Lighten up!
Though I work outdoors using a portable set of watercolors all the time, I realize that many people work almost exclusively indoors from photographs and a much larger set up. People often ask me how to get started working outside. Figuring out how to lighten the load is key; and once done, it opens all sorts of great possibilities for painting.
Immersed in drawing the tide pools of Maine’s rocky coast.
In preparation for my upcoming workshop, Arts and Birding, in Maine, I have been making a few small watercolor boxes for people to try. Here are a variety I’ve put together or revamped using standard half and full pans:
Clockwise from left:
Windsor and Newton Cotman box, small mint tins in various stages of transformation (inside spray painted white and outside spray painted red), Prang watercolor tin revamped with full and half pans (this is my current box).
Do it yourself:
I ordered the plastic pans online for about .69 cents.They’re held in place with Scotch restickable strips for mounting. Figure about $10 to configure a box of 12, plus paint. I use Windsor and Newton and Daniel Smith tube paints to fill them. To really travel light, I bring just a waterproof pen, a waterbrush, and a couple of paper towels or a bandana to clean the tray and wipe the brush between colors.
Let’s go!
Things Worth Noting
It’s been quiet on my blog and in my journal lately– these pages explain why. Big changes are in store as my husband and I not only become empty nesters, but give up the nest altogether and move from upstate New York to Connecticut. Amidst all the big things going on, I wanted to capture a few smaller things, too. Comings and goings; things that seem lasting, but, in the end, are ephemeral.
Expect some turbulence in the months ahead, along with new adventures and new places to explore. Thanks for being along for the ride.
Heard but not seen
I went out with a friend one evening this week to sketch at a beaver pond. The water was dark and still, trees were lay crossways in heaps where beaver had felled them, and a large mud lodge rose on the far shore. But what struck me most about the place was not the pond itself, but the beauty and intensity of bird song in the surrounding woods. Other than a pair of catbirds and the flash of the rose-breasted grosbeak as it darted into the trees, I saw no birds. But I’m good enough at birding by ear to identify the singers. I decided to try to capture the ethereal experience of hearing these birds in the darkening woods.
Seen, but silent were birds of Connecticut on display at Yale’s Peabody museum, where I enjoyed a brief visit on Friday. I had time to do a pencil sketch of these two vireos, which are commonly heard, but seldom seen.
Moving Through
Spring bird migration is at its peak. Every day new birds are arriving. Carried by countless wing beats and winds from the south they come—some to stay and some just to rest and feed before continuing on their journey north. Among my favorites: a single white-crowned sparrow that spent just a few hours in the yard, a rose-breasted grosbeak that stayed three days, and a small flock of white-throated sparrows that skulked in our gardens and under our feeders for nearly a week. Today, they are gone…replaced by the oriole that will nest in my neighbors yard, chimney swifts twittering overhead and, with luck, a warbler or two in the days to come.
White-throated sparrow; watercolor on Fabriano soft press paper, 5×7”
Fast Takes
It can be hard to find the time for art when life gets busy. A whole painting or even an entire journal page can seem impossible to undertake. So I made a grid on these pages in the hope that I would be able to fill smaller spaces over the course of several days. As it turned out, I drew the entire two-page spread during an hour-long hike, pausing every so often to do a quick sketch when something caught my eye. Done directly in pen, each sketch took no more than a few minutes. I added color and text back at home.
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Some artistic tips:
- Making a grid is a worthwhile exercise, though it did leave me feeling a little boxed in. Make the rules, but feel free to break them, as I did, by going beyond the boxes as you see fit.
- Use the grid to your advantage. I found it especially useful in forcing me to put pen to paper without fussing, but I have seen other artists fill grid squares carefully, to excellent effect.
- Consider having a unified theme that ties the elements together. Your theme may be a particular place, experience, or even experiments with a single sketching medium.
- The risk of a grid is that if one of the elements doesn’t turn out to your liking, the entire page may suffer. That’s fine if you are experimenting and not a perfectionist in your art journal. I like some of the sketches on this page more than others, and I can live with that because my aim was to simply record quick impressions of a particular moment in time.
