Carrasco Studio

BAAA BAAA Jackson

I amped up my cuteness factor with this lawn ornament I did for my cousin Maggie's sheep soiree auction. I offered to paint the form made of rough pressed wood and decided it had to be done ala Jackson Pollack. Notice this lamb has a talking mustache.

And here is Maggie's event.  She trains sheep dogs and is an animal whisperer.  She is the first person who has ever told me that sheep intelligence exists on a special sheep plane.  I was humbled.

Do come to the event if you can.  After the pen and the sheep shipment (sheep have been brought in from Arizona so Maggie's sheep won't get too tired) are paid for, all the proceeds go to a special projects foundation for Vashon Island teachers.

So far, I'm bringing 6 of my peeps to come enjoy the event, hang out with dogs and sheep and have a picnic on the meadow. It's supposed to be nice.  Yawl come. Baaaaa.

Transparency

Leaves and sun, green and gold gauze, in the late autumn light.

Branches, dark and opaque, like bones of a hand, cupped to a candle.                                                                                                                                             

 

 

 

Spirits on the Beach

Another Sunday on the beach.  Olalla, place of quiet and sun glittering on the water.  Deep woods, maples and alders transformed to gold by the sun and the season.

Leopard spots on Maple leaves.

 

Black and White, Color, Here to There in Watercolor Values

For all interested parties, I am giving a hands-on demo at Daniel Smith (4150 First Avenue S., Seattle, Wa, 98124) on September 18 at 11 am to 12 noon, 1pm to 2 pm.  The theme is about working with value in watercolor, something I've noticed is a problem for a lot of students, and, frankly, a challenge for me as well.

The Daniel Smith Lunar Black watercolor pigment is a great vehicle for doing value studies, and I have found it to be effective even as a method of establishing values and then glazing over the black and white rendering with color glazes.  Sort of like the Venetian method of oil painting in the 1500's.  The trout is an example of this.

I know all of us have been cautioned about using black in paintings, especially watercolor because carbon black or ivory black is so opaque and tends to make a "black hole" in your painting.  However, this Lunar Black is a different kettle of fish.  It GRANULATES and sparkles on the paper, and is terrific even for mixing with a stain or glaze.  I did this with the leaf in the following example.  The middle image is a little lighter in value than the actual leaf, but that was a choice on my part.  I both glazed with some Lunar Black and sap green and use it straight in wet areas to create the spots.

 

And here are some black and white studies and the color watercolors coming out of the studies.

I have shown also how you can work with a photograph you have altered to black and white on your computer.  I usually flail away with paint in plein aire situations, but for teaching and careful rendering (especially when you live in rainy Seattle), it's often more practical to work with photos.  I think one needs to work directly in the landscape or with object/figures to get that energy transfer and to take chances, but from time to time, it is necessary to work inside with a photograph.

So, you will be able to experiment....and since there will be materials, the charge for the workshop is $10 for supplies.  You'll get three pieces of paper, some Lunar black and some other colors to play with, and Dan Smith and I will have some brushes you can borrow.  The class is limited to 15 or 20 (I forgot how many), so if it appeals to people, it may fill up soon.

Oh say can you see.....the Lunar Black blending with the greens?

 

Jen in the Sky with Tulips

A plus for painting is that I can color my hair, get a new nose, new birthday, etc. any time I want.  Here I am, flying up and away over the tulip fields of the Skagit Valley. 

I mull over the idea of how  decorative objects evolve from natural form (Aubusson rug patterns from tulips)...and how to connect the two into a concept and and object.

This was submitted in hopes of being chosen for the tulip festival poster.  Alas, to no avail.  I'll use it for my mailout next spring.

And, I am beginning to drool over those ads for tulip bulbs.  Glorious plantings in the five square inches I have left in my small urban plot.  More tulips, more tulips!

  The famous Seattle rains started today and I am hunkering down for fall.

"Oh Western Wind when will thou blow, the small rain down can rain.

Oh Christ, that my love were in my arms, and I in my bed again!"

Or something like that.

Art Among Armadillos. Rooting Around for Mural Directions

A friend of mine since highschool has commissioned me to paint a 5'x9' mural in the entry of his new home in the Texas foothills.  Usually I paint on canvas and ship the painting out, but this time he said he wanted me to paint on site and install my "aura" as well as my mural.  Of course it sounds like fun.

And, after I finish, Phil will fly down and we'll take off for a trip with my best friend Norma (from San Angelo) to fabulous Big Bend....one of the wonders of the world, in my opinion.  If my friend, (I'll call him "A") wants to go, he can come too. We'll go at the end of October, so the weather should be perfect.

Anyhow, we are right at the beginning of the mural design process, and I thought some of my subscribers and Facebook friends might find it interesting.  In fact, I would love to hear comments and input. Please!

Here goes....................

