An afternoon at the Ashkenaz

I get up this morning to head out with Bern and her 5 year old daughter Iliyana to Berkeley for some flamenco classes. I'm a little anxious as I've not been to any classes in a while. Bern and I mostly just do our own thing. But it's good to be injected with new inspiration now and then to get creative juices going. For that matter, same goes for figure drawing classes even when it comes to visual art.

Iliyana is in the children's class for the first hour. We have to wait our turn for the class that follows. We sit and watch at the sidelines among the parents, some of whom are enchanted by their little ones capering to the music of Carmen, others who seem a bit on the bored side, reading a novel or squinting at some paperwork. After a while, I pull out my sketchbook.

No pencil cheating I've decided now. Time to push further where I've already started the other day by using the less controlled brush pen instead of the usual minute points. It's how I used to do sketches in these books but somewhere along the line I lost my nerve and got too concerned with making it "look good" and started doing (very quick, but still) pencils first before laying the ink on top. As I was waiting for Bern to call and let me know she was here to pick me up this morning, I deliberatey did not pack a pencil into my bag.

Like not having been to a dance class for a while, touching black ink to a page without some guiding pencil lines can be a bit unsettling. Ink is so permanent. Each stroke has to be done decisively, with a purpose and a reason; knowing that once it has been laid down, it's there. Deal with it.

I watch the little hands stretch to the ceiling and curl in fleures. A dozen miniature black skirts twirl across the floor, following Yaelisa's graceful form. Iliyana turns hesitantly to look at us a few times, being the youngest and smallest in the class. Bern smiles encouragement at her. I touch black ink to the page.

gathered around to talk about abanicos

the older students dance some tangos while the two new ones sit back and watch

Sausal Park Sketches

Pulled out a brush pen sample that was given to me at Wondercon to test out, wandered down the path and did some sketches. Going for looser sketches. Brown paper, black brush pen, and highlights with white gel pen. Wish there was such a thing as a white brush pen, that would be fun.

Trying this out, reminded me of my old Chinese brush that I used to use for gestural figure drawing back in college. It's the sad sad story that no matter how much you love a brush, eventually, be it 3 paintings or 30 paintings, the time comes that it must be sent to the retirement home jar of fuzzy headed brushes. I miss that brush.

I felt a bit voyeuristic....

Waving in the slight breeze. A forgotten hat that someone had found and tied to a branch at the path's entrance. Peeking through the greenery, it was like a visual echo of all the lily of the valley plants dotting the park.

Cypripedium californicum

"Slippers"

6.5x7.5 inches, ink on bristol board

A fanciful little commission of Cypripedium californicum, a Californian orchid. Cypripedium refers to Aphrodite/Venus.

* * *

I'm working on getting an Inklings volume 2 out. Having a horrid time getting my printer to actually do it. It's been a series of misfortunes since late January when I sent them the layouts, so I'm not really holding my breath for it to be available anytime soon. I'm hoping they can do it in time for the summer conventions. I am factoring in a 6 month lead time after all (low expectations lead to pleasant surprises).

While quality from small press seems to be quite good these days, reliability is where the big failing is so far with all the companies I've had to deal with.

Still, it's great to be able to do things like this, that 10 years ago would really not even have been an option without searching overseas for an affordable printer, shelling out a large sum of money for the run, and then finding room to store the 1000+ copies. My poor little garage is already packed to the gills with paper product. Wait, there's supposed to be room for a car too???

Angel sculpture

The mohair finally arrived. I was excited to finally be able to finish this piece. My first attempt at this type of thing - mixed media of figurative sculpture with clothing and hair and jewelry. I do think I'd like to try my hand at some more, now that I have gone through the whole process. Several ideas I'd like to work with, though there will probably not be time for it in the foreseeable future. Juggling too many projects right now! This one was started last summer, and it took over half a year to finally getting around to completing.

Made from La Dolle paper clay, mohair, silk, lace, metal wire, silver leaf, pearls, rhinestones, and feathers. Apologies for my bad photography.

Decision through indecision: Color choices

"Queen of the Cats"
medium: Watercolor
size: 12x18 inches

Mmm...she's done. After a cascading series of distractions throughout the day. Prints, original, and all that Good Stuff, available as usual at Shadowscapes.

The snake got fattened a little bit after observing the anaconda for a bit at Academy of Sciences the other day. Rather happy with how this piece turned out on the whole actually.

I got asked the other day about how I pick colors. The answer - Decision through Indecision.

