Mermaid Queen

I woke up early this morning to complete this painting, "Mermaid Queen." This is a commissioned piece: my friend wanted a goddess-like mermaid with lots of flowing hair and tail, and a little ambiguity within the painting to make you come back for a second look. The mermaid is nestled in her reefy nook, caressing or examining a venomous nudibranch who shares her colors. There is a tiger shark reposing in the reef.

A lot of the gold and green in this painting is done with metallic paint, which unfortunately doesn't show up in this photo.

I struggled a lot with the lower right quarter of the painting, trying to get all those beautiful sea-life forms incorporated without making the painting too busy and distracting. I hope I succeeded. If not, you may see an updated version of the photo soon!

Mermaid Queen. 16" x 22". NFS.

Cherry Blossom Zafu

Another zafu completed! I am encouraged by the sale of my Celtic Raven zafu. This and the Quetzalcoatl zafu are available on Etsy.

In this painting, the cherry blossoms are symbolic of the Zen proverb, "on the withered tree, a flower blooms." Joy amid suffering, birth within death, realization and sound practice with our feet in the mud and our lives in turmoil. I hope that this image will be an inspiration for your practice.

Quetzalcoatl Zafu

A golden Quetzalcoatl adorns this hand-painted meditation cushion ("zafu"). I used metallic gold acrylic paint to achieve this pattern, which was drawn free-hand with tailor's chalk from my own design. 

Quetzalcoatl Zafu. $150.

Quetzalcoatl is a god of ancient Mesoamerica; a feathered serpent associated with renewal, creation, and fertility, among other aspects of life. In the posture of eating its tail, this image of Quetzalcoatl alludes also to Ouroboros, a symbol recognized across many cultures. Ouroboros is usually a serpent or dragon consuming its own tail, symbolizing the universe, the absolute, unity, and the cycles of life. 

This zafu is 15" in diameter and about 7" tall, with a circular painted top measuring approximately 10". The fabric is black cotton, and the stuffing is cotton batting. There is a strap for easy handling. 

More zafus coming!

That Old Bone

My newest piece is a symbolic self portrait titled "That Old Bone." A crusty, scary femur dangles behind a woman's head, and she is resentfully aware of it. I was inspired to paint this image by my own experience with anxieties and pointless yearnings. After a while, mental narratives become rote and tiresome, like an addiction that no longer delivers a high, an old bone that one can't help chewing on every day. Eventually, we must learn to turn our backs on the bone and refuse to pick it up again. The process of leaving behind our defining narratives about ourselves is liberating but difficult.

"That Old Bone." 11x14". Watercolor and collage. $150.

The Denouement

I've started doing some self portraits, eschewing any serious attempt at a physical likeness of myself, and instead striving to capture a gesture, mood, and activity with which I identify.  There is boundless potential for originality in self portraits, because you are guaranteed that no other artist has done a self portrait of you!

This one is called The Denouement. I was shooting for a late-night feel, the gesture is of a reader slouched over a book, tired and maybe uncomfortable sitting at a table, but rapt with angst over the fate of the characters in her book. A place I've been many times.  (Thank you to my friend A., who posed for a reference photo).

The Denouement.  11x14".  Watercolor, acrylic, and collage.  $150.

Coho Totem

In the spirit of "Snake Crossing" (June 2012), I have continued working on a 2-foot by 4-foot scale, achieving life size images of animals that feel symbolic of this region of the world.

Images of wild animals inevitably speak to the viewer about more than just animal-ness: animals in art represent human attributes, memories, and beliefs, and we humans make them into totems, fetishes, and spiritual companions. Some may look down their noses at such habits, but I think that we need to relate to other animals more, not less. Their flesh is our flesh, their welfare is ours. We are all Earthlings together.

I have named this painting "Coho Totem." For a month this painting sat, fully framed, in a state of pastel-and-white coolness. Then I took it out of the frame and darkened the waters, to make the fish "pop" and make the whole work more powerful and memorable. I love how the dark paint brought out the texture of the layers beneath.

"Coho Totem." Watercolor, acrylic, and collage on a wood panel.  2'x4'. SOLD.

Illustration Samples

Dear Editors and Art Directors:

Thank you for visiting my website. On this page, I have posted samples of my artwork that I believe carry a strong narrative punch and would be compelling illustrations.  Most of my work is watercolor, but not conventionally so. I use watercolor crayons frequently to achieve texture and opacity, an effect I have rarely seen which differentiates my art.

I am currently available to do freelance illustrations for future projects. Please contact me at heather.d.ogston@gmail.com if you are interested. I look forward to working with you.

"Afghan Man." Watercolor.

