Art That is Now Gone

Art Now Gone

Here are the paintings and drawings that sold at two recent community craft shows. These art pieces are newly adopted due to the Herculean efforts, of my dear friends who help me. I love it when art pieces find new homes! Not only does it help the pocketbook, it spreads love as it gives credibility to the endless hours spent throughout my artist life perfecting skills. Many, many, many hours.

Pen & Ink with Watercolor

Hummingbird Heaven J3019

Hummingbird Hovers Over A Sunflower J4019 — 9″h x 12″w watercolor on 80lb drawing paper.

Watercolors

Birch Autumn Passion J4119 watercolor

Huckleberry Five Study I2619 watercolor

Riverfront Park Clock Tower From Above D2219 — 9″w x 12″h watercolor on 140lb wc paper.

Riverfront Park Clock Tower D2219 watercolor

Yellow & Brown Sunflowers J3719 — 10″w x 14″h watercolor, on 140lb Fabriano paper.

Sunflowers Yellow & Brown J3719 watercolor

Pen & Ink

Hummingbird Heaven J3019 — 10″w x 14″h pen & ink on 300lb Arches wc paper.

Linx B0613 pen & ink

I remember seeing how a persons face transforms as they pick up a piece of my art, with their expression suddenly becoming full of awe and love.

Never doubt, how important art really is.

To me, witnessing this beautiful event is almost a magical experience. It makes the trials and tribulations with learning, practicing, and perfecting skills all throughout my life as an artist, seem totally worthwhile after all.

Larry and Linda Pointer are such wonderful blessings to me and many others. They included my art along with their own crafts, being sold to raise funds for their favorite tax deductible charity at these shows. People enjoying the art, and made comments along with their purchases. Linda saw the pleasure on the faces of the people, as they shopped at their table. Take a look at the charity they are supporting.

“HRC Ministries.”

Please feel free to donate, if you feel drawn to. Slavery – HRC Ministries is setup to assist with escape and rehabilitation of people trapped in Human Trafficking (Sex Slavery).

These pieces of art have been discovered, chosen, and adopted into new homes. I am feeling quite positive about having more space in the studio, which I will just keep filling back up with art if well enough.

If you’d like something similar to any of these let me know, I’d be glad to make one for you on commission.

Art at Chattaroy Church Craft Fair

desktop cosmos blossoms — 5 x 8 watercolor cosmos studies

The Chattaroy Church Craft Fair is this Saturday from 9am-4pm. It is easy to find off of Hwy 2, a white single story church catty-corner across from the Chattaroy post office. I have attended this fair before and it was fun, chock full of wonderful hand-crafted items. Larry and Linda Pointer will have snow men that Larry made and there was some talk of Linda’s pine cone creations too. I am unable to attend this year, thank you so much for including my art you two!

desktop huckleberry paintings — huckleberry watercolors

These small community events are wonderful as they inspire me to complete things in the studio. I just finished matting and bagging 9 paintings and one ink drawing that were laying around here. It feels good.

desktop plein air paintings — plein air watercolor on desk

Purple Cosmos Watercolor

Cosmos Photograph 26 — Photograph of Cosmos in garden.

The purple Cosmos was a vivid beauty in our garden this year. Inspiring this artist to try out her wings with a new subject. Here is a completed watercolor study of a single purple blossom.

Via “Wikipedia“, Cosmos is defined as the world or universe, regarded as orderly, harmonious… quoted from my print version of the Webster’s Universal College Dictionary in the studio. Yes, I still use printed books to look things up because the old references often cover subjects more fully. In my printed version there is an additional definition #4 that is relevant to what I am sharing today.

4. Any of a genus, Cosmos, of New World composite plants having open clusters of flowers with red or yellow disks and wide rays of white, pink or purple.

BTW, I only have the purple cosmos, anyone want to trade purple seed for white and pink? I have a lot of seed, because I save them after harvest and use them the following year. Let me know if you’d like to barter.

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Cosmos Closeup J3319 — 5.5″w x 6.5″h watercolor on 300lb Arches, Lavender Cosmos very closeup blossom.

This is a study of the Cosmos flower up close. I do studies before I do any larger paintings. Using an Arches paper scrap that is much smaller than I usually paint on, I practice and see how to paint something new. This is not the first time I have been inspired by this beautiful blossom, check this embroidered Cosmos tablecloth out. It was a fun project that took over a year to finish embroidering by hand.

Beginning with negative painting I put the background in, then warm it up with a wash of Azo Yellow. I then put in the yellow center and add shadows. Followed by, working my way out to the petal edges adding light and shadow.

