Last painting for the October show is done

Refuge

22"x30" Ink and colored pencil on archival cotton paper $500
You can purchase this painting HERE.

I just put the last touches on my last new painting for the show next month. Time to put the pencils away for a while. I'll be posting the announcement for the show this week. I wanted to use different colors from the reds of the last two. There was actually another new painting but it took a nose dive a couple weeks ago. I may be able to rescue part of it, but almost half of it is ruined.

It happens. The colored pencils are only so forgiving. I may try it again; I did like the composition. But not right now.

I'm getting ready to embark on the set of illustrations I want to do for my book Take The Wind Up With You. I have a list of about 15 ideas, but I've really got to work on my eagle- and mouse-rendering skills. I haven't done any action drawing since my horse-drawing days, sixty years ago. I'm thinking of doing them digitally, if I can manage that. Wish I could channel N. C. Wyeth.

Red Rock Canyons

Red Canyon

22"x30" Ink & colored pencil on archival paper $500
You can purchase this painting HERE.

We're in the second painting season of the year, the one where it's too hot to work outside, and I'm working on inks as well as acrylics. I wanted to try a different theme with the inks, so I decided to try some of my canyon images from Zion National Park. I was hoping the angular nature of the rock cliffs would work well within the limitations of my process. I also wanted to explore some different color schemes than I've used before.

Canyon Night

22"x30" Ink & colored pencil on archival paper $500
You can purchase this painting HERE.

The second one I did, I wanted to make into a night scene. It took me several weeks and a couple different tries to get the colors right, but I'm happy now.

Light as expansion

Light As Expansion

Still pretty busy, but I did manage to finish up the fifth in my series of the 22 Dimensions of Light—it's the fifth dimension!—Light As Expansion. Expansion, the opposite of contraction, the energy to grow larger, to increase, to be in that phase of creation where the focus is on adding, extending, becoming more of what you already are.

The weather is warming up, and I'm starting to really look forward to getting out into my garden to paint again, but first I have to get out into my garden to work—and there's plenty to do right now. Fortunately we're looking at a week of dry weather with nice temperatures, so maybe the next time it gets warm, I can drag the painting stuff out and start playing again. Meanwhile, I've amassed a huge backlog of great photos of local scenery, so when I'm done with my current projects and can start painting again, I've got plenty of material to work with.

Anyway, back to work. Thanks for looking!

Light as motion

I've been painting more this month than any month I can remember. I finished the fourth in my series of the twenty-two dimensions of light. I'm really happy with the amount of energy in this one. I've never done anything with all hot colors before, either.

I've also been working on several smaller paintings and finished two on paper, including one of a PJM rhododendron blooming last spring, down by my barn. PJM's are a family of rhododendron varieties recognizeable by their lavender to pink to white medium-sized flowers and being just about the first ones to bloom. The ones down at the college started blooming this year at the end of January, which was extremely early. Mine will be opening in a couple weeks, from the look of them.

Another one is another attempt to capture the first light of a December morning, coming through the tall firs behind my house.

Twenty-two dimensions of Light

I've started a new series of mixed media abstracts. It's an attempt to show twenty-two dimensions of the fundamental energy of the universe—Light. I finished Radiance last month, and I'm working on the second one now. I'm not sure how far I'll get; twenty-two is a large number, but I have come up with twenty-five possible descriptors. The mathematics of the cosmos has always intrigued me, even though I never got past beginning calculus, and it's been a real treat to see how far astrophysics has come during my lifetime. If I had done better in school, I would have loved to be in on that work. At my age, I figure if I can even contemplate the existence of twenty-two different dimensions, that'll be an excellent workout for my brain...which needs all the exercise it can get.

I've spent the last two rain-free spells re-photographing all the large works I have on hand with my new, better camera, and this weekend I finished getting those images up on my new gallery at Fine Art America, an on-demand reproduction and printing house. All of those paintings are now available for purchase as reproductions in a wide range of sizes from greeting cards to 30"x40", on half a dozen different surfaces from paper to metal. As far as general quality of artwork at FAA, it's the most impressive online gallery I've seen; in just a few hours of poking around I've found several artists whose work is astonishingly beautiful and original. My gallery is at:

 https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/2-patricia-ryan.html

I'm also happy to now have good images of some of my favorite paintings from years past.

Depths Of Time 3: Honor The Earth

Depths Of Time 3: Honor The Earth
Ink & Colored Pencil 22x30 $550

The third painting in my Depths Of Time series is complete. This new one has a greater richness of color and texture than I've been able to achieve before. I'm not sure why it worked better, but I think it has to do with the particular sequence of colors in the inking and pencil layering. The inking is unpredictable as to density and exact pattern, and what I get each time is still a surprise. That doesn't keep me from trying new things each time to have more control over the result, but it's still a gamble. With the colored pencils, the sequence of layering and the time in between applying the layers also produces differing results. The translucence of the wax in the pencil pigments actually makes every layer visible as long as they're not too dark, so up close you see not just the color impression of the mix of hues, but at the same time, each separate hue.

The title actually comes from the theme of Annie Howden's next show starting in May at Howden Gallery, "Celebration Of Honor". My central theme of this series is to make visible the complexity of the invisible Earth beneath our feet, the Earth we seldom see and rarely notice. The roughly 4.5 billion years the Earth has existed are all there, written in that stone and dirt that our green world grows upon. It feels right to me to honor that time, and all the change that has taken place in that time.

