Plein Aire Painting along the Micomico River in Maryland

In early September I spent several days along the banks of the Micomico River in Maryland.  I began painting as the sun rose.  As the sun set I indulged in a glass of wine followed by delicious food and delightful conversation with two long-time friends.

My first experience painting Anita’s meadow garden resulted in a 2′ x 4′ oil painting garnished with dozens of gnats.  It currently hangs in the bedroom, no worse for the extra texture.  I was tougher back then.  Gnats are one thing, mosquitoes are quite a different story.  The screened porch allowed me to focus on painting rather than swatting.

It is a challenge to break old habits.  My focus was on capturing the time of day and the weather conditions, spending no more than an hour or so on each painting.  The sunrise light changed so rapidly that I could spend no more than fifteen minutes on a painting.  Limiting my palette and keeping my brushes and my palette meticulously clean helped to maintain better control of my colors and values.  I am not used to wiping my palette off so often and I find it a habit that is well worth reinforcing.

The path through Anita's garden of grasses

 

Purging

Val's Yoga Belly dance Fusion

I am about to sort through several hundred paintings and, hopefully, toss more than half of them into the green dumpster that sits in the driveway, hungry for art.   My home studio is one sixth the size of the studio I moved out of in January and is not large enough to store the mediocre strokes of line and dashes of color that are taking up valuable space on the shelves and in boxes on the floor.  More importantly, I don’t want to spend the time evaluating the work that doesn’t excite me, hoping that next time around I will find it worthy of a mat or a frame to dress it up for a gallery wall.  If the work doesn’t thrill me the way that Val’s Yoga/Belly Dance Fusion does, out it goes.

Tonight I will sleep well, having made room for new work.

Five hours later ……..  the dumpster is full.

 

A passion for shoes

Detail of 3' x 7.5' three panel oil painting

There is a good chance that I will complete Sue’s painting today.  It has been a long, wonderful journey for both of us.  Last weekend, as I worked into both the sneaker she holds in her hand and the two pair of hiking boots, I laughed at how much fun I have drawing and painting shoes.

I have a great deal of respect for a well designed, well made shoe.  Had it not been for my EB’s and my green Chouinard climbing shoes I would not have seen the world from the vantage point of standing on little crystals on the side of a cliff.  Had it not been for my dance shoes I would not have spent so many hours of delight dancing to the music of my fiddling friends.  Had it not been for my Dansko clogs I could not spend the entire day on my feet painting without being in pain.  My Naot sandals were as wonderful as my cargo paints for traveling in France, even walking on the uneven cobblestone streets.  Without great shoes, my life would be sedentary.  Pondering a sedentary life was heavy on my mind during the last two months when a pain in my right hip prevented me from walking faster than a snail.  Thanks to Dr. Jeff Marrongelle, as of a week ago, I am out of pain.  Perhaps part of that relief and joy has been infused into Sue and Dale’s hiking boots.

Plane Trees in Chalon-sur-Saone, France, pruned into cubes

Upon the completion of Sue’s painting I will turn to both plein air painting and developing paintings from the reference photos and sketches of France.  The multi-layered images of the window reflections will be my winter project on days that I am too wimpy to paint outdoors.  When I am out and about, my mindset will be that of a tourist in Hunterdon County, in an attempt to uncover the shapes and patterns and subject matter that is so familiar to me that I no longer see it.

 

Gyrotonics and Kirtan Yoga

During the past two weeks I was given the opportunity to experience two very different experiences of Zakar Art. The first was a result of painting during the Zumba fundraising event benefiting The Butterfly Project. At the benefit I met Dorian, a wonderful energetic woman who is opening a center for Gyrotonic Exercise in Flemington, NJ. She asked me to visit her studio and paint her clients working out on the Gyrotonic equipment. The second experience was painting during a Kirtan Yoga session at Easton Yoga in Easton, PA. The Wild Lotus Band, based in New Orleans returned to Easton Yoga, offering us an incredible opportunity to experience the energy and balance of their rhythms and vocal chants.

