Carrasco Studio

Mushroom Chemistry (it's not what you think) Painting with Mushroom Pigments.

Alissa and Paeolus schweinitzi in the wild

During one of my CandP Coffee House watercolor classes, my student and friend Alissa showed me her samples of dyes made from different mushrooms.  I was impressed, not only by the range of colors, but also by her presentation. 

Alissa's swatches of mushroom dye samples

 I knew she did scientific work for her day job, but I had no idea of the breadth of her knowledge about mycology, Not only did she learn where and when to find the mushrooms, but she had conducted workshops on the subject and could rattle off the species and families in Latin. She had also made articles of clothing and weaving dyed with mushroom dyes.

Alissa's mushroom dye treasures

"How about paint?" I asked her.  When she mentioned that she hadn't tried that yet, I suggested we do some experiments making mushroom watercolor pigment.  So, over a period of three meetings, we got together, boiled up some batches of mushrooms, added the ingredients needed for fixing the color (mordants like alum, iron and vinegar), and brewed up watercolors from some recipes I found online.  (Alissa's comments are in italics.)

Here is Alissa preparing for our experiments in her Romanian mushroom hat.  It is made of pounded mushrooms. (truly)

I donned my Mad Scientist hat  (a rain hat I had picked up from my Peace Corps days) and some round nerd glasses.

Adding water to last autumn's dried Phaeolus schweinitzi.

And we begin to simmer. Toil and Trouble.  Until the smelly mixture is reduced to a rich color.

Decanting the pigment-rich color.

Adding color enhancing mordants and pHadjusters: iron, alum, vinegar and washing soda.

First test

Testing the concentrated solution.  The results were amazing.  All this range from 2 species!  The watercolor pencill added a nice level of detail, illustrating a feature in mycology called "marginate gill edges" where the caps's pigment carries over to the gill's edge.  It is a detail to look for when determining the identity of a specific mushroom.  

At this point,  Alissa took the pigments home to allow them to dry in their labeled containers. 

On Meeting 2, we ground the pigments (I believe in paint lingo it's called "milling") and added the ingredients for watercolor paint.

1. Water  and the dried pigment, 2. oxgall (as a dispersant), 3. glycerine (as a plasterizer or to help the gum arabic redissolve), 4. liquid gum arabic (not pictured but works as a binder), 5. Honey!!! (as a humectant...Note it is REAL honey I buy from my beekeeper friends in Indianola). And finally, 6. corn starch as a filler.

 

Straining the cornstarch. Yeah, my gravy is lumpy too.

Add aproximately 3 parts gum arabic to one part glycerin to 3/4 part honey to 1/2 part ox gall to 2 parts corn starch to "enough" water. 

We dabbed samples on white plates and labeled them.  Alissa again took the paints home to hydrate in the fridge.  We didn't have oil of cloves, but it would be a good thing to add a drop to each container...prevents mold and bad smells.

Hydrated pigments plus watercolor additives

On our third and last meeting, we got together and painted.
 

 Alissa painting the negative spaces

 Alissa's mushroom                          Jennifer's morel

 

Pigment samples and watercolor products

Alissa and Jennifer at the grand finale of the Mushroom Paint experiment.

And toasted ourselves and the Fungi Family with wine to celebrate!

Next, Alissa has promised to take me to see a wonderful Bog. 

BOG ART is next.

 

On the Trail of Watercolor Easter Bunnies and other Fuzzballs.

Our famed watercolor group at the even more famous CandP Coffee shop has erupted with all sorts of rabbit images for Easter....and other furry beasts.

Mary

  As usual, the class is composed of old hands and dudes (a Far West metaphor for Far West Seattle), and their individual progress was amazing. Mary, a gifted illustrator in her own right, jumped from working almost solely in line art to handling subtle glazes in shaping the form of a polar bear and a couple of very fine rabbits. Sara, a first time student, painted a brilliant hula rabbit while her mother Rebecca surpassed herself with a bunny in an Arts and Crafts mode. And Kim produced a jumpin' prairie hare.  Wendy painted a hatted cat with attitude, Elizabeth painted a " Whoops! Stuffed bunny", Carol did a lovely liquid rabbit sketch, and Ingrid stole the show with her "Dressy chickens."