Playing with Derwent Inktense Pencils

Robert Burridge's February edition of his Artsy Fartsy Newsletter came out a couple days ago and he showed some sketches he'd done with Derwent's Inktense water soluble colored pencils. The richness of color and value contrast he got went way beyond anything I'd ever guessed you could get with a watercolor pencil, and when he said the wetted pigment dried waterproof, a big flashing lightbulb went off in my head and I really wanted to get a few to try them with the other mediums I use. So after going to see the "Celebration of Creativity" art show in Beaverton where Jackie McIntyre has several pieces showing, I drove to the nearby Art Media and coughed up for a packaged set of 12, plus a white and a medium blue. I did some sketching on some old Liberte paper last night and this morning, and found out why they're called Inktense—the colors really are intense, as intense as I would ever want them to be. Handling them dry is just like using any soft colored pencil, but the magic happens when you get them wet—the color pops out like something from a fantasy dream and handles just like water color. You can contain it, wash it, blend it, lift it, or carry it to other areas. It takes an amazingly small amount of pigment to make a nice light wash.

On the wetted paper, you can draw more, and if there's enough water the pigment will feather out into it. Let it dry a little more and you can lightly or somewhat more heavily work in more of the same or different colors. Another drop of water will further enrich the colors. As long as it's damp, you can lift all or some of it. The literature says that only the pigment that's fully dissolved will become waterproof; I found this to be true.

This afternoon I did a sketch on gessoed paper. I wanted to make a sketch of the patio furniture I planned to put on my patio background (in the previous post) because I wanted to try making it red. Here's what I got:

Patio sketch with Derwent Inktense pencils

I laid in most of the color and then went in with a wet brush (suggestion: Don't use a brush you really love—I couldn't get the pigment out with my regular brush soap), starting with the lightest colors first, and trying to manipulate the water flow and blending. I did the furniture last and then let it dry for a few minutes. I darkened the shadow greens and let it dry a few minutes more. Then I took a sharply pointed deep indigo pencil and lightly sketched in the shadow pattern. When I wet it, the red was still wet enough to be picked up, but I really liked the way the shadow looks sort of brushed and sort of drawn.

And that, in fact, is the thing I love most about these pencils—you're just drawing, not painting. Pencils were my first art medium and even though I don't draw that much any more, it's still easier for me, particularly when working with line work, to use a pencil. Much, much easier.

So, it's a pencil first, but you get to play with water, plain water, and the color pops like magic—it's just fun! I really like them! Now I want all the colors...all 71 of them. But first I'll have to see how I can mix them with acrylic paint.

I will mention that on the plain sized paper, the colors seemed to lighten on drying. But when I made them as intense as I could, they stayed intense. And on the gessoed paper, they seem to not be lightening as they dry. And my perennial complaint—I really wish someone could make a decently opaque white pencil. With this one I'm able to lighten colors once they dry, and it works better than my Prismacolor white pencil for that, but I would really, really like an opaque one. I presume at this point that it's not possible to make one. Sure wish it were. You have to think like a watercolor painter, and save your whites.

I keep thinking of how quick and easy they would be to use when sketching outside. A pad, a cup full of pencils, and one of those water-reservoir brushes.

There's quite a bit of information about them and some nice examples on the Derwent website, http://www.pencils.co.uk.

Depths Of Time 2: A Green Earth

It's officially a series now—there are two. Or does it take three? Then that will take another month or so. I do have more ideas in this theme.

Depths Of Time 2: A Green Earth
Ink & colored pencil 22x30 $550

My biggest concern with this one was that it would end up looking just like two different paintings, stuck together. I did a few things to try to keep that from happening. The first was to make the first row of trees with strong contrasting colors. The second was to have a steady progression from warm at the bottom to cool at the top, with the addition of some aerial perspective. The third was to use very dark blue violet as a common color on both halves as well as the center. The last was the repetition of the curved shapes of the hills in the details of the rock strata. When I made the initial print, I was hoping that the pair of diagonal cracks in the strata would add an interesting element. I think instead they're too much of a distraction, so I tried to minimize them. Not everything you can think of makes for a better composition. That is one problem with this technique that makes better planning a great idea.

Well, on to the next one—happy painting!

Painting A Series: The Depths of Time

Depths Of Time 1: The First Shelter
Ink & Colored Pencil on Paper 22x30 $550

For some time I've been wanting to attempt a series, and I finally got an idea for a series of mixed media paintings. The theme is to show two aspects of landscapes—the beautiful scenery we see around us, and the secret, hidden structures that lie beneath them. The Earth is every bit as complex and dynamic a construction as the more visible organic forms that inhabit it. In an environment as profusely alive with carbon-based life forms as here in the Willamette Valley, it's hard to remember the beauty that we don't see. A few days' stay in any desert should open a new window for you into this world.

I have been interested in rocks and stones since my childhood, living in the desert at Davis Monthan Air Base by Tucson, Arizona, and after a summertime visit in the Petrified Forest National Park. But I never felt a real sense of the earth by itself until I spend a four-day Thanksgiving weekend in Death Valley, camping out with friends. I'm a tree and plant lover, primarily, and it took me two days of seeing rocks, rocks, and more rocks with almost no plants whatsoever to stop wishing there was more greenery around. On the third day there, I suddenly began to notice the colors and forms of the stone around me. I could for the first time feel the deep strength, the quiet but definitely alive energies that could only have been coming from the Earth. I came away from that trip knowing that I had had to slow down my mind and my body for a long enough period of time to be able to feel the life energy in that great stillness, to sense it in a separate way, as the foundation of all the more active beings that live and grow upon it. I've never lost that connection which was forged there, and for me, the Earth is as alive as I am.

I am calling the series "Depths of Time", in recognition of how this Earth of ours has changed over time, and how its history is written so clearly in the thick and thin layers of rocks and soil that we get to see where the processes of creation and destruction reveal them. I'd like to dedicate this series to the thousands of inquiring minds, professional and amateur scientists alike, who have over the preceding centuries been given the grace to see and understand the clues that have lain around us for aeons—in the depths of time.