Cruise to Alaska--But First a Little Art

Last fall, I talked to an art friend about an art adventure she was active in: teaching art on a cruise ship. I had never really thought of myself as a cruise sort of person, but rarely turn my back on an opportunity to try something new. I applied to a couple of booking agencies, and after fulfilling their requirements, I was accepted as an instructor. As the watercolor instructor on a ship, I could take one guest. Of course I invited my husband, Mike. 

To try out cruising, I chose to go on a week long cruise to Alaska. Both Mike and I were interested in seeing the Inland Passage and glaciers of Alaska and BC. The cruise started and ended in Vancouver, BC. We'd never been to the city before, so we planned a two-day stay in Vancouver before heading out on the cruise.

A wonderful stroke of luck was arriving in Vancouver just after the opening at the  Vancouver Art Gallery  of the art collection of the Baltimore Art Museum. This is the biggest collection of Matisse anywhere in the world, and Matisse just happens to be one of my favorite artists. I'd never heard of the Cone sisters (the collectors of all this art) prior to this exhibit, but they were a couple of interesting women and had a fabulous eye for art.

 

Aside from the art, we really enjoyed this beautiful, multicultural and friendly city. We spent time just getting acquainted with the city--the old Gas Town area, Granville Island (a giant market of artists, artisans and food vendors), and the amazing Stanley Park. 

 

Granville Island

 

Granville Island Food Market

 

Nesting Swan at Stanley Park

 

Totem Poles at Stanley Park

On Sunday, June 3, we boarded this "small" cruise ship along with 1800 other passengers. We were greeted with a glass of champagne as we began to find our way around what would be our home for the next 7 days.

 

 

Our first stop was at Hoonah, Alaska. Our ship anchored and ran small boats (tenders) back and forth to allow passengers to explore the cannery, shops and Tlingit Community of Hoonah.

 

Mike and I chose the 3 mile round-trip walk to Hoonah, since we'd been confined to the ship for awhile. The village is the largest Tlingit community, yet a small fishing village.

 

Back on the ship, we headed on to Hubbard Glacier. The icy wall of this glacier and the surrounding mountains are some of the most remarkable things I've ever seen in real life.

 

 

A couple of days later we were able to get much closer to a glacier on foot when we docked in Juneau. In the photo below, you can see the icebergs of Mendenhall Glacier behind Mike and me. 

 

 

Mike with Mendenhall Glacier and waterfall behind him

It took awhile to get used to life aboard a cruise ship. Every need is taken care of. There are approximately two passengers to every crew member. We were treated like royalty. Food and drink are available all the time. There are professional entertainers aboard like the string trio below. Every night there is a live show of singers and dancers in the Celebrity Theater.  

 

We met wonderful, interesting people from all over the world. We saw sights only available by boat. We loved the scenery of the coast and inland passage. We were awed by the glaciers and snow fields that feed them.

My teaching obligation amounted to 4 one-hour classes. I had participants from beginners to experienced painters, so I got better at instructing such a diverse group with each lesson.  The size of the group varied from more than 50 to around 20 each lesson. Mike was a wonder as my assistant. One painter called him her hero, as he gave her individual attention when I was busy. 

If you'd like to view more images of this trip, you are welcome to visit my web album at:

https://picasaweb.google.com/margaretgodfreyart/VancouverBCAlaskaCruise 

Build a Bear Painting--Mine!

The beginning of this painting started with a very rough sketch. For the rocky areas, I used one of my latest and favorite methods of adding texture by putting down white gesso with my putty knife, then placing pieces of non-colored rice paper in areas where I planned to paint rocks. The rest of the paper is left for transparent watercolor painting with the exception of the grass. I painted a mixture of color with acrylic to become the grass behind the bear.

 

Here is a close-up of the gesso and rice paper before any paint is put on.

 

Below is the very same area at the end of the painting. I used watercolor to paint the rock. You can see how the rice paper takes the paint in different ways to add wonderful rock-like texture.

The next step was to put white gesso over the bright green colored grass and scrape over it with my notched credit card tool I made. In the image below, I have already painted over the grass, with watercolor. I worked toward the top, first, then painted in a light blue/gray wash for the sand, dropping salt into the wet paint to create another texture. I then painted in the bear and salmon. I used brilliant red to give a clear message that this is a predator with his prey. 

 

In the image below, I have put in more color in the upper rocks, and added more blue green to the grass to differentiate that from the golds and browns in the back. I painted the forward rocks with more intense color and put a gold wash over the sand to bring it into color harmony with the rest of the painting. The water reflection was a simple transparent wash with darker colored lines added after the wash was dry. I disliked the original sky colors, so at this point it is washed off waiting for a new color. While driving into town, the idea of a red sky came to me. I realized that the color red needed to be at the top of the painting to tie the whole piece together.

