Carrasco Studio

Rain's Antidote

I am beginning to gather studies and drawings and renderings......and memories of summer sun. Tore a grapevine off a fence and did a canvas study...aged it with umber and raw sienna and some spritzes of alcohol. 

When I finished I laughed at myself.  It looks like it might slither out of a corner, climb up my leg and clasp me around the throat.  I swear, I can draw a rock and make it look nervous.  I should run around the block three times and meditate before  drawing.

My new project is a series of three arches...approximately 11'x7' done on canvas for a sheltered courtyard in a Spanish style house on one of Seattle's lake front properties.

When I went to the site, I immediately thought of the Spanish coast....cliffs and brilliant light, , olive trees, regimental lines of grape vines, and goats in stark rocky meadows.  

I thought something like this example of an Andalusian courtyard....sepias...drawing with a few gouache like accents of color would be terribly chic. (Victorian study...no attribution.)

My client wanted a more gentle Italianate coast, so we came to a compromise. Note the martello tower, but a field with grass and sunflowers.  

However, the client wanted a richer palatte and did not want the parrot cage. She wanted more color and more Tuscan. Ack! I still think something is needed in that space.  If any of my readers have suggestions........

I may end up doing this ala Zuber style, with opaque paint and infinitesimal increments of value and hue.  If I do that, I can get a buddy to come in and work with me to finish quickly.  That style is almost paint by numbers but has a sophisticated look.

I do like working HUGE and then  tiny....back and forth.  Probably tears my mind to shreds.

Magic Forest Finished! The Rising of the Moon, Fairies, Frogs, Et Al in My Studio

Done! Well, maybe, except for some touchups on the rabbits and the sharpening of the moth wings, etc.  

Here are some snapshots of the 8'x13' mural I have been working on for the past months.  Installation will be sometime in late September.  It has taken much more time than usual since I had to come around from my hip surgery.  I thought that would be easier, since I went back to work at full bore after all my other operations, but this took longer.  Can't be because I am older!  Anyhow, now I am up to speed and ready for the next project.

My client was given a home by her childhood friend. It is situated on one of Washington's most pristine rivers, and my client wanted this mural installed in the dining room as a remembrance of her friend.  She had cared for her friend in her last illness, and  they would sing "I'll be Looking at the Moon and I'll be Seeing You"when things became too sad. Ever since they were little girls in kindergarten, they had an imaginary Magic Forest they would play in,  and it was full of creatures and enchanted elves and fairies. The memory of this helped them both in her friend's final illness.

In my mural, the lead female fairy (Tatiana ?) is carrying a banner with the client's childhood nickname initials and a poem in Elvish, and she is leading a parade of fairies out through the dark groves of the enchanted wood to meet the guy fairy (Oberon?), so they can line up on the fallen log to watch and celebrate the rising of the moon.

 

 

The missing friend is represented by the triumphant Royal Bird, who returns from  Neverland with the banner of her initials and her message in Elvish.  Everything is very soft to give the feeling of long ago and far away......

.....and Puck exhorting the bullfrog to come out to croak at the moon...and the duckling peeking out from it's mother's breast....

 

I'll have professional photos taken at installation. Here are some photos to show how I got from there to here.

A drawing on tissue.....some changes and then a rendering.....

Then scaling up and blocking in.......

.....and finally, again......

 

My Garden Gnome