 

Dear A.
For your 5'x9' entry mural, I have included 4 possible ROUGH designs to give me some direction in where you want to go. You mentioned that it would be fun to have an abstraction instead of the usual cattle grazing in bluebonnets mural...something different to "annoy people".  Love it.

So, instead of my usual initial pencil drawings, I did them in color, since you stated you wanted the design to be abstract, and color is so important in an abstraction.  Abstraction, to me, is  where nothing  recognizable as figurative....the painting is geometric or a loose color field with what we painters call "marks". The language of paint and color...value, color, texture and shape are paramount.  But, to a lot of people , abstraction can mean stylization, a loose sort of rendering or an impressionist approach. I present these beginning color sketches are to help me understand your vision and show me a direction for your mural. You should be able to  see how I  went from figurative to increasingly abstract. You can pick one or pick and choose...your wishes (with my input) are my command.

You sent me some photos of your house in the hill country near Austin, and some of your landscape...Texas natural with some of the flowers, the live oaks and the cedars.  I have been in Austin several times and loved it....it's freewheeling openess and mix of people and cultures, and the land, especially the land.  I was fascinated when a friend took me out to her acreage and we waded down her spring in the shade of the oaks and cedars....the ancient aquifer water dripping  down in trickles and falls from  the limestone ledges , the lush line of growth and creatures along the spring, the heat and the sound and presence of insects and birds.( Ack, the ticks!)

So, what I tried to include in your renderings....all except the last true abstract version.....(1) the spring and pools, (2) the rounded pillowy shapes of the live oaks and the cedars (especially striking to a Pacific Northwest native used to the sharp points of firs and hemlocks), (3) the purple blue of the blue bonnet wild flowers, (4) the stacked limestone ledges, and the (5)  hot blue of the sky and  (6) the glare of the Texas sun. And, of course, (7) some nymphs (except in the abstraction.)  De rigueur for a landscape. 

#1 is impressionist and loose, the next, #2 and #3, are more stylized, and #4, of course would be the abstraction.

When I asked you about the bodacious level of the nymphs, you said you wanted them not so defined.  A gleaming haunch seen through the water, a giggling girl leaning around a tree.  After all, your mother does visit, although I know your 102 yr. old mother. She is sharp as a tack,  has probably has seen it all and when it comes to actual seeing , doesn't see much at this point anyhow.

 Let me know your wishes, oh Tall Person among Cedars.  We'll come to a fabulous conclusion.  Hope to hear from you soon.  J

Do offer suggestions....we appreciate any feedback, viewers and friends, and remember, these are ROUGHS!

Harvest Table, Sukkot Thanks

  I just finished doing a centerpiece panel on a table I had decorated years ago. My client's family had grown to grandchildren, and she needed to extend her table another couple of leaves.  As I remember, the initial finish was very complicated and took ages to do, and when I looked at the table leaves to match I was in despair.  Also, it just wasn't up to my standards today.

So, I suggested that I design a panel for the middle leaves, and I would separate the end edges with a small border to offset any discrepancy between the new and the old finish.

My clients are Jewish, and since the table will be often used as a family dining table, I suggested using artifacts from the Jewish harvest festival of Sukkot.  I looked up the items on the Internet, and decided to use the Lulav (palm leaves, myrtle and willow in a woven palm container and a citrus called the Etrog) for my design, with some grapes thrown in for jollity.  My client is an opera singer, so he suggested the mandolin and music motif in the center.

     

I did the drawing on tissue for the client's approval....drawing one fourth section and folding it twice and tracing it for symmetry. (Well, sort of)  Too much symmetry gets my back up...raises my Zen hackles, so to speak.

After approval of the design, I did  the prep and stippling of the boards...about six layers of different stippled glazes.

 

  Then I covered the panel area with a frisket that I picked up from a sign painting company.  It's called Transferite and it's like a big sheet of moveable masking tape.  I've had a roll of it forever, and to keep it from being too sticky, I dust a little talcum powder on the surface before I lay it down.  I cut out everything with an Exacto blade except the foliage, the grapes and the lulav and etrog, taped off edges with blue tape, and sloshed on hooker green Liquid Golden acrylic mixed with a little bone black.  Then, while it was still damp, I spritzed it a little with a mixture of rubbing alcohol and water and picked up some of the mottled areas.  I waited and then added several layers of green and black, let it dry and then peeled off the remaining Transferite on the fruits and leaves and the lulav.  Then I started painting them with liquid Golden Acrylics....beginning with transparent glazes until I got the rich colors I wanted.

Then I painted all the sections I planned to gold leaf with a vermilion red.

After that, I started wiping on water based (diluted slightly with water) polyurethane over all the two panels, again and again....sanding with 320 wet dry every three or four layers.  After about 8 layers, I again frisketed off designs and borders I planned to gold leaf and cut out the areas of decorative borders, painted vermillion in those, painted with size and applied gold leaf.

