The Artist Encounters the Sublime... by proxy.
This one goes out to anyone who has endured my 19th Century Art lectures, or is otherwise interested in my recent trip to Cleveland. Made with assistance from Frederic Edwin Church and Carolyn Reddy’s phone. I also feel indebted to this gentleman.
Junior Rangers take a special oath!
My friends at Devil’s Postpile National Monument asked for some help designing a new badge for the park’s Junior Ranger Program. This program engages kids and youth with the ecology or geology of different National Parks. When the kids finish the program, they earn a badge for their achievement. I used to do these programs on family vacations. The old ones were shiny plastic badges with bison on them. (This sounds way cooler than they actually were.)
For the new one, I based my design on the postpile, a giant formation of six-sided basalt columns. The shape of the columns dictated the hexagonal format and the use of stripes throughout. I wanted a strong diagonal and several layers of space. Also, designing for embroidery machines dictates a limited palette of flat color, in this case, six. Working with this limitation reminded me of an earlier NPS project.
Finalized design done in gouache.
If you’re up in the Sierra Nevadas, make sure to visit the park and get one!
Fall is officially and earnestly here in the Northwest. The days are getting shorter, wetter and grayer. This means the growing season is pretty much over for most things,and it’s almost harvest time for some of the BEST things. (e.g. pumpkins, concord grapes)
I spent some quality time with these strawberries, which have since decided to downsize and hibernate until next summer. During this short sketch, the leaves would turn, and the stems would bend and stretch for the light. It reminded me of the film, El Sol del Membrillo, in which Antonio Lopez Garcia contends with a perpetually shifting tree. I urge anyone who draws to spend a few hours with a living plant- they’re more dynamic than we know.
Seattle is slouching toward autumn. The long, sunny days are waning, and the sun is slipping southward. In addition to summer gardening and dry cycling weather, I’ll miss my view of Mt. Rainier from the the studio. I did this over two evenings in August from my studio window.