 

Here is the piece, finished for now. I feel the red sky was a great choice. It seems my most recent work has a balance of reality and abstractness that is interesting to me. I hope the picture conveys the bear as a fierce predator, guarding his catch. This is a rendering of a scene I saw while rafting last summer. The fish was truly that large, and the bear was indeed an adult. The bear was making it clear to us, as we floated by, that we needed to back off -- he claimed rights to this salmon.

 

Mine!
mixed media
22 x 18 inches

Need a Shot of Hope? Attend a College Graduation.

 

This past weekend we attended a large extended family celebration in Walla Walla, Washington where my great-niece graduated from Whitman College. Emily is a bright, hard-working student who graduated magna cum laude along with other honors. She probably would have done well anywhere, but Whitman College, a small liberal arts college in Eastern Washington, was a good fit for her and about 300+ other graduates.

The "shot of hope" came from many things. One was the fact that this institution really delivers on the "liberal" education. All the speakers at the various ceremonies I attended talked about philanthropy, giving back, collaboration, and leading a life with meaning. The commencement speaker Eric Schlosser (author of Fast Food Nation) talked about the division of wealth, the haves and have-nots. The irony, of course, is that the audience was predominantly the "haves," but the encouragement of this college is to go out into the world with a conscience. Most of the graduating class has signed the Green Pledge: "To explore and take into account the social and environmental consequences of any job I consider and will try to improve these aspects of any organizations for which I work."

It is hopeful to spend time around students who have really soaked up their education. One instance was going out into the field with the geology majors (Emily was one of these.) We went to Touchet Cut, where the 2 professors leading the expedition had the students educate the accompanying family members about the details and importance of this geological feature. This was obviously an impromptu quiz, but it was clear these students had an interested and knowledge in their major. 

 

 

Each department had a time during the weekend for the students to display and talk about their senior thesis. I visited the geology department and the art department's graduates' projects. In the art department, the students had spent their last semester creating their project designed for a predetermined space. Each artist got a room or an entire wall for their work. 

I was particularly impressed (blown away, really) by the work of  Sam Alden. His piece, Coelacanth was inspired by a story about his grandfather searching for this ancient fish off the shores of Madagascar. He begins his story with an image of himself sitting on a beach watching waves, and ends with a drawing of the coelacanth. The story weaves around 3 walls of a room, all connected in four layers. I love the mix of black and white with color, reality versus imagination, process over product and imaginative use of space.

 

Sam Alden's space

 

The artist with his work

 

The center wall of Coelacanth

 

The right wall showing the way Sam wraps his piece around the room, connecting all four layers

 

One of the many places Sam hides himself in the art

By 2:00 pm Sunday, May 20, 1012, Mike and I were so happy to have shared the wonderful weekend with Emily. We were proud of her accomplishments, enchanted with Whitman College, and full of hope for her future. After a cross country bike trip with her dad, she hopes to spend 6 months in New Zealand in an agricultural internship.

 

The Evolution of a Painting--"Skimming"

I started this painting in a workshop I taught in March. I liked the heron, but found the background too contrived. I was influenced by my success with another vertical strata painting, and wanted to revisit that compositional format in a horizontal painting. 

 

The next step I took was to get rid on the thin decorative line under the bird, and tone down the ink made marks in the gold/green bottom layer. This was done by tinting white gesso and covering the bottom part of the the painting and texturing it with my toothed credit card tool.  I made the upper squares larger and added calligraphy to enhance the line coming down to the dark. I also made the hard line above the water more interesting by adding some collage pieces. (Ignore the overall color change, as it is simply a photo and computer issue.)

 

Eventually, I got rid of the light colored upper strip, combining it with the dark, yet leaving the break made by a stamp. Once this was done, I had to make the upper wing light against dark, rather than dark against light. I had to use light around the upper squares to keep them from just blending into the dark background. I got some advice from a friend on how to make the forward wing more interesting and believable. I put a blue/green wash over the foreground to tie it in with the top of the painting, creating more color harmony.

 

Today when I looked at the foreground, I realized that the green was too dominant. But how would I neutralize it? (I thought back 20 years to when the house paint I bought turned out to remind me of the color of urine. Since I had bought several gallons, I took it in for the paint expert to neutralize the yellow and create a tan that I could live with. I remember my surprise when he said he would add a few drops of magenta.  It worked!) So today, using that past memory plus stuff I've learned through my years of painting that a magenta transparent wash would do the trick. To finish the painting and give the horizontal composition a vertical line, I cut around a stamped paper and painted a pleasing color on it, glued it down at the bottom. I adding that green to my upper squares, de-emphasizing the white. So now is it finished?

 

Skimming, mixed media, 22 x 30