Research Before Drawing

I routinely conduct research about whatever it is I plan to draw, to be able to correctly illustrate things. Searching for the general facts, like sizes, colors, friends & enemies and next finding good photography. First, I envision the character realistically. Next, heavily simplifying the lines. Next, the challenge becomes giving them some human capabilities while retaining realistically identifiable specie characteristics. Here are some sketch examples.

rhino research sketch 4 rhino research sketch 6 rhino research sketh 7

I had no idea!

When I did the research on rhinos I found that I was totally oblivious to their plight. I had no idea that they were so close to extinction. The White Rhino is one of 5 quickly disappearing species of Africa, and Eurasia. Rhinos live in tropical and subtropical grasslands, savannah, shrub lands, forests and deserts. Unfortunately, with numbers dropping so drastically, many remain only in wildlife reserves now. The main factors driving the rhino population to extinction:

increasing human population creating less and less habitat for them
wars and militia massacres
greedy poachers

rhino research sketch 5 Poachers kill approximately 3 rhinos each day to sell their horns for highly inflated profits. Poachers are the worst threats, very much like drug smugglers or cartels. Honestly, money is most important thing to them. Insidious criminals with no conscience.

Research the Horns

rhino research sketch 8 Poached rhino horns are purchased by two major markets in the world. The Chinese and Vietnamese mistakenly believe that magical medicinal properties exist in rhino horn. Not true. Rhino horns are made of “Keratin” which, is what human fingernails and hair are comprised of. If, Keratin is a magical medicine, we don’t have to kill the rhino’s for it. Honestly, anyone needing “keratin” can simply chew on their own fingernails or hair and get the same results.

This horrific act of killing rhinos and harvesting their horns, makes me ashamed to be a member of humanity. I wish it would stop.

Pen & Ink Characters

Pen & Ink is fun

Insects in pen & ink — insects with pen & ink pens

I was looking for an pen & ink character project to work on, flipping through a stack of unfinished or abandoned projects that I am gradually completing, as time allows. Suddenly, I found a old cute rhino character, a male baby on a mission. Looking at this sketch, my artist brain immediately kicked into high gear thinking random thoughts;

Maybe a female baby rhino would be better…
She could wear a ribbon in her hair or maybe even a ruffled skirt…
Hey, there is room for improvement with what she is doing here…
It is kind of boring, sweating in the heat all by herself…
I could add another character for her to talk to…
Hey, the environment needs to change here…
I know, I’ll add radical thorns on a cactus plane…
Maybe erase this over here.

Before I knew it, a whole new scene and character had emerged. Now, that is something worth inking and

I was ready to go.

Riva the Rhino is hot! She asks, “Where is the water?”

“Turn around, it is back that way,” says the caterpillar on the cactus.

Next, I found myself looking for “R” names for a girl. She is a rhino so she needs a R name for sure. I found a perfect name, “Riva” which means “regain strength” in Latin. Riva the Rhino. The rhino population needs to regain it’s strength in numbers really bad. Check out my next post to see what I learned from researching rhinos.

I think Riva the Rhino, could be a real interesting character for an ongoing comic strip or children’s book. What do you think?

Pen & Ink – Inktober ’19

I noticed a pen and ink challenge on the Dick Blick Art Supplies site, called InkTober 2019. The juror is Jake Parker, and after looking at a video of his on YouTube, I was ready. Inspired to dust off the cobwebs and do some pen & ink work, after all….

…it’s like riding a bike, isn’t it?

Hummingbird Heaven Attained J3019

The first drawing entered, Inktober 2019 Challenge.

First Pen & Ink

Mrs. Dorinda Lum at Castle High School entered it into the “dip” pen & ink and wildlife rendering. It won the Windward Artist Guild scholarship in 1977.Here is the first pen & ink I did in high school using a simple dip pen and pictures from the classroom National Geographic magazine of elephants in Africa as a reference. It was a pen & ink drawing done on sketch paper, entitled, “Elephant”. Pen & ink has been a highly favored medium of mine since … long, long, ago!

Surprise, Surprise!

Discovering various dried out bottles of ink, fully hardened dip pen tips, rapidograph’s (both clean and dirty) in various stages of assembly and disassembly…. stashed all over the studio. Suddenly, this little thought, became more-of-a-chore real quick.

What was I thinking? Oh, that’s right, I wasn’t!

Evidently, right now is time for me to clean-out, fix-up and reorganize my drawer of pen & ink drawing supplies. Just when I thought I’ve made good progress in cleaning up the studio, I discover another mess hiding somewhere. Uh huh, the pen & ink stuff is now all spiffy here in the studio.

