Flannelbush Road

Flannelbush Road, watercolor on Arches, 16" x 12"

 

This place had a mystery about it.  When one pasture was completely mowed, cattle were moved in to clean this one and then another.  It keeps the fire fuels under control which I saw during a swiftly moving brush fire nearby and saves the land from overgrazing.  The mystery part is no one really thought it was all that beautiful, especially not worthy of a painter's effort.  I supposed this is because just over that hill, there is a panoramic view that extends for perhaps 50 miles, with graduating lavender blue mountain mists, a valley, lowing cattle, the checkerboard of crops, etc.  But the vision in the painting is one of those places with a little turnout where one could stop and  linger and feel the season on your body and listen to the wind.  All those times I spent there in non doing was in honor to the simplicity and sanity of Nature.  The paved edge in the forefront of this view is lined with overhanging Flannelbush, a flowering tree that survived the Pleistocene over 15 million years ago.  The fire stopped abruptly at the Flannelbush tree.

Sodabox at High Noon

18" x 24" watercolor on Arches

This one's for William Carlos Williams 


so much depends 

upon 

a red wheel barrow 

glazed with rainwater 

beside the white 

chickens.

The Valley of the Shadow

Watercolor on Arches
12" x 16"
2012

For Hot Springs Wizard

With my CD portfolio and physical portfolios packed up safely during the relocation process, the only way I can ensure a seamless link to get a photo to Mister Wizard is post it here.

Glacial Incidental vacations at Sunrise Mountain | Watercolor and Prismacolor pencil mix on Arches |  24" x 18" | 2007-08

The original work in reality is large for a watercolor, owned and on display in my hostess's office building in Las Vegas, which is a real live busy U.S. city in spite of its famed casino scene.  Its an efficient place, a metaphor for life in the 21st Century where vehicular accidents are instantly removed from the beltway by the time long ribbons of slowed traffic resumes its ceaseless going to and coming from leaving a sort of empty space where something ... happened.

The objects illustrated in the artwork are rocks collected with a student geology major while taking a desert sabbatical in Nevada in 2006, brought back to California the same year where they were expanded by the inclusion of a distinctly egg-shaped, smooth surfaced - unusual and rare (most of them are piles of huge boulders above ground or discovered on seafloors and lakebeds) Glacial Incidental, which is what these granite and limestone boulders and boulder-spawn left over from the Pleistocene are called.  Smoothness and roundness of the GI is not a common feature at all.  Think of the battering and long distances these rocks and boulders were pushed from the seacoast far inland as the oceans rose up and traveled eastward.

Now, back in Nevada five years later to the day, which that in itself is interesting, how cyclical the journey is, I come to find the Nevadian rock collection to perfectly resemble the exact mountains where each was gathered. Hmmmm.

Wander This World

WTW: 16" x 12" watercolor on Arches 2012
To view enlarged, right click image to open in a new tab.

 Rewind to 2010.  One day we will look back on that year and wish we were still so free and easy.  Meanwhile, this memory came from a panorama of digitals taken while waiting for the tow to pick us up, me and the rock-buggy. It was, as you can figure out, a very long wait since they were coming from a faraway town veering into the empty, meandering desert, aka, the middle of nowhere.  But there was a lot of ground to cover, strange vibes, the bizarro oxymoron of a huge cattle corral next to the tracks leading to a decrepit slaughterhouse in the heart of the Central Valley, aka Breadbasket of the World.  You might have seen some of the photos from that trip, I was calling it Breakdown in the Badlands back then.
In reality, this is another part of a decade long series that begins with Transmontane, We Come with the Dust and Go with the Wind, All Things Must Pass and includes Hell for Bad Cows, Oranges Everywhere and many more. And yes, there really are many more to come because the one thing that keeps me in this state filled with self-proclaimed fruits and nuts is the scenery, ancient because it became what it is today before we were even a thought in our parents' child minds. What it was - is not what it is - anymore, but there are still  plenty of parts around the 'hood where distant night drums carry spirits.  I wonder what those spirits are feeling when they see what the white man has wrought?  Rather than presume what spirits feel, feeling what we really feel is being open to receiving the spirits' messages.  It is an ominous beat with an uplifting bridge.