"Forest Treasure." Accepted into the juried televised/online auction for KVIE.  Watercolor.

"Sailor Tart." Inspired by Moby-Dick. Watercolor.

 "At the Feet of the Watchman." Depicting a switchback on a trail in Zion National Park. Watercolor.

"Among the Giants."  Depicting a tiny girl exploring the coastal redwoods of California.  Watercolor.

"Mountain Morning."  Watercolor.

"My Child My Joy."  Watercolor.

"Upon the Starry Bog."  A Celtic spirit sails his fairy boat among ruins. Watercolor.

"The Red Bee Hums." Watercolor. 

"Fragrant Evening Hymn."  Watercolor.

Snake Crossing

After encountering a gopher snake on a walk through the local meadows, I was inspired to paint something simple, fresh, and sketchy featuring just the snake. I wanted a dream-like quality.  To get the right size "paper," I had to buy wood paneling from Lowe's, then gesso it and paint it with watercolor medium to give it absorbency. While in this process, I found some plastic circuitry that my kids had removed from an old keyboard, and I knew they belonged in the painting. So they got glued in and painted over. See if you can spot them!

Snake Crossing. 2' by 4', watercolor and collage on wood paneling. $500 (with aluminum frame).

Fragrant Evening Hymn

Last one!

The line is "Tearmann's peasant voices swell, in fragrant evening hymn."

"Fragrant Evening Hymn." 11x14 watercolor. NFS.

The thing I wanted to avoid doing was to have a painting of a bunch of people with their mouths open, like a hokey Christmas plywood lawn decoration. And I couldn't do another chapel window! So this one was hard to conceive. Finally I decided to use a gothic arch of some kind as the structure of the painting, to evoke the idea of the church and hymn without being literal. My husband suggested trees, but I couldn't fit them into the narrative easily, so I hit upon this idea, based on a gothic arch with three or four left-leaning arcs crossed by three or four right-leaning arcs. The houses in the picture continue the pattern.  And I hope the figures continue the narrative.

Now for the truly hard work of packaging this thing and trying to find someone to publish it!

Angel Dreams

I am only one painting away from being done with this lullaby project! (Assuming I don't decide to re-paint any of the images.)

Here is the painting for the last verse, which goes:

"A leanbhan O, the low bell rings

my little lamb to rest,

and angel dreams, till morning sings

its music in your breast."

"Angel Dreams." 11x14 watercolor. NFS.

I especially like this painting because the first iteration was so horrible, and I scrubbed all the paint off, leaving an interesting "underpainting" on which I painted my second effort. Sometimes I need to stop caring about the results, the paper, and the paint, and screw the whole thing up until I can relax and do what I want rather than what I think should be done. In this case, what I wanted was to pick up my watercolor crayons and sketch a bunch of wild botanical shapes over the colorful remains of my first painting. I think it worked. Don't ask why this kid fell asleep among a bunch of thistles without even a blanket. It's art. :-)

Another painting completed in the Gartan Mother's Lullaby!  (I think.)  This one backtracks to a previous line that I'd postponed painting:

"Alean-ban-o, my child, my joy, my love and heart's desire...
the cricket sings its lullaby beside the dying fire."

I like the slightly Byzantine halo effect around the mother and child.

"My Child My Joy." 11x14 watercolor. NFS.

Sweet Bells

I've returned to my Gartan Mother's Lullaby project,  illustrating each line of the 110-year-old Irish tune.  When I started, I imagined making only 6 or 7 paintings, to go with two stanzas. Putting these together in a mock-up book, I realized it was too little.  I turned to the last stanza of the song, which, for me, is out of character with the first part, having a more Christian cast, rather than a mystical pagan feel.  The last stanza is:

"Faintly sweet doth the chapel bell ring o'er the valley dim,
Tearmann's peasant voices swell, in fragrant evening hymn.
A leanbhan-o, the low bell rings my little lamb to rest
And angel-dreams, till morning sings its music in your breast."

See what I mean? The first part of the song refers to Irish fairies and the Green Man, and this part is about chapels, hymns, and angels.  But it is all written by one person as one song. I decided to attempt a set of paintings for this last part, and unify it with the first two stanzas through the art.  The fairies and the angels co-exist.  How modern of me.

Anyway, here's the painting for the first line. Find the fairies!

Sweet Bells.  11x14 watercolor.  NFS.

A Family

This is the first time I've painted flowers since I was a kid.  I just don't have much to say about flowers that hasn't been said already, that isn't said by a million contemporary fine artists in very skillful ways.

