Art

A portrait painter comes to town

| maggiebird
Portrait by Kevin McEvoy
Oil portrait by Kevin McEvoy

Caveat: I did not paint the above portrait. It was painted by a friend, Kevin McEvoy.

Last week one of my favorite painter/bloggers, Kevin McEvoy, came to town.

I’ve been following his blog for a while, enchanted by his writing about his deep spiritual commitment to painting, his family, and to life. Plus, he plays Irish fiddle.

So when he blogged that he was coming to California, I was eager to meet the person who was at the other end of the keyboard.

Yes, I know,  contacting someone off blog and meeting them in person can be a scary thing. But so far the few other bloggers I’ve met have been wonderful.  And Kevin’s words and his paintings had an authentic ring to them; after reading  this post and seeing this painting, I couldn’t believe he’d be a bad guy.

And he wasn’t! He and his wife and their friends were delightful. It was such a pleasure to meet them, see his paintings in person (they’re wonderful) and have some tunes with Kevin.  And then, best of all, he asked the fiddler to pose for a demonstration painting. And he gave us the painting!

Preparing for a watercolor painting

| maggiebird

I’m planning a large painting—a full sheet of watercolor paper—of a figure. As eager as I am to start slopping paint around on such a large space, I know I”ll be happier if I first paint some smaller studies. I often make lots of studies before beginning a painting; with watercolor, it helps to know where you’re going.

Watercolor sketch of coat
Watercolor sketch of coat 8″ x 10″

The painting is based around an old coat of my mother’s. My grandmother made it in the 50s, and as a testament to my mother’s care and thoughtfulness with her things,  the coat is still like new. Getting the right red-orange color is difficult. It’s an unusual shade of red.

Watercolor figure sketch
Figure sketch in watercolor 10″ x 8″

I got my niece to pose for me in the garden and I sketched, took photos, and made color studies. She’s a lovely young woman and I wish she would be my model always, but sitting still for so long made her feet fall asleep. It’s hard work to be a model.

Watercolor painting of a young woman's face
Watercolor portrait study 7″ x 5″

This is much larger than it will be in the painting, but I couldn’t resist painting a close-up of her face.

The supermoon brings the deer to the roses

| maggiebird
White deer in roses
Hart in the roses
Watercolor on paper
© Margaret Sloan 2013

July’s supermoon kept me awake for the third time this year, and my wakeful night inspired this watercolor sketch for a painting of a hart in the roses. In North America, the full moon of July is known as the full buck moon, when deer have antlers (some say the antlers are still in velvet. Any readers out there know for sure?)

I’ve been a gardener for many years, and I don’t find deer as thrilling as an un-gardened person. But a hart  in the roses, edged silver by the supermoon is a magical image. The hart (especially the white hart) is a mystical being in many cultures. A white stag led Arthur and his knights on hopeful quests, brought Hungarians to their homeland, gave Frenchmen pain from unrequited love, and made  Native American brides beautiful on their wedding day. The white hart even became the Christ in some Christian countries. And it was the white stag the children hunted in the first Narnia Chronicle that led them back through the wardrobe into their own non-magical world.

I live in an urban area, where deer are few and far between. So if I saw one in the garden, I think I would have to follow it. Until that time, all I can do is follow it with my brush and paint. It will have to be enough.

WhiteHartcloseup

For more about the hart in mythology, you might try these sites:

Terri Windling’s Wonderful Blog, Myth and Moor
Protect the White Deer
The Sacred Hart Moot
The White Deer

The goddess and her cat

| maggiebird

Note: For the first time ever, I’m offering paintings for sale online. These paintings, to be specific. You can find them on Etsy.

This series of paintings popped into my head one night as I sketched in pre-sleep drowsiness, having just finished Neil Gaiman’s American Gods.

The liturgy at the congregation where we celebrate the High Holy days does not give G*d a gender, or rather, the gender is floating, sometimes male, sometimes female, sometimes nothing. So I have chosen to portray the earth’s protector as a feminine entity, a Goddess, if you will, in comfy clothes (she’s a goddess; she can wear sweat pants if she wants!), with a cat (you can make the cat a symbol of something if you want. But really, it’s just a cat. And isn’t being a cat enough?)

Earth Mother Protects

 Earth Mother #1: Protecting
7″x 5″
© Margaret Sloan 2013
Watercolor on paper
Earth Mother Sleeps Earth Mother #2: Dreaming
7″x 5″
© Margaret Sloan 2013
Watercolor on paper

Earth Mother Plays

Earth Mother #3: Playing
5″ x 6.5
© Margaret Sloan 2013
Watercolor on paper

My Etsy shop, in case you don’t like to click is: etsy.com/shop/MargaretSloanArt

 

Rapid Painting

| maggiebird
Lilly Lake near Estes Park, Colorado
Lilly Lake near Estes Park, Colorado

On a recent trip to Colorado, I painted at Lily Lake near Estes Park.

I’ve been trying to loosen up my watercolor landscapes; normally I make a tight pencil drawing on the paper before I start applying water and pigment. But I’m not liking the results. The image is too tight,  much like a cartoon.

Watercolor landscape painter Jonathan Pitts advises starting out with a 5-minute sketch before launching into a longer painting. In 5 minutes there’s only so much you can do. You have to rely on simple shapes, colors, and brush strokes.