  Sara                                                         Rebecca

Kim

    
Elizabeth                                                        Carol

     Ingrid                                                                           

I wanted to focus on the qualities of pigments....staining, granulating and glazing, and the idea of furry animals seemed to provide a good vehicle. As you can see in my example below, the addition of raw umber (R), Lunar black (middle), or burnt umber (L) to a re-dampened (or if you feel gutsy, a wash) of raw sienna can give a nice "furry" quality. And, if you want to get down and "Durer", you can painstakingly render the dry under washes with strokes of pale gouache or darker strokes of watercolor

 

In fact, I started the first  class with a print of an Albrecht Durer rabbit (circa 1502) and the whole unit has been devoted to the class experimenting with the qualities of pigments...underglazing, the subtle blending and textures of sedimentary pigments, and the advantages of using glazes over all to tie in different forms and values in a composition.....and,  the use of negative space as an element in composition.

Albretch Durer

The last two classes were concerned with watercolors  and colored etching of animals in illustration for children's books.  We looked at the work of Tasha Tudor, Beatrix Potter, Tenniel , Rackham and Grandville, and contemporary work by artists such as Jane Dyer and Maurice Sendak.   We noted how animals in costume, both as parodies of famous persons and as important additions to children's literature, has been a tradition of  illustrators from the time of Italian grottescas through Victorian lampoons  to today's Jane Dyer's charming illustrations. 

Beatrix Potter

Grandville

                                                                    Arthur Rackham 

                        Jane Dyer

Consequently,as a result of our discussions, I noticed some very fine animal fashions evolving in the latest class creations.  

Perhaps next Tuesday, the class will surprise me with bunny bonnets.

Over the years, I've had a few animal fashion epiphanies myself.  A waspish chantuse....a soulful (soleful?) fish flautist, a very hip daddy-0 goat......

Jazz Band                                            © Jennifer McCabe Carrasco 3/28/ 2008

 

West Seattle Blog Ruins Tour and CandP Watercolor classes

Hey people...take a look at the West Seattle Blog article about my work and my classes in the March 21 !  Ellen Cedargreen wrote the article and took the photos during my tour of the Ruins and also put in a plug for my classes.  Thanks Ellen!  Thanks West Seattle Blog!  My infamy increases.

Photo by Robert Pisano            The Ruins Ballroom.  40’ by 30’ by 17’ high.

 

Here I was, ready to install after two years of work.

The Pacific Northwest Primeval cartouche ..15’ by 17’ Part of the Ruins Ballroom.

The Nez Perce Cartouche 17’ by 8’  Part of the Ruins Ball Room

J. Edgar Hoofer.  4’ by 2.5’  (in the entry) Part of a series I painted of 30’s political characters. Mr. Hoofer, here, is a cross-dressing zebra.  John Swartley designed the format for all 6 characters.

BTW, the food at the Ruins is fabulous.

And here’s a shot of my wonderful students in a class  a couple of winters ago.

(Each class unit has a different focus....this next unit (starting tonight at CandP Coffee 5612 California Ave SW Seattle, WA 98136-1515(206) 933-3125) will feature spring, animals, color theory and creation of space with values and aerial perspective.  All levels of skills welcome.

©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.

Spring Inches Across the Land

 My tulips are up and meditating about blooming, and a male robin is patroling our spaded beds.  He looks martial and very smartly turned out.  New feathers and a bit of a black crest on his head.  Aha! A worm! He dives in triumph. (the robin) The early bird...etc., etc.

Which brings to mind.  My watercolor class at CandP starts up again on the 22nd of  March.  I wanted to let you know before it fills up.  Register soon.  The early bird...etc.etc.

Here's the facts.

Brown wrens, martial robins, timorous rabbits, fresh and radiant art loving creatures! Let's express our inchoate yearnings and renewals with splashes of paint and blooming fields of flowers.

Besides having fun, you learn skills and a way to start on your individual path in art. As a teacher, the coffee shop has been my favorite venue. Cameron and Pete, the owners of CandP Coffee have been the souls of generosity to allow us to paint in their space.  We all have bloomed.  You too, come to the meadow.

See ya. Chirp! Ribbit! Cheep!

