Keeper of Keys

Keeper of Keys

Size: 7x10 inches

Medium: Watercolor, ink, metallic powders, gold leaf

Prints ($16.95) and Detail closeups available -here-

I was visiting the Berkeley Botanical Gardens the other day, right about at sunset. The sun was slipping down and through the dawn redwoods, setting golden fire to the edges. A bit of that image trickling through my mind, as well as the lovely bark textures of the redwoods, and a desire to revisit Muhru from my Dreamsign painting of last month.

The sketch on the board. I didn't bother with sketching much of the background. I was going to let that happen organically. Just had a vague concept in mind for what I wanted, and the colors. The rest would happen as the paint dripped.

Here's the initial wash. This one takes the longest to dry. Because I use so much water, to let the pigment from the ink, metallics, and watercolor move, it usually takes about an hour before I can proceed.This is the scariest phase usually, though less so for this particular painting, because I spent so little time with the initial sketch. When I have a very intricate sketch it can be rather unnerving to pour all this ink onto the page and then hope things work out. I've started to lightly spray my sketches with workable fixative before proceeding so that the graphite doesn't get obliterated. I didn't used to fix my sketches.

Once that dried, I dabbed watercolor ground for the keys. I let the ground blob and mound up to create relief texture. Watercolor ground is basically a watercolor gesso-like substance. It's porous, and so you can paint watercolor on top of it.

And I lay a glaze of the watercolor ground over parts of the background as well to soften up the hardness of the black ink textures.

My daughter loved the keys. Every time she came to peek at what I was doing, she ran her fingers over the raised parts!

Once those base layers of texture are in place and dried, I start to pick out forms and shapes from the randomness with highlights and shadows.

Wasn't quite done with the background yet, but I decided to move on to Muhru and get him painted in so that I could figure out what colors he would be and therefore what other colors I needed to pull out of the background to tie things in cohesively.

Worked some more on the background, and then the final step was to apply gold leaf to the relief keys.

Dreamsign

Dreamsign

Size: 14x14 inches

Medium: Mixed

For detail closeups & prints ($16.95), -click here-

"Dreamsign" -- the elusive anomaly that a dreamer can learn to use to gain lucidity. It is a moment when clarity pierces the fog. Ironically it is often in the form of the nonsensical and out-of-place. Suddenly the fabrications of the mind become apparent as such. Exhilaration and control take the place of fear, anxiety, or confusion, and perhaps carry over in some small measure to the waking. Muhru is dreamsign. The sound of his wings beat like a pulse through all dreams, and he is the guardian of the thin line the separates the knowing from the unknowing.

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Some of the in progress photos:

I have long wanted to revisit this concept from earlier 2013. The first piece was a very impromptu painting that emerged from the ink and paint splatters. I wanted to retain that dreamy emergence aspect of it while developing it more though.

Initial brainstorming and sketching.

Finalized sketch. I didn't do any pre-sketching for the background -- I was going to let that develop organically.

 Had an idea to make the key a little bit 3-dimensional. Originally thought to get out my paper clay and mold some of that, but it would involve opening a whole package for just a tiny bit of clay, and paper clay tends to dry out very quickly once the air-tight package is opened. So I went for just very thickly applied watercolor ground. Tried it out on a test scrap of paper first and was pleased with the results, so then I went ahead with it on the final painting.

Applied gold leaf to the raised key.

Green Flash

Green Flash

Size: 9x12 inches
Medium: Watercolor, ballpoint pen, india ink, metallic watercolors, gel pens

Detail closeup and prints ($15.00) available -here-

It happened in the green flash as the disk of the sun slipped beneath the horizon. The stars began to gleam like inverse shadows in the far corners of the sky, and the moon’s pale presence shone. The veil between the worlds rippled, and then as if that fabric could no longer contain the fullness of the Otherworld, it tore.

Not quite a gateway, nothing so substantial. The tear rippled down the path that the setting sun had blazed across the waters of the lake, and the arc of the Milky Way reflected in a corridor of stars.

A flock of swans spread their wings and flew above that path to the far shore, and the beating of their wings was a horrible and beautiful summons. The rhythm vibrated through my fingertips and made the soles of my feet itch. I wanted to follow them. I wanted it more than anything I have ever desired.

Overlook

Overlook

Size: 8x9 inches

Medium: Watercolors, inks, white ground, metallic mediums

Detail closeups, Original ($399.00) and Prints ($16.95) -available here-

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Some of the in-progress images:

Started off with a random wash of ink, metallic mediums, and a tint of color with watercolors. Turned the board all directions and let the wash drip and flow down the page. After that dried, used a wide flat brush with white watercolor ground and smoothed in some bright spaces.