What continues to delight, amuse and amaze me is the different strokes and flows that come out of me with different music, movement, people and environment. I was like a newborn heading into the Gyrotonic experience. How would I incorporate a machine with a body and be happy with the balance of the flow? How little I trust my instincts and the thirty odd years that I have held a brush in my hand. How little I trust the forty three years of meditating. Perhaps I will learn to trust that it will pour out of me as long as let the energy of others pour into me.

Thank you, Dorian. Thank you Sean and the Wild Lotus Band. What a privilege to have been asked to paint to your dedicated energy.

 

Brain Thoughts

"Mosquitoes" performed by Busterman, choreographed by Christian Von Howard

Twice within a week I experienced the disconnect between my eye and my hand as my brain searched for a familiar pattern solution and came up empty.  I felt myself shift from free flow to confusion as my brain searched for enough information to create a new pattern.  Instead of sending Mosquito moves or Zumba moves to my hand, it sent odd fragments of ballet, bar dancing and jazz.   My arm and fingers drew the sweep of a Pat Sonne move rather than the wonderfully angular shapes of the two dancers performing “Praying Mantis”.  My brain was at a loss, but my body kept moving, grasping at images from the now distant past.

I recall the evening, several years ago, when I paintied Pat without ever looking at her, though she moved beautifully across the dance floor to the original compositions of jazz.  Tuesday night was practice night at Indulge for the 16 piece orchestra.  I began to paint the music rather than the movement, tapping into my memory of the movements I knew so well from having painted Pat three nights a week for a couple of years.  The need for new body movements led me to painting at dress rehearsals and performances of the Roxey Ballet and Wings Conservatory.  The difficulty in capturing the essence of the new style of movement surprised me.  I thought the connection was strong between my eye and my hand.  I didn’t realize that the middleman, the brain, had to create a new set of directions to send to my hand.

Zumba Event in Califon, New Jersey

In addition to unfamiliar movements, I found myself confounded by a new form of energy driving the movements of the women at last Friday evening’s Zumba event.  I had no prior knowledge of the phenomena, Zumba.  As the Zumba website defines it, it is ” … a fusion of Latin and International music that creates a dynamic, exciting, and effective fitness system.”  I thought that my belly dance class was incredible, bonding women of all ages, sizes and levels of experience.  Even that experience didn’t prepare me for the energy of the wild, sneakered, women last Friday night. The auditorium of the Presbyterian Church in Califon, NJ was transformed into a mutation of a gymnasium, dance floor, ritualistic bonfire and a “Freeing of the Spirit” workshop.  The music started; Deirdre took to the stage and led the 100+ women on an hour long journey of stretches, gyrations, shimmies, shakes and giggles, stopping only for water breaks to keep the sweating, smiling, delightfully happy women hydrated.  I’ve never seen anything like it.  I will need at least two more sessions of painting during a Zumba class before my brain will come up with a good set of directions to send to my hand.  I look forward to that opportunity!

 

Mysterious Thrills

Every now and then all of the necessary forces are present; the music, the movement, my body, my focus and the energy of the moment.  The result is a stroke of the pen that leaves a mark upon the paper that thrills me in a way I cannot describe.   My reflection in a mirror feels more alien to me than the mark that made its way from deep inside, up through my heart, across my chest, down my arm, through my fingertips to the flexible point of the dip pen that released the flow of ink onto the paper.

As an artist, I live for these moments.  These scribbles are more precious to me than all of my studio paintings.  It is for these moments that I paint during live performances of music and dance.  It is for these moments that I continue to learn all I can about drawing, painting, color, anatomy and materials.  Without the skills of the studio at my fingertips, the path would be blocked and the portrait of my spirit would remain hidden, unexpressed and silent.

 

Wrapping a Scarf

Nicole dressing for performance of Rag Tag Tribal at Hafla

I watched Nicole prepare for her performance with Rag Tag Tribal at Studio 1831 in Philadelphia, wrapping her scarf this way and that, looking fabulous and confident and exotic.  I marveled that this was my daughter, a behind the scenes woman, shy of the open stage.

So many doors she has opened for me.  I can’t imagine having not stepped into the world of belly dancing, of the connection and bond between women of so many walks of life unlike my own.

