Crow Man IV: Developing an Idea

I've had this idea for awhile of Crow Man on trial with crows as the judge and jury. This is the first Crow Man painting set in the interior. I started with a sketch, but I had a hard time envisioning a painting from the sketch. I also wanted to be able to do a "hands on" design. I went back to my elementary teacher comfort zone of scissors and construction paper.

 

 

Using this method, I was able to arrange the main features in several ways.

 

 

 

I liked the third set-up best, finding it most dynamic and placing the Crow Man in a position of being scrutinized by both judge and jury.

Next step was beginning the painting...

 

then grounding Crow Man by putting color in the foreground...

 

and I enjoyed playing around with variations on the theme of squares. Notice that the pattern of squares becomes very chaotic near Crow Man.

 

I'm never sure when I'm first finished with a peice if it will need further work. I have placed two symbols in the hands of Crow Man that make sense to me. Do they resonate with you? Is a verdict forthcoming?

 

Mary Jo's Roses

 

My sister Mary Jo died of cancer in the fall of 2001. She was a wonderful gardener and artist, 2 gifts of hers I've aspired to share. One of her daughters took cuttings from her climbing roses after her death, rooted them, and gave them out to family members.

All summer I have walked by these beautiful roses on my way to the studio. They are not only stunning to look at, but the fragrance compels me to literally "stop and smell the roses."

To her daughters, Carolyn, Diane and Janny--I think of her and you three every day.

 

 

 

A New Bridge, a Cat and a Snake

Upon returning from Hawaii this winter, we found quite a few things around our home that needed to be repaired or replaced. One of those was the bridge over our backyard pond which had rotted to the point of being unsafe. One of our daughters works for a wood company, so she gave Mike some beautiful wood for his birthday to build the bridge. He put a nice arch to the stringers. I can't explain how he did it because of the complexity, but it involved ropes, hydraulic jacks, adhesives and more. (If you know Mike, you can appreciate the wacky genius he has for this sort of thing and imagine the crazy setup in our garage.) The garage must be sound, because he used the rafters to support the two ends while jacking the middle into the arch. I was terrified to enter the garage for a few days in case something gave! Here are the results--beautiful, huh?

 

 

 

Our cat Shredder enjoyed the activity and sun out in the backyard.

 

We also get some guests in the pond.

 

You Can Go Home Again (but you stay in a motel)

This past weekend I traveled south to Grants Pass, Oregon, the town where I spent my first eighteen years of life. My older sister, Janice, had a class reunion picnic on Saturday and she invited her sisters and mother along to visit our old hometown. Although all of us live in Oregon now, neither my siblings nor I lived in Grants Pass after graduating from high school. After our father died 16 years ago and Mother moved to Eugene, we've only visited G.P sporadically.

As you can imagine, the town has changed dramatically since any of us were teenagers there. There has been so much growth that we hardly recognized our old neighborhood, but we enjoyed walking around our old house, visiting with neighbors, driving all over the territory of our youth and reminiscing about the past. We also had dinner with my high school buddy, Toni, her daughter and mother.

There were so many great pictures I could have taken over the weekend, but when I got home, I found that I'd only taken pictures in the motel room and at our breakfast Sunday morning! Oh well, it's all about relationships anyway. So here are the highlights of "Grants Pass Revisited" hanging out in the motel room.

My mom and sister Janice...

 

storytelling by sister Barbara...

 

by Janice...

 

laughing, laughing and more laughing...

 

 

 

And finally, my sister Janice and I delight in wearing matching colors and singing "Sisters, sisters."

 

Improving "Cast Out"

After being away from my studio for a couple of weeks, I returned to view "Cast Out" (the latest in my Crow Man series)with a fresh eye. Almost immediately I saw a very dominant line coming from the lower right to the large crow, first from the right-hand side. This line takes away the importance of that crow and it's skeptical?/evil?/noncompliant? expression. Whatever he's expressing, I want the viewer to look at him and wonder.

To decrease the dominance of that dark line, I knew I had to break it up somehow. I applied frisket--a masking material that allows one to paint over, or lift from without disturbing the paper/paint below--and let it dry overnight. Today I was able to lift some of the dark line, keeping the crow's feet intact. After lifting the paint with water and sponge, I added some warm color to attach the newly lifted area to the warm orange to the left.

Another area that distracted me was the dominance of the turquoise blue patch above the crow. I broke that piece up with some burnt sienna.

 

See if you agree that these changes have improved this painting.