Then I shoved it in the back of my drawer and ignored it for about 5 months. I have about a half dozen scraps of board like this sitting in my drawer at any given time these days. I just splatter them with paint and texture, and every once in a while pull a few of them out and see what shapes and images I can make out in the chaos. 

Sometimes one of them moves me to try and pull that image out. Some days none of them do anything for me and I shove them back into the drawer. Or  sometimes I decide there's nothing in that chaos at all and splatter another random layer of ink/mediums/watercolor across the page and let it dry to see what that will do to it.

On this particular day this piece started to speak to me. So I pulled it out and started trying to bring the hazy shadow of an image into realization. 

The white streaks reminded me of the delicate rivulets of distant waterfalls. Shadowy trees started carving out the space of the cliffs. And then a golden tree twisting around a spire-like overlook emerged in the foreground.

Luminous

 

Luminous

Medium: Watercolors

Size:18x11 inches

Prints (8.5x11@$16.95 and 11x17@26.50), original painting ($1500.00), and detail closeups -available here-

Plunging through the woods like a white shadow.

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Some of the in progress shots:

Here's what the thumbnail looks like. Not much, but it gets the ideas down from my brain. I actually scribbled this a while back, and had been meaning to elaborate on it for some time. This is what sketchbooks are great for! Anytime you have even the inkling of an idea, take a minute and scribble something, and then when a dry spell comes along, a flip through the sketchbook provides a wealth of ideas waiting to be explored.

From that rough scribble of a concept, I developed it into this finalized sketch.

 And then in photoshop I messed around to determine a color scheme. Initially I started out with the green tones, but then shifted it to the blue for a more dream-like quality. I had to sit on the colors for a day though before coming to an actual decision, as those of you who saw my post of facebook noticed!

 

Started painting. Started with the background.

 Moved onto the figure.

 And then further development of the ripples in the water.

And finally the fish and the leaves.

...to the finished piece.

Be sure to visit Shdowscapes to see the full size piece and closeup views! -available here-

Wisp

Wisp

Size: 11x7

Medium: mixed

Prints ($16.95) and original painting ($225.00) available -here-

I was reeeeeeeeeeeally sleepy around 9pm. But I really wanted to get another one of these pieces done, since I hadn't done one in a while and it really helps me to loosen up. It's completely unplanned. No pencil sketching. I just splash a lot of ink/watercolor/medium around on the board and see what happens and emerges from it. So, 2.5 hours later, managed to plow through the sleepiness and I'm wide awake, but mission successful!

In the Green Shadows

In the Green Shadows

Medium: Watercolors, India ink, various mediums

Size: 25x20 inches

For detail closeups, prints, and original painting: -click here-

"The Lady drew herself up tall, and the lanterns dimmed by comparison to the unfiltered aura of her being. She was slender, with emerald eyes, and up close, Lily could see the fine veins that traced under her translucent skin like a fan of tattooed lace. Her hair was thick and black, and coiled in a serpentine cascade of braids. Jasmine blossoms were twisted into the strands, like sweetly perfumed stars. She wore a green silken shift with a subtle pattern woven into the threads, and belted at the waist with a tangle of jasmine vines. The patterns in the silk of her gown shifted and writhed like living runes, and her stark face was both terrifying and beautiful."

Started with this scribble of the faerie Queen Mab (lady of dreams) in my sketchbook. Looks faintly like Southeast Asian statuary. Regal. Distant. Slightly alien.

And her handmaidens.

Then a thumbnail to try and figure out how these initial elements might be placed on the page. Thumbnail sketch is only about 3 inches wide. Very quick. Mostly composition and placement of everything. I had some faint ideas of lanterns (the circles), and two twisted trees that Mab stands between.

Once I knew the rough composition, I had some other figures that I needed to develop in order to fit into that framework, and also determining more exactly the shape of the trees that Mab was standing between. So more scribbling in the sketchbook. A lute player lounging behind her, and more musicians in the tree branches, as well as fey spectators.

Now to combine things with Photoshop. Scanned all the sketches and moved things around in Photoshop so that they were all roughly in place.

More Photoshop combining.

And still more. Sometimes I mirror flip the sketch back and forth at this stage to spot balance issues in the composition. The reversed view gives a fresh vantage.

After I settled on the composition, printed it out and refined the sketch as I transferred it to the final drawing surface. This is one of the intermediate transfer sketches.

And the final transferred piece, ready to paint.

Painting.

I seem to be fascinated by poppies lately. Well, I guess I always am, but more so in recent pieces! But they have been fitting, as flowers of sleep, and these pieces have been about dreams.