When the jeep started a little rattle under the hood, I was told I'd thrown a rod and was especially irritated because I would not be able to finish listening to Johnny Lang's, a rockin', then 17 year-old Minnesota bluesman's CD: Wander This World.  A full year and a half later, I hear it all the time and love it still.  Genius with heart.

... I'm like a ghost some people can't see
Others drive by and stare
A shadow that drifts by the side of the road
It's like I'm not even there

And I'll wander this world, wander this world
Wander this world, wander this world all alone

Well I've never been part of the game
The life that I live is my own
All that I know is that I was born
To wander this world all alone, all alone ...

graces & granite

graces & granite  watercolor on Arches  16"x12"

My friend took the photo, I had rights because it was my camera.  It said I am the image of old California, still here.  It also said, Paint me.  I liked it that the image verbalized itself so well, and I agreed completely.  Granite's name was changed when it blew away in the dust and became a place equally as humble.  Tomorrow I start on a third, the red barn, and the crow flies quickly to False Spring as well.  The height of my trip is seeing something to paint that meets an interior criteria, speaking and showing all of its special details that point undeniably to what we lost in the rush of the NWO.  So be cheered this place still exists.  It is amazing how people lived and the funky variety of ways of life before everything became illegal and mandatory.

Things you may not have seen ...

Ticket Depot for the Shambhala Express

Dogs of the Desert #1.

Or you may have seen.
Or things you might not have had an opportunity to see lately.
I found them in my stack of CDs while searching for a request and have put together a little exhibit for people who are new to the gallery and people who just want to see them. 

As always, for larger view, right click on image to open in a new tab.

Reflections

beavertails

One-hundred and twenty-eight Novembers

All things must pass

I used to be shining and new

This goes back to 2008, the holidays, my visitors and I were exploring back roads and happened upon a so paintable scene, I'd passed this view often, but the presence of high-bouncing, familial DNA vibrations offered sudden new ways to look at known situations, places and truths. That's only one of the reasons we gravitate to one another, but possibly the most important one.  The brakes were slammed on and everyone pulled out their digitals and started shooting, coat collars turned high, snapping in mittens.  My product of that moment became known as Agave.  Su wrote a poetry piece in a comment that so perfectly captured the essence of that image, it came back to me often, until one day this August, wandering back roads again, looking for paintabilities, I found the psychic partnership just waiting to be connected.  Most amusing was the presence of an Indian Blanket, Gloriosa Rudica, a daisy subspecies.  I heard her say: You ruined me last time.  This time, let's do it right.  She heard me say:  If I had been a male, no problemo with the wheels, you know boys and cars ... but this time, I think you will be satisfied I am one of you.

I used to be shining and new ...

16" x 12" watercolor inks and gouache on Arches
Aug | 11

click to enlarge

Don't marry a technique

... because when you overdo it, which one day you surely will, you will never be satisfied with the content. That was the lesson of early July. It is a bummer to put aside many long hours of work for maybe ... well, maybe never again. And when you are not satisfied, and look at the lesson lying there on your drawing table waiting for you to acknowledge it, its best to go all the way back to the beginning, Open your soul as a vessel, which rebuilds confidence while narrowing the field to a field you feel most comfortable wandering through. A home in which your heart beats and breaths are in sync. 