 

I waited overnight, then removed the tape  and patched the gold leaf wherever it was too distressed (my gold leafing, out of necessity, always looks very antique), cleaned up wherever it was needed. vacuumed my glittering studio, put on many more coats of urethane, and there you are.

©Jennifer M. Carrasco 11/21/09 All blog entries on this site, visual or intellectual, are the property of Jennifer M. Carrasco (unless stated otherwise) and cannot be reproduced or used without her written permission.
 

Turn on the Night, CandP Watercolor class, November 3, 2009

Instead of bats in your belfry, try birds in your chandelier.  Messy but cheerful.

11/3/09 CandP Watercolor class, 2nd class

1. Review and look at work.....clouds....page 86-87.....look at photos.... shapes and values. 
Look at flowers...match values, look at grey scales...squint!  Show how a sweep of cobalt blue can  unify the petals...look at page 21.  Format is off...explain. Show all the colors in white...the lilies, the clouds.  Look at pigment chart....Why shouldn’t you use stains as glazes unless very diluted......add  all Quinacridone colors to stains list.  Show leaf chart.

1.New Students... Review color wheel.. Page 15..warm and cool, primaries, secondaries and tertiaries......make your own color wheel mixing pthalo blue, alizarin crimson and azo or aureolin yellow  ONLY. Re-read 6-15 Carefully!

Here is a very rough study of Pat Robinson's beautiful photograph of lilies.  I substituted a greenish blue at the end...ran out of manganese!  This is to show how a sequence of glazes can define form.  Think of the gathering of lilies enclosed in a transparent dome.  Each time you ad a glaze, leaving the top brightest petals unpainted, the furthest lily petals recede in space.

 

  




 

2. Night Moves for Old hands..... READ DIRECTIONS ALL THE WAY THROUGH FIRST!   Work on two 1/8 pieces and work back and forth. Do two night scenes..for # 1...follow Jan Hart’s book, page 23, step by step and substitute alizarin crimson for quinacridone magenta. . 

On #2, use medium value (check with tab) wash of pthalo blue for night sky but skip areas for a  white moon and some stars.(Show my examples.)Analyze  Negative space.

 When dry, go back and add a mountain range and put in a darker ground      Mix some alizarine crimson and pthalo blue  for a purple and add some lunar black.   Start lighter and  paint in tree skeletons.  (show tree shapes) When they dry, overpaint some more Larger trees with a darker value of same aliz. crimson, pthalo blue and lunar black.  Lay the pigment in with water and let the pigment travel.  Work deliberately...this is a two class assignment.
 

4. New Students..... Sketch a leaf on one of your papers .    Think of negative space. (show leaf example) lightly draw five minutes only!........using primaries to get all your colors....start very light..  Work back and forth.  Don’t work wet on wet this time...use glazes, ie., a yellow azo over a dry pale blue pthalo to get green, or a very pale thalo blue over a dry azo yellow. All the primaries ( a mix of complements is the same)would give you a neutral (ie., brown or grey or black)

Again, I'm placing my interior painting because I want you to think about the underglaze...auroelin yellow....and how it can affect any glaze that goes over it. 

©Jennifer M. Carrasco 9/17/09  All blog entries on this site, visual or intellectual, are the property of Jennifer M. Carrasco (unless stated otherwise) and cannot be reproduced or used without her written permission.

Russet, Ochre and Madder Brown

Last Sunday we set up an arrangement in the main room of CandP coffee house and five of us painted away for about 2 and a half hours.  Sharon and I went for the whole thing but the others found it too overwhelming and went with one object or another grouping.

I felt my composition was too busy, so I went home and tried it again and then thought it was too hard edged.  So I just said to hell with it and slathered water along all the outer edges and inbetween.  It turned out sort of 1950's illustration-ish.  I wonder if all my exposure as a kid to Lady's Home Journal and Redbook illustrations are leaking into my 2009 psyche.

Oh That.

Photo by sally shintaffer, May Day, Paint-a-thon

It was called to my attention by my esteemed friend and respected journalist, Patrick Robinson, that I forgot to list the PLACE for the Autumn Paint-a-Thon. 

It is, of course, at Cand P coffee house ( CandP coffee house, 5612 California Ave.SW, West Seattle. November 1. 2009, 11:00 am to 2:00 pm.  Meticulous painters and spontaneous sketchers welcome.  Stealthy and quiet drop-ins are fine! No instruction, just hanging out and making stuff...paintings, drawings, Monumental Sculptures, poems, short stories and/or the Great American Novel.

...and so here I am, on my own darkling plain.  Confused by alarums of struggle and flight....what place? what time? where am I going?  O Well.  Foggy Bottom Carrasco.

And here's some stars of the watercolor firmament.........Sara and KayLynn from the last painting class.

 

and another wonderful photograph by Pat Robinson.