Part 2 of Bell Museum Show Opens

                                          Rock Water Sky                             

 Yes, the water of Lake Superior is as cold as it looks in this painting. You can see this along with others of mine at the University of Minnesota's Bell Museum. Opening reception is July 20, 1-4 pm.  The show runs through August 31, 2014. 10 Church St., Minneapolis, MN, 55455  

Bell Museum Exhibit, Part 1.

There is still time to see Part 1 of the current Project Art for Nature (PAN) exhibit at the Bell Museum of Natural History at the University of Minnesota. Sheltering Nature will run through Saturday, July 12. Mary Abbe, art critic for the Minneapolis Star Tribune, wrote a short article about the mission of PAN and the art work in the show in her "Seeworthy" column. Below is one of my paintings in the show: Seasons 3, one in a series of 4.

Part 2 of the exhibit will open Sunday, July 20. The Bell Museum is located at 10 Church St. SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455.

More Lake Superior Rocks in Pen and Ink

Drawing these rocks at the cabin is addictive. Here are six more.
As I said in my last blog, the rocks on the beach at our cabin are lumpy and full of cracks and holes. But if you are looking for interesting shapes to draw this is the place to be.
When you tackle a subject like this it is easiest to do it when the light is intense and when the sun is not at its zenith. What you want are some clearly defined shadows. These were done between about 4:00 and 5:00 on a late July afternoon. Cloudy days when the light is flat will make these rocks more difficult to draw, too. Again, simplify.
The lake is shown in watercolor washes of blue. The bold one in the upper left corner is French Ultramarine blue from my old Windsor Newton traveling watercolor box. That box is too heavy to carry around compared to my smaller Schmincke boxes and I had not had it out to use for ages. Now that I have discovered it again I'm going to take the French Ultramarine pan out and stick it in the smaller box trading it for the Schmincke Ultramarine (UB) pan. I was surprised to see the difference in intensity between the colors. Other washes are cerulean and mixtures of UB and cerulean. The paper is Fabriano 90# cold press in another Roz Stendahl journal.

Lake Superior Rocks in Pen and Ink

The geology of the north shore of Lake Superior has a variety of rock formations. As my wide-eyed four-year-old grandson said, "These rocks on our beach were once red hot lava!"

I always thought it was more fun to draw the rocks were the lava had cooled more slowly into "squarish" shapes. My sketchbooks are full of these more linear formations. If you are just starting to draw rocks, these simple shapes are the ones to start on. Our beach cooled more quickly so the basalt did not have the time to form into large crystal shapes. Instead it is lumpy and irregular and full of holes and cracks. Not as graphic looking but very interesting. the trick is to simplify.

Here are a few pen and ink drawings of our lumpy beach. The lake is indicated by watercolor washes in a variety of blues.

"Places Between, Spaces Within": New Art from Project Art for Nature

Left: Filtered Sunlight, Pastel, 10 x 8 inches, copyright 2011 Diane Wesman. Click on images to view enlargement.

For the past several years I have been a member of Project Art for Nature (PAN). I’m pleased to invite you to my latest show. Starting this Friday, August 19 Project Art for Nature’s Places Between, Spaces Within opens at the Phipps Center for the Arts in Hudson, Wisconsin. New work by twenty-six Minnesota and Wisconsin artists will be on display. Most works will be available for purchase. (See second link for participating artists.)

PAN artists create and share artwork to encourage protection, restoration, re-connection and stewardship of natural communities of native plants and animals.

The show runs form August 19 to September 25, 2011 with an opening reception from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m., August 25. There will also be a round table discussion with artists on September 25, 2 to 4 p.m.

Hazy Sunshine on Lake Superior

Hazy Sunshine 5.75" x 7.5" Oil

Here is another look out onto the great inland sea that is Lake Superior. It was a cloudless afternoon at the cabin. The sky was faintly hazy and yet the lake sparkled like diamonds. A brilliant contrast to the purplish-brown rock. The small spruce tree hangs tight to this rocky, lichen covered outcropping above Lake Superior. It is battered by the elements but its roots go deep into the cracks in the basalt.