The long translation: I frequently have only the vaguest of ideas as to a color scheme. For the most part a general equation in my head is for complimentary colors to really make foreground pop from background. Sometimes I have fixed in my head what color I want one particular element to be, and from there a process of gradual elimination determines the rest of the colors.

Example, for this piece, I started with the green/gold background. The cats were also predetermined to be normal cat colors, but an array of different sorts. Black, white, calico, orange tabby, etc. This results in darkening the green distant background trees around them to make them stand out more. It also follows then that if I want to keep the girl as a definitive focus, she would need some color to pop her out from the green - either her hair or her frock, and orange or red would be a real eye-catcher since it would compliment the foresty green tones.

The same follows for the arcing tree branch in front. Orange to really pull it out to the foreground. You'll notice that red/orange is used throughout the piece to focus the viewer's attention and say "Hey this is important!" Kinda the way Nature uses bright colors to signify "Danger!" or "Pick me, I'm the most beautiful (thus strongest and most worthy!" It ends up being fiery tones in this piece because I set the stage for it with the predominantly green background. It's happened sometimes that I get too carried away with backgrounds and vibrant clashing tones in it end up fighting with the foreground with attention, but fortunately this piece doesn't seem to have suffered from that affliction.

Frequently my color choices are not quite so decisive as all of this sounds. I'll start with one color, try something out, decide that I hate it and either scrub it out with lifting, or just painting right on top with an alternate. Hate that, go back to a darker version of first attempt. Hate it all but at that point unable to do anything more about it since it's watercolors and once the colors are down, you really can't change too much. Finish the painting, live with it for a week, and then suddenly I'm not hating it so much. Proximity sometimes just drowns out any objective analysis, and a few days to mellow gives a new perspective.

Old intaglio etchings

Was digging through some piles of paintings to locate one that recently sold and needed to be shipped today. I came across these old intaglio etchings from my college days 12 years ago. The general process involves taking a metal plate that you etch into with a variety of techniques using acid, and scratching, while masking off with asphaltum. When the plate is completed, ink is hand rubbed into the etched areas, a wet paper is placed on top, and the whole is squeezed through a hand-cranked press.

Yeah, the style's quite different from my present work, but that's due in large part to both the medium, and the fact that anything remotely "illustrative" wasn't looked on kindly at Berkeley. I ended up taking several semesters of etching. Finding these makes me miss it, but you really can't do intaglio without a dedicated studio for it. Keeping acid baths and toxic solvents lying around the house isn't really practical or a good idea.

"Sanctuary"

"Rain"

"Shadow Dance"

Living Roof

I braved San Francisco's traffic again to drive to Golden Gate Park. It was one of those rare and perfect days in SF - the kind that tourists are always expecting and hoping for when they come to California, but that the city rarely lives up to (fog and wind usually being the bywords). I dug up my little travel sketchbook to take with me. It's been denied entries for far too long.

I think perhaps I need to start a new sketchbook. This one has become too... "precious", to use a word my old Berkeley art professors would have said with a sneer. The original point of the sketchbook was to make impromptu impression drawings, quick, fresh, and on the spot. I think I'm too concerned with making the drawings look good rather than just doing them now. Need to shake things up a bit. Perhaps try with a brush pen next time.

Met up with Horatio at the De Young museum for a quick lunch. He had already seen the Andy Warhol exhibit that morning while waiting for our rendezvouz. The other special exhibit was Yves Saint-Laurent. We decided to head over to the Academy of Sciences and see what that had to offer before deciding which one to spend the afternoon at. I hadn't ever been to the Academy yet, but had been hearing all kinds of fun things about it lately from friends, so my curiosity was piqued. In the end the Academy won out.

We visited the indoor rainforest exhibit, the planetarium, and the aquarium. At one point, the sign to the Living Roof beckoned us, and we followed the stairs up. There was a light breeze, and it was beautifully sunny.

The Living Roof is exactly what it sounds like, a carpet of rolling green hills that cap the Academy in poppies and strawberries and wild grasses, tying the environment of Golden Gate Park to the building itself. There is a backdrop of eucalyptus stands shadowing the horizon, and the faraway hint of the city's highrises. Rows of round glass peer down to the inside of the building below, like high-tech fairy windows into a mound.

* * *

Made some more moderate progress on my Queen of Cats painting. Getting to the fun part now: the cats!
I saw an anaconda at the Academy. Took lots of photos for him for reference for the snake in this piece. The anaconda was enormous. Half-submerged under a pool of water, lazily eying the food that had been provided for him (or perhaps he had killed the rabbit himself, I didn't see).