Dance has always been a part of the fiber of my life.  Whenever I strayed too far from it beckoned me back to it.  How I wish I had been exposed to belly dancing, tribal belly dancing, at an earlier age.  But then, I would have devoted myself to dancing and not to painting.  Now I have a bit of both.  I dance, not as a performer, and I paint.  I have the joy of painting dancers and I have the thrill of watching Nicole dance.  I doubt I will ever be able to express what that means to me to watch the flow of the fabric around her body, the movement, the rhythm, the expression of her hands.  She is a part of me and she is totally herself.

I love the striped socks beneath the flowing skirt.  If I ever get lost in this world I will find my way back because Nicole will have tied one of her striped socks somewhere as a sign to guide me  home.

 

Travel Tips for Artists – Cargo Pants

Cargo Pants for the traveling artist

Having only four days to prepare and pack for a trip to France forced me to make quick decisions about what to pack and what not to pack.  At the last minute, I put the two pair of everyday pants I had chosen back into the closet and grabbed a pair of black cargo pants that I knew would dry quickly if I needed to wash them.  I had never worn them before and I hadn’t a clue as to where they had come from.  Most likely, they were handed down to me from either Nicole or Alexis, something from the Far Hills Rummage Sale that they never wore, or were tired of.  It was a bit risky to bring a pair of pants I’d never worn, but I had my yoga pants as a back up.  It ended up being one of the best packing decisions I made.  I wore them every day and, thanks to the wonderful baggy pockets on the side, I was able to sketch, write notes and take photographs in a moment’s notice, even while walking on cobblestone streets.The pocket on the right was the home of my digital camera and the pocket on my left was the home of my pencil and two moleskin notebooks, one lined and one unlined.  The waist pouch is something I picked up when traveling with Nicole in Portugal.  It is a soft,  sturdy cotton fabric, very flat, with a zippered compartment inside and out.  I kept my passport, money and a few flat essentials in the waist pouch. When I wasn’t sketching or taking notes, both hands were free and no weight (such as a back pack) on my shoulders.  There was even room in the pants’ pockets for my small watercolor kit, which I carried touring on the first day.  After realizing that I rarely had enough time to paint in one location while touring, and that walking while carrying a wet painting kept me from making further notes and sketches, I left the watercolor kit on the boat.

 

The right tools

Belly Dancer at Easton Yoga Hafla, May 16, 2009

The right tools make all the difference when it comes to capturing the essence of a body moving through space.  When I am painting during a performance there is no time to think, to contemplate and to make corrections or adjustments.  If the pen nib is not flexible, it does not respond to the movement of my own body when I am in tune with the dancer and the music.  If the brush does not have a bit of spring to it , the paint will not flow to create the sense of transition that watercolor is so wonderful at conveying.  If the paint is not fluid, neither is the captured movement of the dancer.

My favorite, most flexible pen nib has disappeared over the years.  Currently, I am in search of a replacement.  Most nibs are a disappointment, too stiff to respond to my touch.  I have collected dozens of nibs, yet none are as much an extension of my arm, hand and fingers as the nib that vanished.

I enjoy using a dip pen.  The variety of marks possible with such a pen allow a line to express depth and movement by the flow from thin to thick and back again to thin.  Happy accidents often occur when I press a bit too hard or linger too long and a sphere of ink develops along the line or at the end of a line.  When the ink is still wet and I apply a wash of color, the ink may run into the color, for better or worse.  The results are never predictable and often delightful.

 

Pronunciation

Master Mud Pie Decorator

Ranunculus (pronounced /ræˈnʌŋkjʊləs/)

That is what appears on the Wikipedia.org site.  That does not help me to pronounce the word at all.

While walking back and forth between the barns at the prop shop I noticed a few gangly buttercups tossing their yellow heads back and forth in the warm breeze.  I remembered the buttercups I gathered when I was very young, perhaps six or seven.  I used them to decorate my mud pies that I carefully baked on the warm rock at the corner of the carport.  Occasionally I added a few violets.  I didn’t remember the buttercups growing so tall.

Buttercups are part of the genus Ranunculus, pronounced  /ræˈnʌŋkjʊləs/