Drawing from Nature

March is greeting us today with mild temperatures, sunshine, and the tulip and daffodil bulbs are peering from the quiet ground. Over the weekend I was looking through my photo archives, thinking about the coming spring and recalling that last March I was in the throws of finishing projects for Water Paper Paint. And this particular one, Botanical Painting: Drawing from Nature has been in my thoughts lately. So I thought I'd show you a few snaps of its process.
When I first started drawing the piece I was looking at botanical engravings commissioned by Giovanni Battista Ferrari, (scroll down to Nurnbergische Hesperides, the ones with the lemons). The giant fruits hovering over city scenes and landscapes, and the baroque ribbons intrigued me. I liked the idea of including other ideas and scenes around the flora and drew patterns along the margins of the paper. As a way to portray a scene or story from my own every day, I wrote "Sunday afternoon, he dug up a couple tulip bulbs that had been forgotten". The combined imagery and writing reflects my interest in conveying ideas that occur throughout the working process and suggest the process itself. Sometimes the images are congruent with one another and at times introduce a different notion entirely, one that may give the viewer something to ponder. At least, that is my hope.
You can see another view of the piece as it was in process here.

This week

top: view of Roger Shimomura's show. middle and bottom: Shimomura's collection of artifacts created and saved from internees.

This week I have attended two interesting events:
On Tuesday I went to a moku hanga demonstration given by KU visiting artist Katie Baldwin. She studied the method in Japan from master carvers and printers. Moku hanga is a slow and methodical technique, with certain steps of carving a wooden block. Then handmade watercolor (which I love!) is brushed rather than rolled onto the raised areas. It makes a beautifully soft print. The precision, focus, materials and practice are very intriguing to me. And while I'm not sure how much I want to carve right now (but you never know), I do like the idea of using the handmade watercolor in that way. So yesterday I conducted a few experiments on my own, but nothing to share yet.

Then last night Roger Shimomura gave a lecture on his current show Shadows of Minidoka at The Lawrence Arts Center. He spoke of the more than thirty-five works from his internment series and his personal collection of artifacts on display. During WWII Roger (who was a young child at the time) and all of his family were sent to an internment camp in Idaho called Minidoka. While he says the paintings are not representations of his own memories, it was in the camp that his first memories of life began. It was personally interesting to hear perspectives that were quite different from those I grew up hearing from my grandparents. Read his statement to learn more.

Tuesday in the studio

yello
lolladip

Today I've been drawing and am about to work on a letterpress set up I have going. The rag from my scrap box is one of M.'s old shirts, this one happens to be from a Lollapalooza concert in the 90's. I like the history of ink built up. Tonight I plan to attend a workshop on moku hanga, a style of Japanese waterbased woodblock printing.

I've always thought I would enjoy taking a flower arranging course, and believe the ones taught by Nicolette Camille would be amazing. Her pieces have such depth I think, and I'm drawn to her use of color and texture, as in this combination.