Indian Blanket Rock Garden

Here is a first, as far as I know, a painting I up and quit, don't like and then posted. Online. There was much promise, hours and full days spent running back and forth up the hill, down the hill, looking at the real thing and running back to lay it in. And when one glistening afternoon as a shaft of bright sunlight landed square on the full work, instead of the Indian Blanket clusters (Gloriosa Rudica), it had become a portrait of ah, rocks.. I'm only showing you an early phase because the later phase was not photographed, I had about 3 - 4 days left simulating dirt, which was coming out nicely, a mottling of Van Dyke and Antelope browns, but it was too late for the Indian Blankets.  I put the whole thing into the back of the closet, you know those kind of places for "someday" - Someday it might not be there and I will have forgotten about it kind of places?

Right away, I moved on to more familiar territory. Much father down the mountain is a valley we call the Flatlands. Every spring, thousands of sheep and their lambs are pastured on the other side of the fencing shown. Other times the occasional herd of cattle lease the land. Most of them time it is fallow and it is old enough to have grown mature Sage and unattended wild oats, cheat grass and weeds, all of it indigenous to the Transmontane region: desert thousands of feet above sea level mixed with mountain forests, heavily sprinkled with old growth Oak carpeting the canyons, the foothills and the flanks until, high up, where the top meets sky, it is all Alpine.  You'd need a helicopter to get up there.

Crow Alley

People whip past these scenes as if they are not there. Its like the upscale train Woody Allen stared into from the window of a dull grey commuter car filled with empty cheap seats, his train to nowhere.  He saw people in the next train whooping it up, toasting flutes of champagne, much laughter and celebration, jeweled women in evening gowns. As the train sped past him, he saw lovers, people dancing to a hot band from the Roaring Twenties. In this territory, I get to be him and them, simultaneously. The watcher and the celebrator.

Crows and Ravens circle slowly above the mountain tops, waiting on a thermal, floating noiselessly through the air and playing chase with each other.  In this unnoticed and seemingly invisible location, they have a entire runway for smooth landings complete with happy hour perches. To stand beneath lifts of feather is to be a silent air flight controller, unnecessary of course, and awed with every perfect arrival and departure. I don't think those passengers in fast cars would be interested. We have a long way to go to help them to see and sense the forces of Nature and none of it is simple when so few care at all about the world in which we live together.

Fortunately, every day is another lesson.
A great day is a day with lots of lessons.

Bee Flowers with Glacial Erratics: a family portrait

12" x 16" watercolor on Arches

There is a place that inspires imagination and then anything else that was on the schedule evaporates like dew on a summer morning.  What is a schedule anyway but a map for the longer days, to be a good map it should be elastic so you will revisit it another day and another, knowing something inspiring will take you high ... and higher still.

The Lambs Make Their Way through Mist and Fog

12" x 16" watercolor on Arches block

The wonderful friends of my other blog know this photo from frequent mentions of Oaks and sheep which so deeply stirs the collective unconscious memory of the one mind's concept of Livity, it fell onto the paintbrushes resting in my hand.

As a side note, they are also the recent escapees, reformed now that they discovered in addition to fog and yellow fungus on bark, our dogs are Sheepdog-Border Collies disguised as unruly family pets.

This is a gift for Jah little yout, Zion, Jamaican American, age 4 months, his first art. 

Love is All

Love is All

aka Patterns
(see drawing above)
aka Copper & Gold
16" x 12" watercolor inks on Arches

Bitsy had another life before she met my brother and sister in law, they rescued her from a shelter. Bitsy is one lucky girl, especially with three kids to play with her when she isn't napping with her better, her rightful, loving Mother.


(click HERE to view enlarged image in a new tab. Once there, click the plus "+" sign to view detail.)

food wagon at the Sphinx

Chemical Skies

While we wait for the Sphinx and Pyramids to reveal their long awaited secrets, our newest exhibit comes from sorting through hundreds of CDs to liberate works unpublished on the blog and gallery.  Exhaustive sorting is rather like a combination of robo signer and meticulous consumer, sometimes having to re-review and study from every possible angle.  There are mostly digitals here, just as Chickory's having gotten a new camera expanded her already prolific range, the timing on these works tells me that is exactly how many of these came about.