This painting is done on book board primed with three coats of vermilion colored clear acrylic gesso. It give me a nice toothy surface, a little rougher than regular gesso. I started using clear acrylic gesso as a ground for my pastel paintings and find it is also nice for oil.

I will be showing this painting along with several others at the Phipps Center for the Arts in Hudson, Wisconsin. The show will run August 19 to September 26. The opening reception is Friday evening, August 26 from 6:30 to 8:30. More details about the show next week.

Values

Tool Shed at the Cabin Oil, 6" x 7.75"

This is a small study of the tool shed by our cabin. Though done in blues it still reads like a white tool shed in what you know are green woods. Funny how the values are more important than the local color. Proof the eye thinks values are more important.

Same View, Different Color

Lake Superior Sunset, Lavender, Pastel 4.25" x 4.25"

Here is another image in the "Twilight" series. The colors in my paintings often bear no resemblance to the local colors I see. However, this and last week's post really do represent the amazing light changes one can experience on Lake Superior's north shore. In both cases the colors are accurate. The light is really gorgeous there. It is a wonderful place to be and a real treat for a painter.

The fact that it is 66 degrees Fahrenheit in Grand Marais right now while we are sweltering in record humidity and temperatures in White Bear Lake makes the lure of the cabin a strong one.

Luminous Twilight Colors

Lake Superior Sunset, Peach Pastel, 4.25"x4.25"

This small painting was done looking west along the shore of Lake Superior to what is known as the Sawtooth Mountain Range.

I started this painting with a watercolor wash to lay in some complementary colors to the pastels used to render the final image. You can see the texture of of the cold pressed Arches watercolor paper. The texture worked out well to help me show both the small waves on the water and the rough rocks of the shoreline. I primarily used Rembrandt and Unison pastels and then put in some details with Carb-Othello pastel pencils.

Pastels work especially well to capture the luminous colors of the long twilight along the north shore of Lake Superior. We are located about forty miles from the Canadian border where in midsummer twilight lasts until after 10 PM on the summer solstice--noticeably longer than twilight in Minneapolis and St. Paul. Not quite the same as the "White Nights" of a Scandinavian summer, but almost.

As I sit here describing this painting, I realize the titles of this series should have been "twilight" not "sunset." Too late: the titles are posted on the gallery walls. If you want to see them in person go to Betsy Bowen's gallery in Grand Marais, Minnesota. The Summer Underground Show will be there until July 27.

Spruce Tree in Prismacolor

Light on Branches Covered With Lichen 10x7.5"

Here is another aging spruce tree near our cabin. Like so many trees on the north shore of Lake Superior, many of the inside branches are covered with lichen which gives them a sort of fairy-dusted look. The complexity of the tangled, needleless branches makes trees like this lots of fun to draw.

This drawing was done with a Prismacolor colored pencil, #931, Dark Purple, on Gutenberg paper. Again, it is from a Roz Stendahl journal.

I had prepared this page by smearing stamp pad ink along the edges and the gutter of the spread before I left home. When I got to this page in the journal it seemed natural to choose a purple pencil and work on the recto half of the spread. Here is an example of how doing something simple to a journal ahead of time gives you something to work with and just launches you off in a direction so you can get to drawing instead of dithering about what to do with a blank page.

Journal Sketch with Graphitint

Thermometer Tree -Graphitint #15

Another look at the "thermometer" tree by the cabin deck. This one was done with a Derwent Graphitint pencil #15, Cool Brown. I started with a sharp point and occasionally let the tip get worn down which worked well for shading on the very textured and soft Gutenberg paper. Although the Derwent Graphitints dissolve when wet (and this technique works well on the Gutenberg paper) I kept this sketch dry. Again, the sketch is in a lovely Roz Stendahl journal.

Spruce Tree in Graphite

Thermometer Tree 4.5 x 5.25"

This is a drawing of a tree by our cabin's lakeside door. You can step out onto the deck and get a bit closer to the Big Lake (aka Lake Superior). It holds an old thermometer that seems permanently stuck on 65 degrees. This graphite drawing was done in a sketchbook made by Roz Stendahl of 180 gm Gutenberg paper. The paper is a dream to draw on, it provides just enough tug on the pencil and is a soft tan that is expecially nice if you are sketching in bright light.