So, that being said, I painted flowers today.  I decided to make a painting as a gift for a very good friend who is going through a hard time. My feelings of grief for her were not supportive, so I decided to channel my love and sorrow into a beautiful painting that she could take strength and peace from.

The composition and subject are simple.  The colors are mostly complements and the neutral colors between them. But hey, the easiest formulas for pleasing art tend to produce...pleasing art.  Hope you like it.

A Family.  11x14" watercolor. NFS.

Mono Lake Magic

Here is #4 of my dragon series.  This dragon is a lot more subtle than the last, and its presence is like a signature on the painting, a way to possess this landscape artistically.

Mono Lake Magic. 16x22 watercolor. SOLD.

I find that my process differs from that of most watercolorists. It might even be hard to identify my paintings as watercolors sometimes.  I can read and learn about color theory and color application, but instead of planning how my colors will work and putting down clear, glowing layers of pure pigment, I tend to put down many many layers, and scrub them off, and try again.  I can't get it right the first time, but fortunately I have some instinct that tells me when it's wrong, and to keep working on it. So my watercolor paintings are textured, worked, sometimes dense, sometimes opaque.  That's me.

Forest Treasure

This is #3 in my dragon series. The idea behind the dragon series is to embody, through the fantastical figure of dragons, the mystery, ferocity, and wisdom of nature, and the personality of special places.  I have just begun a fourth painting, set at Mono Lake.

Forest Treasure. 16x22" watercolor.

My last dragon, in Mountain Morning, was a huge dragon occupying a whole canyon. (I am happy to report that Mountain Morning has been sold---thanks Ellen!). This dragon is minute, embracing a sugar pine cone and defending it with affection.  If you have ever collected a beautiful rock, feather, mushroom, or pine cone, perhaps you can relate.

6-24-12 Update: Good news! This piece will be auctioned on TV or online, in September, for our local public television station, KVIE. It is no longer up for sale.

In Defense of Parks

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. SOLD.

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.

Mountain Morning

Continuing the dragon series, this is called "Mountain Morning."  I worked on this a little about a month ago, and I loved the shadows and lines so much that I got painter's block! I had to leave it propped up for weeks, just looking at it, before I knew what to do next. Even then it was baby steps, and a lot of looking.  If I look long enough often enough, a painting will tell me where its flaws are.

  Mountain Morning.  16x22". Watercolor. $250. SOLD.

I also developed a new technique for myself: I take a photo of the work-in-progress, and then print a few copies of it on my black-and-white printer. I can see the values better in B&W.  Then I can play with the printouts using a pencil, and see where to add darker values or pick out a light value.  Fun.

Zafu Lotus

A zafu is a meditation cushion.  Spend a few minutes of sitting quietly and grounding yourself, bringing your mind gently to the present and acknowledging, then dismissing, all the chaos of your head.  These few minutes have great benefits: for your health, your family, your sense of well-being and happiness.

I just finished painting a lotus on this zafu, in copper and gold.  The lotus is a symbol of purity and beauty that is grounded in reality...the lotus flower is rooted in mud.  I'm loving how this painting turned out. The next step is painting the zabuton, a large rectangular pillow on which the zafu sits.  Then you sit on the zafu, resting your folded legs on the zabuton.

Desert Dragon

Here is the painting that has been wriggling around in my head for a long time...I tried it earlier this week and you wouldn't believe how wrong it came out!  That first try went in the trash, and taught me to be more deliberate and disciplined, and not so discouraged by setbacks. I am pretty pleased with the result of my second effort.  I think I feel a new series coming on...

Desert Dragon.  Watercolor, pencil, colored pencil, and acrylic. 8.5" x 22.5".  $150.

I'm so proud to offer the following greeting cards for sale.  You've already seen versions of the baby and the dragon, so those will be familiar. The seal is new: I love seals and their sausagey contentment.  This one smiles into the sun in a way that I hope will make any recipient smile, too.  Each card is $4, and hand-printed. If you buy 6 at once for $15, you get a big discount.  I can print to order, too, if you want a different color.

 The seal card is 4.375" by 5.75"; ivory, and blank inside. Envelopes included, of course.

The dragon card is 5" x 6.5"; ivory, and blank inside.  A pack of six includes 2 dragons of this color, 2 navy blue dragons, and 2 turquoise dragons.  Some of the prints came out more faded, or antique-looking, than others. My husband liked the faded ones best, so I'm offering both---specify which you prefer! Envelopes included.

This card is actually white with purple ink; not sure what happened with the photo! And the image is straighter than it appears in the photo, I didn't want to tape the card down to make it lie flat.  Sigh.  Anyway, this card is also 5" x 6.5", blank inside. I can custom print them in any color. Envelopes included.