Page done in Stillman and Birn Zeta journal, with Micron black pen and watercolor at Indian Ladder Farms, New Scotland, NY
The Egg Case
Had I lived in the late-1800s, there’s a good chance I would have been a bird egg collector. Backyard collecting, exchanges, and sales were popular during the Victorian era, and I can see easily the appeal of amassing a collection to study and admire. But since collecting became illegal with the Migratory Bird Treaty of 1918 (thankfully!), I rely on museum collections for an occasional egg fix.
I sketched this section of a much larger display at the Pember Museum of Natural History in Granville, NY. I only had about 30 minutes, so I sketched directly in pen and painted later at home, using a photo and reference books for the colors and patterns. If I were doing a careful painting, I would work in pencil first so that I could get the edges of each egg smooth and clean. But in this case, that kind of accuracy didn’t matter to me—I just wanted to have fun collecting on paper.
Celebrating One Year! On another note, it’s been year since I started I this blog and I want to thank you for following it! I began with a couple of posts on bird nests and eggs, so perhaps it’s fitting to come full circle and be back on that theme a year hence. I love hearing your thoughts, so keep on commenting…and share the blog as you see fit to widen its reach.
Salamander Rain
Every year, I wait for the first warm rainy night in April, excited as a kid anticipating Santa Claus. That’s because this is the night of the annual salamander migration. Under the cover of rainy darkness, salamanders come out of the forest en masse and crawl to wetlands and small ponds to breed. It’s the one night of the year when I get to see these ancient creatures doing what they have done for millions of years.
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I recruit a team of hardy souls and go to a spot where a road bisects woods and wetland. Salamanders have no choice but to cross. The traffic is light, but even a few cars can cause a lot of carnage. Flashlights in hand, we patrol the road, look for small waggling objects, and deliver them quickly to the other side. We identify and count the species we see— Jefferson, spotted, four-toed, red-backed, plus spring peepers and wood frogs. On a good night, we may find 20 or more in an hour.
Except this year… the only salamanders I get to see are the ones on this page. That’s because there have been no steady early evening rains, only rain after midnight (and I’m not crazy enough to trade sleep for rain and amphibians). Salamanders have crossed into a new season, and I’ll have to wait a whole year to see them again.
Sweet Consolation
I’ve been working on landscapes this week, which is why you are seeing this painting of a jelly donut. Enjoy!
Easter Eggs!
I had a wonderful opportunity to try my hand at decorating eggs using traditional Ukrainian methods last week and have been inspired ever since. It wasn’t just the intricate and beautiful designs that drew me in, but the incredible patience and focus required to make them. I spent 3.5 hours in the company of several friends decorating eggs and produced just two. Back at home, I decided to capture the experience and replicate the intricate egg patterns in my journal. The detailed eggs seemed to beg for a more elaborate border and lettering than I would typically do—but, I’m quite pleased with the end result.
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Here are the eggs I made.
About Pysanka– This ancient art form dates back thousands of years and is steeped in legend and symbolism. Ukrainian eggs are made by writing with beeswax on the egg using a tool called a kistka. The patterns are made by adding successive layers of wax and dye. In the final stage, the egg is held close to a candle and the wax is slowly melted and rubbed off to reveal the beautiful pattern.
About replicating the eggs in watercolor– I started by lightly drawing the egg shape and then building up a couple of layers of watercolor to create a range of light and dark areas. This leaves the final egg with a bit of shine and starts to give the egg a dimensional appearance. I used Dr. Ph. Martin’s Hydrus watercolors for most of these eggs because I wanted an intense background color. Once the egg was fully dry, I added the designs using a fine white gel pen. I tested a number of white inks, pencils, and crayons to see if I could replicate the resist method used on the actual eggs, but none gave satisfactory results. Additional details were added to the orange eggs using paint. The trick is to add the design as if on a dimensional object, so the lines must follow the imaginary curves of the egg.
March, March, March
Every year it happens. I arrive at March needing so much more than the month can give. After a long winter, I am desperate to explore and draw and BE outside. I am desperate for the fuel of discovery and growth that sparks my creativity. March never delivers. It is too cold and too wet. I am tired of brown. I am tired of gray. The only thing to do is to forgive myself this artistic low point and wait.
I went back through my journals from the last few years to compare Marches. The pages are thin and mostly the same– each year a record of small gains: pussy willows in bud, the woodcock’s return, a wooly-bear caterpillar in the driveway. And though spring is behind this year, I am glad to have these pages to remind me that incremental progress will take us out of this March too.
Drawn In 