San Francisco Gallery

Mike and I just returned from a four day get-away to San Francisco. The primary purpose was to transport 5 paintings to a San Francisco gallery where my art will hang for 3 months. The secondary purpose of our trip was to have a couple of fun days in a city.

We left home on Wednesday, driving well past dark to Vacaville, CA where we found dinner and a room. I'd arranged to meet at the S.F. gallery on Friday when they opened, and we had only a 1 1/2 hour drive to make from Vacaville.

Being on Blue River time, we arrived early at the gallery and waited a few minutes for someone to arrive. (It's crazy to us that stores don't open before 10 or 11 o'clock.) The gallery,The Artist's Alley (http://www.galiara.com/), is on Mission Street, between 4th and 5th. Luckily it was very easy to find as it is just off the Bay Bridge in downtown S.F.,  across the street from Bloomingdales.

We were soon meeting with Rachel, the young woman I'd been talking to for a couple of months. She opened the gallery and showed me the space where my work would hang.

After dropping off the paintings we went to our hotel, checked in and decided to look at some other galleries in the city. We found one building full of small galleries, each showing just one artist's work. What was amazing to me, was that the norm in these galleries was to be totally ignored by the staff. Each gallery seemed to have one or two people sitting behind a computer, never looking up. We finally found one gallery with a very friendly person who was informed about the artist's work and was open to sharing that information. The more he spoke about the artists, the more interested I became in the art. Now that's the kind of gallery to be in!

We also enjoyed some street performances,

riding cable cars, and going to the California Academy of Sciences. Another thing we really enjoyed in S.F. was some amazing food!

On Friday, my art was up on the walls, and we attended an event being held at Artist's Alley, celebrating Filipino Recognition Month.

We left San Francisco on Saturday morning and visited my niece and her husband in Davis. We had a great day there looking at bees (Kim's work) and visiting a walnut orchard (Carolyn's work). I now know a lot more about both subjects. Since they were harvesting the nuts, we were able to see big equipment and giant sorting machines.

Here we are having lunch in Winters where the temperature was around 78 degrees.

Kim and Carolyn

Mike and me

We left Davis yesterday morning. The sky was clear, the sun was shining, and the air was warm. We drove about 9 hours to get home to Blue River where it was already dark, raining, and building a fire in the house was the first order of business. 

Seeking More Sybolism

I have been thinking about adding a more personal approach to my paintings. After listening to several speakers at the last Watercolor Society of Oregon Convention, I began taking an inventory of things I am most interested in, connected to, and feel passionate about.

I've chosen to paint a series focusing on my love of Oregon's landscape, my connection to rivers through rafting, and interest in wildlife (birds in particular.

I also thought about the elements of design that I like doing the most, so I'll emphasize patterns and lines in this series.

I'm going to use the GBH (Great Blue Heron) as my symbol for river wildlife, so you can expect to see herons in every one of this series.

To create this painting, I thought about the strata of the river canyon--the sunlight, the water, thick forests, rocks, gravel bars, rock cliffs, etc. In this painting, I was trying to express these elements in an abstract way, while keeping design elements and composition in mind.

 

River Strata, 21 x 14 inches

A Second Try at Resist

I had so much fun with the first ink and resist painting (the one of Mike and the cat) that I decided to try it again. This time I used white gouache to resist the ink and painted on a smaller piece of paper (11 x 16). I was able to do more detail using gouache, so decided to use a subject I've used a number of times, the Sheldon McMurphey Johnson House which is in Eugene.

After letting the gouache dry completely, I put black ink over the surface. I let that dry overnight and this is what I got after rinsing the painting completely.

I decided to paint portions of the framed area. Did I make the right call on leaving the sky white, or should it be painted?

Victorian Lace, 16 x 11 inches

Here are my other interpretations of the SMJ House.

 

Proud Lady, 21 x 18 inches

 

Checkered Past, 29 x 21 inches

The Evolution of an Idea--Comedy/Tragedy

I've been asked to post the photo and first painting I did of the Roman ruin that has inspired two pieces.

Here is the photo.

And this is Ancient Voices, the first painting I did.

From there I went to the idea of Comedy Tragedy masks, and I'll post the photos of that painting as it evolved.

 

This is the painting as I left it 2 days ago. I darkened the corners to keep the eye from being drawn out of the painting. I also added more connective lines and passages to pull things together. And finally I enhanced the writing on the banner with darker calligraphic marks.

Comedy/Tragedy, Mixed Media 21 inches by 29 inches

Following an idea from "Painting from the Inside Out"

Last spring I was fortunate to be in a workshop given by Betsy Dillard Stroud. She is amazingly creative and has way more ideas than can fit into a week-long workshop. This led me to buying her book, "Painting from the Inside Out," which has 19 different projects in it.

Ever since I read about her "ink and tempera resist with watercolor" exercise, I wanted to try it. I think it was the photo of spraying a painting down with a garden hose that really hooked me.

I chose a sketch I'd worked on awhile ago of my husband with our cat in his lap. Finding the actual photo, however, took an entire morning, as it was on a backup disk. (Technology can be so aggravating sometimes!) After doing my pencil drawing on an 18" by 22" piece of 140 lb. cold-press watercolor paper, I did the required underpainting. In her book, Betsy emphasizes letting every step dry completely, so I left it overnight.

The next step was using white tempura paint (which will wash off in a later step) to paint over the areas you want left light. The process is painting the entire piece negatively, so in the end, everything you have not covered with tempura will be black, and everything you have covered will have the hues of the underpainting.

Again, letting this part get completely dry is very important.

The next step is potentially messy, so I went outside for this. I painted the entire piece of paper with waterproof India ink, using a sponge brush.

I could hardly wait until the next morning when I could get to the part that excited me in the first place, hosing down the whole painting to see what was left. It's quite mysterious and takes a bit of trust that it will produce something other than gray mud.

After the hosing off, here is what I had left.

I started thinking about ways to sharpen the edges. I felt there was a story there, but the images needed more definition. At this point, I also could have just given up. But that doesn't seem to be how I operate.

In the end, I realized that I had nothing to loose. I took the painting to my work table with pen and ink and just started in creating patterns and sharper edges. Without any preformed thought, I just followed my instincts. The further this process went, the more fun I had. I became more confident in my own finishing process.

A Cat's Life, mixed media 18"x22"


I like the old style of this piece.  I feel like I might have seen something like it in a book from my childhood. It makes me feel like I'm in a library, opening a dusty old book to find this illustration.

Most importantly, this exercise taught me more than the experience of following a painting exercise--it taught me that following my own instincts and believing in my own creativity serves me well.