There are titles, but those are for my filing purposes, you will have better ones because you will see things differently, please feel free to suggest your own.  I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts.

We'll see how many images I can get into a post without having to make another. The desired outcome is to have the images show up without taking all day for them to open.  In most cases, you should be able to click on each individually to view a larger version by right clicking the image and selecting view link in new tab, I said most, not all.  A small few of these images are higher resolution reposts.  I'll be doing the same sorting and culling over the next few days and will put up the most interesting of whatever I find.  Following this project, the plan is to present an upcoming exhibit on the Art of Others, a few favorite works from our artist community who thoughtfully keep me updated.  Stay tuned.

Lenticularia

In summary, I will just mention that to date, no better filing system was devised in my selection/review process and if you are also as technologically challenged as this indicates, we are doomed to shuffling our ways into whatever lies ahead.  One love.

Work is never done,  watercolor on Arches

                      Inca Spiral cropped detail from The Peruvians, washed watercolor on Arches

2084 AD

Allen's Female at the Outdoor Cafe

Cat Stevens Live

TV in Every Room

Showoff

A Saw Zaw Kind of Love, watercolor on Arches

Happy California Cows, watercolor on Arches

Proud Marys workin' for the man ...

Goodbye to all that

Sod Fog

Little Harbor, outside the capitol of Arawaka, watercolor batik on Arches

    Babylon, What Else 

 

Farm in Fog to False Spring - the transition

False Spring
watercolor inks on Arches
24" x 18"
2010

False Spring aka Farm in Fog came to be after seeing it in person on a chilly February afternoon, in light rain and grey mist. I pulled out the digital and began the first phase of my system: Photos, thoughts, more thoughts, stare at photos, bring back the memory and feel again how it felt emotionally and physically finally masking off the Arches paper and get down with my friendly plain old Number 2 pencils.

As the drawing developed I became enchanted with the chimney, you'll note it is a corner arrangement likely opening into a kitchen fireplace for warmth and cooking, with another, maybe smaller fireplace in the sleeping quarters. There was no propane tank to be seen anywhere in the real life version. I so like the idea of one corner chimney for two separate, but similar needs.


The stages of development shown here are in order, there are many more photos, but these are the most "postable" of the total group that define each of the phases involved. I like the second stage very much, before it is placed in a specific geography, it could be Nantucket, that could be an ocean beyond the shed, it could be a "lonely somewhere" Edward Hopper might have thought to sketch. Its always like that after the drawing part, before more saturated color and background details are applied giving it life and a place uniquely its own.




My favorite time is when the unexpected occurs which is typical of watercolor no matter how often you work with it. You get to know a bit about how to control it if it is your main medium, but its always got something new to show you. There are a lot of artists who like to know their medium's limits, which is good, it allows them to preview mentally their statement. Personally, I prefer the way watercolor insists you solve the situation at hand, relentlessly, you must surrender to it and rule it simultaneously, knowing ultimately it will have its way and you will be okay with that.

There is something else about choice of medium that should be mentioned. Whatever "medium", and we will use that term meaning vehicle for expression, you or I use, does not really matter. Its just another way to say the same things said frequently in a more descriptive language - as in music or literature, poetry, philosophy, film, theater, three dimensional art and so forth. It might be that whatever is closest to you at the moment you get serious about what you have to do to survive within the journey of our common humanity is the medium of your surrender and most frequent use, since through it you have learned to speak a nonverbal language that communicates on a higher plane than common words strung together for conversational coherence.

Now its starting to look something like the original intent, but there is more to be done. Its good to put it aside a few days and do something else unrelated, so that when you return you are seeing it new all over again and forced to revisit your mind's eye. What can you do to satisfy all the criteria remaining true to the original vision while adding your own take to the mix? The days and hours spent focusing on other things, issues, people, chores, studying Nature, wildlife, walking, collecting rocks and feathers, reading, have their impact too. Sometimes you don't see it until revisiting the completed work, months, sometimes years, far into the future. Suddenly, you will remember other things that were happening at the same time you were painting. Its unavoidably another part of the image, the you part, the artist and the events, near and far, that took place while you worked.