On the Subject of Paper

Recently my friend Roz, a paper expert of the first order, was asked to write and article about one of our favorite papers, Strathmore Aquarius II, for the Strathmore paper company. It was just published in their artist newsletter. The image above is from a sweet journal Roz made for me out of this great paper. Other images from this sketch book are included in her article. I find this an ideal paper for watercolor--it stands up to lots of scrubbing, holds a nice pen line without bleeding and doesn't wrinkle. Perfect.

This little painting above (on 140# Arches, cold press) was inspired by the sketch from my journal. The variation in intensity of the color between the two images is due to the harder finish of the Arches and also the fact that I was quickly working on the small lid of my Schmincke traveling palette and the colors were getting a little muddy. But you can get intense colors on the Aquarius, too. I also have a bigger array of paints available in my studio than what I carry with me for sketching so I have used additional colors.

Aquarius II is a terrific choice for a journal. Among other things the paper folds nicely without cracking on the fold. A characteristic that is good when you need a journal that will take the inevitable abuse I give it while holding it open in all kinds of weather.

Time to Change Out My Palette

A few weeks ago fall colors were brilliant in central Minnesota. The color change was so dramatic compared to late summer that I had to make changes in my traveling watercolor palette. Out went the cobalt teal and in went pyrrol and cadmium oranges. I have used up a lot of the cerulean blue since the sky color has changed. My nathamide maroon is also in heavy use. Mixed with with pyrrol red and burnt sienna (especially when you use various amounts of each) it can represent the changing oak foliage.



Above is a field sketch. Below is a small watercolor done

with this as an inspiration.

I don't necessarily use local color in my pastels and oils, but they are evident in my field studies--it is the fastest way for me to get the light right. Even my studio watercolor paintings like the one above is more representative of local color. (Yes, there is a lot of pink in the grasses.)

A note on fall greens. In the little study below I used some sap green which is a mixture of Quinacridone gold (PO49) and Pthalo green(PG7). I do use Quin gold but I'm a little leary of having powerful pthalo green on my palette. Even in the fall you need some green and the sap green is very useful. Last year I started to use Daniel Smith's Serpentine green. It is lovely and I seem to be going through a lot of it. It is expensive but I'm not sorry I bought a tube.

On the Edge

Come see my recent work. You are invited to the opening reception Sunday, September 12, 1 to 4 for the show "On the Edge." I will be showing work with other members of Project Art for Nature at the River Falls Library gallery, River Falls, Wisconsin.

The show runs from September 12 to October 9. 20% of proceeds go to benefit the Kinnikinnic Land Trust.

Back to Whistler and Vancouver

Above is a rendition of Inuk Shuk that the Vancouver Olympic
Organizing Committee (know by its acronym VANOC) uses as
its logo. The original statue, we were told, was a gift to the
city of Vancouver by the government of the Northwest Territories.
We took this photo near the base of the ski jumping hill.


With all the Olympic hoop-la (which, I hasten to add, our household is happily participating in) I went to the bookshelf and pulled down my journal from September 2008. It documents our trip to Whistler and Vancouver and my experiments with gouache and the first financial tremors of the Wall Street meltdown.

We love that area of British Columbia. After all, you get mountains and the ocean on the same trip. With all that was happening to our 401k we decided to press on and enjoy the trip. After all it was Fall in B.C. and we were getting to see the venues that would be home to the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Below is a photo of the ski jumps. They appear deceptively small. And, oddly the picnic tables seem to me to be gigantic. Just shows how decieving photos can be. Remember that if you ever use a photo you've taken as reference material for a drawing or painting!

How about this for a view--it's from a parking lot in the Nordic events area:

Ready for snow here is a shot of the cross country ski track:

Below is a page from my journal. The background was prepared before I left White Bear with some acrylic ink. I use that because it makes a permanent layer of color on which I can use a wet medium such as gouache with no concern that it will start disolving the background. Here I just used my black Uniball pen and some colored pencils to extend the design of a sticker celebrating the skeleton races.