At Lily Lake, I couldn’t quite restrict myself to 5 minutes. I gave myself a 15 minute time limit for an initial sketch on a 3.5″ x 5″ piece of watercolor paper, set the timer, and painted.

LilyLake_15MinutesLily Lake
15 minute study
Watercolor 

Next I worked for a couple of hours on a larger piece of paper. It was late afternoon, and the light and sky was changing every few minutes.

LilyLake_2hours

Lily Lake
2 hour study
Watercolor

I like the quick study much better. Making quick decisions forces me to work rapidly in bold patterns and simple color. Such “thin-slicing” is not my normal state of affairs; I usually mull things over until they are thoroughly mushed and muddy. I’m searching for clarity in many things. Funny that it should sometime come as a result of flash decisions.

Looking for a new nest

| maggiebird

Bird

Bird on nest
© 2010 Margaret Sloan
Pastel on paper

It has been many a long month since I’ve blogged. Life has been busy! And for the last two weeks, we’ve been fluttering about like two meadowlarks before a bulldozer as our rented home has been put up for sale. In the Cities by the Bay—a metropolitan area crammed with overpaid hi-tech workers and floating on rivers of investor cash—we probably don’t stand a chance of building or buying, although that won’t stop us from trying.  But our best hope is to find a rental we can afford (dear reader, if you know of something, please let me know…).

Home is a tenuous place. Lots of people in the world don’t have homes. The economy sneezes and lives fall apart. Tornadoes rip off roofs, and earthquakes crumble walls. Water drowns foundations, and  fire sends all to ash. War…well, thank God we don’t have to worry about that in our country right now.

And when you come down to it, home isn’t just a structure (although structures shelter you from rain or wind). It’s in your heart, with those you love. And the fiddler is my home, his arms my shelter, and his music-filled heart the center of our family nest. (Yeah, yeah. Sappy, I know. But scary times call for large amounts of sap.)

Fiddle Nest

Brendan Behan in ArtGraf black carbon

| maggiebird

BrendanBehanYoung

Shawn Hatosy as Brendan Behan

Saturday night I watched Borstal Boy, a romanced version of the early life of Irish patriot, playwright and poet, Brendan Behan. Mr. Behan was a man of letters—he wrote in English and in Irish—who unfortunately died quite young from the drink. He was the public face of the stereotypical Irishman, as well as typifying a whole generation of artists:  brilliant star and stumbling, mumbling drunk. He once described himself as a drunk with a writing problem.

BrendanBehanBrendan Behan as Brendan Behan

The above painting is from a Youtube video here, where Mr. Behan sings the Auld Triangle.

These were painted using my new toy, an ArtGraf black carbon block. It’s a neat little block of water soluble carbon with which you can draw on wet or dry paper, or just rub a wet brush across the block for shades of gray. It’s an easy and clean way to practice brush work while watching television, so long as you don’t kick over your pot of water. The paper is my new favorite, cheap cover stock from the copy store.

José Emídio paints with the tailor shape of ArtGraf in the video below. Beautiful!

Monday life drawing at the last minute

| maggiebird
5 minute gesture drawings with Micron Pigma pens on card stock
5-minute gesture drawings with Pigma pens on card stock

On Monday night I had planned on attending the local life drawing session after work. But when the demands of the day job made me late, I almost bagged it. I didn’t have time to go home to get my charcoal and Biggie pad of paper, and I wanted my dinner (like an army , I travel–and draw–on my stomach).

I had a little pouch full of Pigma pens, and a sketchbook too, but I didn’t want to fill the sketchbook with millions of gesture drawings. I’m fussy about that kind of thing. It takes me a long time to warm up, so that my first 1- and 2- minute gesture drawings are big messes. I like to use cheap paper I can throw away. I’m less precious when I use crummy paper for warm up sketches, and I don’t feel bad about all the mistakes.

I didn’t have cheap newsprint with me Monday night, but I did have a calendar made from cardstock and bound with wire. Cheap. Temporary (I’ll throw it away at the end of the year). So I did my quick sketches on the back of the calendar pages.

Wow! What a pleasure it was to draw those Pigma pens across that cheap card stock. I loved the graceful line and delicate shading that was possible on the semi-smooth surface, and the ink dried quickly, so I didn’t smudge.

And the model, when he saw that I was drawing on my calendar said, “Cool, I always wanted to be on a calendar. What month am I?”

Jesse10minutes

Mr. February

Cedar waxwings in the garden

| maggiebird
CedarWaxwing
Graphite sketch of cedar waxwing in the garden

Last summer the privet tree in the backyard bloomed shamelessly. All winter it’s been covered in dark blue berries, and I’ve been threatening to cut the tree down before the berries fall and create a privet thicket in my garden.

Once again, inertia and lack of time served me well, for the berries must have reached the peak of ripeness on Thursday and Friday.  On those two days (and those two days only), an enormous flock of cedar waxwing flew through the garden and breakfasted on the berries until nearly all the fruit was stripped from the tree. But today, on Sunday? Only the mockingbird sings while two bluejays eye each other salaciously.

I made this sketch at the kitchen window on Thursday, binoculars in hand, while I was waiting for my morning tea water to boil.