You'll know instinctively when your task is finished and the criteria met. I usually place it on the mantle and live with it for a while. This is usually when a different title occurs because a transformation has taken place. The ending of the transformation is almost as good as the middle which is as good as the beginning.

Finally, off comes the masking tape and it's slowly X-acto-ed from the Arches watercolor block, signed and dated. Simultaneously another one has already begun. It is most productive to have several going on at once, then you can paint while the others are drying.

out of the archives

From the Eager Passenger series.

18" x 12" watercolor on Arches

teardrop

Watercolor on Arches
14" x 20"
2006-07

A repost on request. Thank you Chickory.

Many goodies live in the archives, but since I did 65 posts in June 09 alone, I wouldn't be in a hurry to recommend sifting through the monthly lists. I'm probably the only one who knows the names of the works well enough to know that for which I would be searching.

Any time anyone wants a repost, you've got it. Just let me know.
It does none of us any good to have these works sitting in the archive trunk unseen.

Rasta Soon Come

An Exhibit for our Rasta

Meeting the Force head on, answering the call to serve Livity:














Above: click to enlarge in new tab

Arawaka

And Jah provide the bread right side view

And Jah provide the bread porch view, because everybody has a porch to gather under and talk about God.

Below:

The Flag of Arawaka

Outside Woman, Outside Man and hey, maybe he'll fall in love, too?

malvina's nightmare

Elay Ballet

24" x 18"
watercolor on Arches
9.09

Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes made of ticky tacky,¹
Little boxes on the hillside,
Little boxes all the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

And the people in the houses
All went to the university,
Where they were put in boxes
And they came out all the same,
And there's doctors and lawyers,
And business executives,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

And they all play on the golf course
And drink their martinis dry,
And they all have pretty children
And the children go to school,
And the children go to summer camp
And then to the university,
Where they are put in boxes
And they come out all the same.

And the boys go into business
And marry and raise a family
In boxes made of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.
There's a green one and a pink one
And a blue one and a yellow one,
And they're all made out of ticky tacky
And they all look just the same.

Malvina Reynolds 1962

elay ballet no.2

This is a repost of last week's entry which was lost in the uploading of another photo file. Sigh. Disappointed our comments are gone. Its almost as if we are not to ask the questions that weigh so heavily on our minds.

To the left is the rough colored pencil sketchbook concept of the painting I am doing as this is all unfolding. The painting never comes out as planned because you cannot plan watercolor. It flows on its own like beautiful rivers of living color.

I apologize for the missing comments. The question of recentering oneself in the NWO is a valuable and little discussed subject deserving far more attention than it receives.

Where did your favorite picture go?

Here I went to the trouble of reducing nearly 70 images, thinking surely this page would open faster which it does NOT. I've taken the next logical step of limiting the posts to 25 and archiving the remainder. There are two more steps available if that doesn't work, one is the slide show option and the other, which I don't want to do because we'll lose the comments, is line everything up postage stamp size. You'd get to click on a postage stamp to see it bigger. There is even a third option, continue to limit the amount of posts until the page opens with a satisfactory speed.

Just want to let you know I am working on it.

Big, I mean the largest made, 140 lb, cold-pressed, tried and true stock from France is about to arrive so, heh, I'm thinking we'll need more room pretty soon. Awrite! Now if I could just have a word with

the brush manufacturers ... their global best does not meet artist standards. We do not want to pick off Sable fur from the paint area, please OR have a stray strand interfere with our intentions.

UPDATE: Okay, I've just chosen the third option. We're down to 15 posts for this page. It seems to work. Next job ahead is to add year created to all post labels. Sounds kinda obsessive doesn't it.

UPDATE 2: Adding pages so the images stay large. We'll see how it goes.