The organizers had stickers for many of the coming events. I chose the mascot for the skeleton for sentimental reasons. Eight (oh my gosh, was it twelve??) years ago our daughter watched the skeleton races during the Winter Games and said, "I want to do that." So she contacted the team, trained for the event and was invited to Lake Placid to try out for the Olympic skeleton team. By my good fortune she was not chosen. Somehow knowing your daughter is zooming down hill, head first on a teeny tiny sled and at speeds that would get you a ticket if you were driving your car is unsettling. We have been used to her zipping down ski slopes on skiis and snowboards and flying over jumps on the back of a horse. Those seemed calm by comparison. But, if she'd made the team you can bet we would have been standing by that icy course cheering her on!

Valentines

Overview of my drafting table with some new creations.

Valentine's Day is my favorite holiday. It is just plain fun and it is an opportunity to use two of my favorite colors--red and purple--with abandon.

Last week a group of friends came over to eat chocolate and make Valentines. Roz arrived with a huge box of "scrap" paper and a WWII vintage Sears catalogue. Karen came with felted hearts and a box of more paper, clip art and nifty stuff for embellishment. Rachel brought Valentine motif pressure prints. Jennie supplied more gourmet chocolate covered graham crackers than anyone should have in her house. I brought down rubber stamps, scissors, glue sticks, glass beads, ribbons, Xacto knives, cutting mats, etc., etc. from my studio. Oh, and I threw in an old organza and feather boa with a long history; it has now been remade into lovely Valentines and pins. (You'll see below.)

We had enough supplies to give the artists huge grins and, for the self-proclaimed non-artists, wide eyes. Three of us who are working artists and one art student were told by the others that this card making seemed a daunting task. In the end, they came up with some of the best Valentines of the bunch.

So, what was the inspiration? The old catalogue generated a load of Valentines.

My grandson came up with the idea that you could glue glass "marbles" (they're not really marbles since they have a flat side) on top of little images and magnify the image. Viola! So I tried it (below):

Below are pieces of what was once a gorgeous boa that could be attached to a nightgown...oh well. The colors are gorgeous. Cutting it up and using it for Valentines is surely a higher and better use. Karen got the idea to attach a bunch of the organza to the back of a felted heart
--it made a beautiful pin.

Now here are the silliest Valentines: The purple ones below are inspired by my four-year-old grandson again. I had gotten him a box of foam hearts and monkeys so he and I could make Valentines one day after school. He was exploring the drawers in my studio and found a bag of "jewels" and sparkley pom-poms which he calls "hair balls." He has already given the Valentines away that he had decorated with monkeys (What can I say, they were in the box with all the hearts....) and several pom-pom-hair-balls so I can't show them here. However, one of his less embellished creations is at the end of this post.

I did a variation on the his theme and added some pearls when I saw a piece of purple velour paper:

Supplies for the Goofy Valentines

The inspiration for many of the Valentines:

Made by 4 year old E.W.

So, the Big Day is almost here. You have until the 14th to deliver some cards. Make some, it's fun.

Shiny Objects

What kind of art do I do in December? Answer: Decorate a big Christmas tree. Or, others might change the emphasis to say: Decorate a big Christmas tree.








My husband, who loves a decorated tree but not the decorating, is beginning to think this twelve footer of ours is gigantic. He has been making suggestions that it would be fine if I only hung, say, three hundred decorations and let the rest stay in their boxes.



But that doesn't work for me. I need the tree encrusted with every shiny bauble and ball we have. For one thing, I am attracted to shiny, glittery objects. "Hollywood," I call it. Besides, every ornament on the tree is a meme. "My mother gave me this one." "This one was a birthday present from Jennie." "Christopher made this one in Sunday school." "Eric and I got this one in Germany." "This one is from Denmark." "Oh, this was Aunt Lil's." Boxes and boxes and boxes of memories get hung on the tree.

This year I was hobbled by a new knee and counseled by my physical therapist not to be on a ladder. Going up and down wasn't going to damage the knee, but, apparently the nerve receptors near my knee can't yet send clear messages to my brain that the muscles need to make a correction to keep me balanced. My friend Roz came to the rescue.

