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.