And So We Start Again. I’ve Started A New Painting Titled “Flutter.”

And so we start again … Starting this new work, I learned much about what I foraged from neighborhood sidewalks and lawns this past late summer and fall. I didn’t gather enough small, reddish samaras or the tiny yellow ones. Too, I took a winter tree identification class last Saturday and I may be wrong calling all of these samaras. I need to check that. 

The other thing I’m discovering is for an artist like myself who for years gathered in the Spring and Summer and then painted throughout the Fall and Winter (an Alaska seasonal calendar), moving to a place that has a very different climate throws that all up into the air. 

It’s already below zero in the Arctic and sub-Arctic by late September so that equals painting during self-hibernation. Here, it’s almost mid-December and it was 60 degrees out yesterday with blue bird skies. I’m still out walking and harvesting. The learning curve will be harvesting and painting year round.

A rare find, a four-winged Maple tree samara or helicopter.

   A Cedrus deodara seed pod.  

Giant Sequoia seed cones. 

Measuring and drawing a grid or array is a task in itself. It then can take hours just trying to figure out placements in those grids. This type of design for a painting is called windowpane.

It’s now ready for me to sketch each item, add details and begin painting. I am giving myself a January 25th deadline as my watercolors and seedpods class is January 31st.  

If when you read all of the above you thought, “That looks much,” let me explain a bit of the process. After the grid placement is finished and each row numbered along one edge, the pre-painting process is very systematic. 

I initially sketch each square of a row without much detail and then bag up those samaras, or helicopters, and label the baggie, i.e., Row 1. I then continue doing this for every row.

Later, I will go back and return to each row and the baggie for that row, pulling one item out and then another so as to add details to the initial sketch. I will do the same when I began watercolor painting. 

A grid or windowpane painting is really many small paintings in a box. This specific artwork has been planned for months and is based on the digitally created image in the photo below. I created this photo by splicing two of the paintings that I finished this summer together. 

My over-arching goal is to create visual fluidity, movement; a sort of re-enactment of when the samaras first fell from branches. The name of this new artwork is “Flutter.”

I am happy to add that I have now finished sketching each of the boxes in the large windowpane artwork. 

Drawing details is next and then, finally, painting. When finished, I will be submitting this work and an earlier piece which includes pressed seaweed to the Portland Art Museum’s (PAM) Annual Members’ Art Show. I also have a membership to the Seattle Art Museum (SAM) but think these works fit best with the curatorial eye of the PAM. You never know if you’ll be accepted if you don’t try. 

The earlier work is below.

⚓