Roz came with her artist's eyes and trimmed a part of the tree too high for me. And this was a real gift: Roz is the friend who doesn't even like to go over high bridges let alone stand on a tall ladder. You can read her comments on the tree trimming and photos of our tree on her December 8 and 13 blog entries.

We had lots of laughs. A good one at my expense when we talked about how Eric does not like to trim the tree. "I don't put things in the right places. You always end up moving most of what I hang up anyway," he says. "It's not that he puts things in the wrong places, I just need to tweek things, say, when I have a large ornament and there is no place to put it except where he put a tiny one. Or maybe three pink ones don't look the best hanging in a row. It is just a matter of composition. I move things I hang up constantly," I told Roz. "No wonder he doesn't like to trim the tree!" Hmm, now I see his point. There you have it: Roz, friend, artist and marriage coach. Eric did do the rest of the top and it looks terrific.

All in all, when the tree is all trimmed, the boxes back in the basement and the tree lights turned on, the week of work is worth it. Good thing it doesn't take as long to take it down.

Utah Journal

A few weeks ago my friend Roz Stendahl posted an article about the journal I kept on my recent trip to Utah and a discussion of my renewed interest in painting in oils. Included was a mass photo of all the Utah paintings and lots of photos of my journal. Here's the link to her post.

It seemed worth while to add a few things she did not include--for example a photo of the outside of the journal itself. Like other journals Roz has made this one was a real beauty: the paper was Aquarius watercolor paper, the cover a perfect rusty brown-red and the stiching on the spine looked like tire tracks. How great is that for a fall road trip!



It is my custom to draw and paint what I see out of the car windows as my husband drives along. This works just fine since I use a Niji waterbrush (where the water is self contained in the handle of the brush) and my traveling watercolor palette which sits easily in my lap. With those two pieces of equipment and some paper towels I'm all set. This photos shows the scenes as we crossed from Nebraska into Iowa on our way home.

Below are two pages from the last signature of the journal in which I glued small digital prints of the thirteen paintings I did in Utah.

In the envelope are the thumbnail sketches I did before each of the paintings. I needed some place to keep a record of my thinking process behind each of the paintings. Even with the pocket I made to hold literature from the trip, there was still room in the spine to hold an envelope with the sketches.

Below is a very fast sketch I did after lunch the day we went up to Sundance. When I say fast I mean less than 5 minutes. The fact that the top of Mount Timpanogos does not fit on the page actually reminds me of just how huge it was--so a "mistake" in drawing can be a good thing. The whole tone of this photos is yellow. I am blaming it on my ineptitude with the camera.

In this spread western Wyoming (home of countless antelope) was flying past the window. Later I noticed that the colors I used to paint the scene were identical to photos of the antelope in a brochure we picked up.

A few random things I wanted to remember:

More road paintings:

And, appropriately, the "tire tracks" on the spine:

Keep a journal. It's a great way to record an experience and, there it is to help you relive it later.

New Show

The University of Minnesota Morris is the setting of the lastest Project Art for Nature (PAN) Show. I'll be exhibiting along with twelve other artists. PAN is a collaboration of artists and illustrators from Minnesota and Wisconsin who work independently and collaboratively to create artwork which promotes stewardship of threatened natural areas.


Dusk, 6 x16 1/2", pastel

The two locations I focus on for the PAN collaborative are the area near our cabin on the north shore of Lake Superior and the large open space between Bald Eagle Lake and Otter Lake, two of the many lakes in the Twin Cities area in Minnesota. The open space is filled with meadows, woods and marshes. The imagery of the marshes is often found in my art.

Evening, 5 x 16 1/2", pastel

The two small pastels above will be in the Morris show along with several other pastels and a set of four monotypes. 20% of the proceeds from sales of the art work are donated to non-profit environmental conservation organizations.

The show opens tomorow, Thursday, Ocotber 22, 7-9 pm at the Humanities Fine Art Gallery, University of Minnesota Morris. 104 Humanities Building, 600 East 4th St., Morris, MN. Gallery hours are Monday-Thursday: 9 am - 8 pm; Friday: 9 am - 6 pm; Sunday: pm - 4 pm.

Please come see the show if you are in the area.