Grow-Up & Gravel

Are the Woelk’s growing up?

Duh! For years we have acted surprised when Spring arrives. We curse the fact, that just when we need gravel, all roads have restrictions (spring thaw). Remember the mud last Spring? Our driveway was a mud bog for two weeks, we were unable to refill our propane, etc, etc, etc. It was virtually impossible to drive up to the house and unfortunately, it was just as difficult to navigate by foot. You really know things are bad when your boot stays stuck in the mud producing the frozen barefoot feeling we all love. Check out, “Spring Has Sprung“. gravel on driveway 01

gravel on turn-around 01

Gravel

Toners Sand and Gravel delivered 5 loads of driveway gravel last week. Starting with the turn around area getting a full load all it’s own. That is where the propane truck got stuck last year in deeper than knee-deep mud. Intense!

gravel on driveway 03 — Pete’s second load of gravel done

Pete was home to show them where to put the loads. He used the tractor to smooth it all out on the driveway and now it looks really good.

tractor smoothing gravel — Pete on tractor grading gravel

Thinking Ahead

It feels good to be ahead of a problem instead of chasing-it-after-the-fact. In our 60’s, it really is about time for us to grow-up, right? Good Job Woelk’s!

Max and Hurley Returned!

Dogs, Got Me Again!

…. said the foolish freaked out doggy Mom in Elk WA. If I’d waited 10 more minutes there would not have even been a post about the dogs. LOL!

MINUTES! after posting the missing dogs post, guess who walked through the dog door smiling and happy as can be. The two missing munchkins did! What a happy homecoming.

Here is what those two look like after running and playing all night around the neighborhood. They wagged tails, ate breakfast and now it looks like they are down for the count. Snoring already.

Woofer’s A.W.O.L. in Elk WA

If you see these two…

Please call or text at 509/329-8207

Thanks!

Early yesterday afternoon, a coyote howled in the distance and both our dogs took off at a dead-run in hot pursuit. They have stayed out all night and are still not home this morning. I am getting worried because they have never stayed out all night and they rarely will miss morning and night food times….

Both dogs weigh about 80 lbs and are VERY FRIENDLY. Hurley is a tall blond or red-headed Golden Retriever and Poodle mix. Max is shorter but the same weight because he is all muscle. You will notice that they have black collars with a little invisible fence kind of a box unit on it. Evidently, I don’t have the shock correction set at a high enough level to convince them to ignore a coyote.

BTW please don’t tell them that I plan on giving them a bath when they get home, cause I know with the rain and snow they are going to be a muddy mess. A human need to know thing…

Drops On Berry Wet Hucks!

Artistic Challenge

Very, berry, wet huckleberries! Drops of water are covering all the berry surfaces! The prior huckleberry study had a few drops on the berries and leaves? Another discovery of an artist challenge, “the rendering drops”. Drops aren’t easy, because each one is different. Due to, the surface that they rest upon and their location in the lighting scheme.

Berry Wet Hucks I2919 with drops — Very Berry Wet Hucks I2919 the beginning

I reserve the majority of the white areas needed with mastik to be able to render the droplets. First, finishing up the leaves in the background allowing better definition of the edges of my main subject, the berries.

Illustrating Roundness

Next, defining the lights and shadows, ultimately shows roundness of the three berries. While applying light washes of color, then allowing the color to spread. Similarly, removing any unwanted color with a dry brush before my mixture dries.

First, using a touch of white mixed with the purple makes the opaque highlight where the light first strikes the berry. Next, adding magenta as a light wash brings out the red tint that shows through the purple on the berries whenever you view them in the sunlight. Touching the body with purple bleeds into the wetness of the magenta wonderfully. Darkening the purple with a touch of ultramarine blue and burnt umber brings a rich shadow out on the lower surface. Adding a mixture of blue, brown and purple produces the darkest shadows that separate the front berry form from the huckleberries appearing behind. Lastly, I give a light reflective edge to the edge furthest from the light source.

Drops

Now, it is time for the final touches which are the drops. It gets much easier to render these drops if I remember drop is a round shiny object that I can see through. Drops allow what is behind it to peek through, while simultaneously exhibiting highlights and shadows on its round surface. These little shiny round guys are rendered with white watercolor applied very carefully. Simple touches of white bleeding into the background.

I made the details on the front huckleberry with sharp and distinct edges. Similarly, the rear berries have subdued edges to emphasize that they are further away in our depth of field.

Barry Wet Hucks I2919 finished drops — 10″w x 7″h watercolor on 140lb wc paper