallery.  So the act of (over)working a painting when it's already done is called Bonnarding.  I do this all the time!

Version 1.0:

Version 2.0 (new!) is below. Note the warmer colors, deeper values, and addition of more detail.  Plus better photo resolution.

This is the fifth in my Zion series, titled "Desert Under Sea." It's more abstracted and close-up than the previous paintings in this series. It depicts two elements of the high desert particularly special to me:  sagebrush and fossils.  The fossil shell represented is one that Frederick found on a stone lining the Rim Trail of the Grand Canyon's south side.
11x14 watercolor. $100.

High Desert Eden

Here's my fourth in the Zion series.  I just finished this one today and am quite pleased with it.  This scene is from the Watchman Trail at Zion NP.

High Desert Eden.  11x14 watercolor.  Price unframed: $100.

The Other Side of the Mountain

This is my third piece in my Zion NP series.  I thought about calling it "Beyond the Mt. Carmel-Zion Tunnel" but decided that "The Other Side of the Mountain" conveyed better the fun and adventure of going a little out of the way and discovering a place such as this, with the dreamlike topography, geometric patterns, and elusive wildlife.  Those are bighorn sheep in the painting.  On our vacation to Zion NP, Harry was the first to spot the sheep, and we sat in the sand near the location of this painting and watched them for an hour or more. 

I love patterns and geometry in nature. I hope that is coming through in this series, which is more realistic than some of my work of the past year.

11x14 watercolor. $100. SOLD

At the Feet of the Watchman

Here is my second in the Zion National Park series.

"At the Feet of the Watchman."  11x14 watercolor. Unframed: $100. 

Hawaiian Drum

I just finished this drum this morning. My client wanted these three iconic Hawaiian flowers and three unfurling ferns. I am pleased with how it turned out! Thanks for trusting me with your drum, Corrinne!

Witchy Gourd

Here is "Witchy Gourd," a collage and watercolor painting that was shown at the Blue Line Gallery's New Beginnings show in February 2011.  It's 18x24, $200.  The little pumpkin-seed shapes are stamped using real squash seeds.

Oldies But Goodies

Here are some watercolors I did about four years ago. The oak tree has been sold recently.

Obviously the photos in this post are not the best quality...you can see the edges of the paper.  Funny what a big difference it makes, huh?

Afghan Man.  This one is hanging in downtown Roseville at the Turn the Page Press bookstore.

Oak Meadow.  Purchased by my friend Sherry---Thanks!

Birch Values.  This painting depicts a real tree in Kalamazoo, Michigan, in a bed of snow.  10.5x13.5, $75.

Yorkshire.  10x14.5.  $75

Under the Sea Series

In my art class a few years ago, I did a series of watercolors around the theme of underwater creatures and scenes.  Some were more successful than others, and some have been sold.  Here I've posted pics of just my favorite unsold items.

Whale Tart.  18x22 (?) watercolor, currently hanging at the Turn the Page Press bookstore in downtown Roseville. $200 with mat (gray, as shown).  This painting was inspired by a passage in Moby-Dick, describing the whaling boats as "tarts" for the angry sperm whales to smash and eat.

Kelp Dance.  13x23 watercolor.  $150.  This painting started as simply a painting of kelp attachments, but dancing figures emerged as I drew.

Octopus's Garden.  10x21 watercolor.  $100. 

Manzanita Summer

Here is today's favorite, Manzanita Summer.  16x22, watercolor, acrylic, and ink.

This painting has been sold!

More Favorites: Self-Portrait Prints

When I began experimenting with printmaking, I did a few self-portraits.  The self-portrait is my answer to the artist's perennial question: how can I make something totally original?  Oneself is already the original.  And yet we are all mirrors of each other, enough that an artist's self-portrait can speak to her audience of themselves.

This is "In the Moonlight", a 4x6 linotype print made with acrylic paints.  I have about 15 more, all in different colors on different papers, some of which are "found" papers.  This self-portrait is about my own motherhood and my child, not my own babyhood.  It is my left arm that wraps around the baby.

Because this is an unlimited print series, each one is a steal at $15.

 This one is titled, "What the Heck."  I think it speaks for itself!  8x10 ink linotype.  $50.

This is simply, "Self Portrait."  It's a watercolored print made from carved modeling paste.  With the white margins, it's 8x10.  $50.

My Recent Favorites

Here are some of my own favorite paintings and prints from the past year, not including the ones I've sold.  I'll post some more when I get the photos trimmed!

Succulent City! 18x24 watercolor. Price unframed: $200.

Elusive.  17x16 watercolor.  Price unframed: $150.

Hive. Limited edition woodblock print in ink (of 25). 8x10 inches. Price unframed: $35.

The Desert.  10x14 watercolor.  Price unframed: $85.

Conversation. 18x24 watercolor and collage.

Sugar Pine.  18x20 watercolor.  Price unframed: $150.

Drum and Clapper Stick Paintings

In 2010, my friend Janice approached me about painting her handmade drum; apparently, it is not uncommon to personalize drums this way, but drummers are not necessarily confident enough to put permanent acrylic paint on their cherished instruments.  I painted my own drum, the oak leaf pattern, first.  The elderberry clapper sticks, as well as the turtle and plant/moon drums, are Janice's, and the eagle drum (shown sideways for some reason) was for another client, Wendy.  Wendy wrote in an email: "your work on my drum far exceeded my expectations of how it would turn out.  I showed the picture of it that I took on my cell camera to all my workshop colleagues as if it were my new grandbaby!!  I have it in my yoga room and I look at it every day when I do my yoga.  It is so magical and beautiful it brings tears to my eyes." 

I hope to do more of this commission work. My current fee is a very affordable $15 per hour. Most of the labor happens in the sketch stage, when my client and I are working through what he or she wants.

At the Gateway to the Narrows

Watercolor 11x14. Completed 5/10/11. Price unframed: $100.