 

 

Accent on the Negative (as in composition)

Everyone brought toys for this class still life, and the assignment limited the student to two toys drawn so part of them went off the sides of the paper.  I showed the class Harriet Shorr's book of paintings and we discussed how she would paint the negative space, the background, first.  This would establish interesting intervals between objects and the main hue interaction for her painted objects. 

Also, we discussed how this viewpoint had a high horizon line, which created a feeling of flat space and transformed the objects and background into an abstraction.  The class drew their objects with colored watercolor pencils, trying to use a complimentary color....ie., blue pencil to line out Raggedy Ann's orange hair.  Added a little zip to the work when the watercolor pencil would bleed into the painted areas.

Lay that paint down, Mary!

Drawing and Watercolor classes (No Bull)

Time to grab the bull by the horns and start my classes again!  Watercolor classes, as usual, at CandP Coffee house, 6-8 , 6 classes, on Tuesday evenings.  Need 10 people pre-registered to start.  Drawing classes on Thursday evenings....6-9, ten classes,  in the condo hospitality room behind my house...again, I need  10 students.  Class will start in mid November.  Watercolor on November 16 and Drawing on the 18th of November.

Contact me via my e-mail (upper lefthand corner on my blog) for more information if you are interested.

Thanks! Jennifer (BTW, this watercolor is part of a calendar series  done by various artists for Tom Douglas and his restaurants and his favorite recipes....mine was was a garlicky, olivey, tomato-y totally delicious steak and greens salad)  Gitalong, big Dawgie.

Summer's Lease , Lesson 4, CandP Coffee watercolor

To enhance the quality of the day... that is the highest of the arts...Henry Thoreau

Ollala Path                                                                               © Jennifer McCabe Carrasco 5/18/10

I really like the black and white version better...Lunar Black Watercolor Primatek, Daniel Smith.

Lesson 4   Watercolor values.

1. Reading ..37 to 38...French Style values...start light...add more and more glazes to painting.or drawing.  How many values do you see?  color?   Look at Tiepolo drawings.

 How can you glaze over a painting to  unify it and keep it from being too “jumpy”.  Best glazes...aureolin yellow, cobalt blue, and Rose madder genuine. (Look on page 37.  Look at glazes on pg. 37....where were they applied?

2.  Look at lunar black value studies,,,,can glaze over and over to get a deep black.  Now, match a color in the strip  to the value....squint!   poke hole in value strip. Show with black plexiglass.   Look at Mitch’s color chart.

Give out color chips. How would you make this color from primaries?  I am giving you 3 colors... and match them to your value strip and.reproduce the color using only your primaries.  Make sure the value is correct. Paper punch on their value strips so you can see without distractions.  Show me your colors before you go on to the next project.

3,  When you finish, look at your value study of your waterscape.  Is there anything you need to correct in the values?  Remember....usually, the sky is the lightest...then the water or the horizontal plane.  Then the slope, and elements in the vertical are often the darkest. But remember, even within the very darkest shapes, there are variations .

Ollala Path 1                                                                   © Jennifer McCabe Carrasco 5/18/10

4. Paint your waterscape.....working in 4 values of color in the broad shapes.  For example, if one shape is mostly the darkest value...then paint in that shape any color in that darkest value.  (Some colors have a wider value range than others...i.e.....blue or green or purple goes from the lightest value to a very dark  value.  Yellow goes from very light to medium dark before it chickens out and becomes something else.  In a very dark shape, yellow would not work.

Look at the yellow in this painting by John White Alexander.

With your own painting, don’t worry about “Real” or local color.....think about value and temperature....cool (recedes) hot (advances)Work large brush first....top to bottom, light to dark.

Assignment: Re-read 66 to 67 carefully.

CandP Watercolor class #4 Green thoughts in a Green Shade

 Jerry drawing                                                                 ©Jennifer M. Carrasco  5/15/10

  Lunar Black Primatek watercolor paint (Daniel Smith)..washed on 300 lb. Arches.....then LIGHTLY, LIGHTLY apply some color watercolor glazes over the top.   Sort of like after Dorothy got whisked off to Oz.  Although, I think the black and white type of rendering with granulating paint  is quite chic.      

The best way to show depth is to have variation in values. The best way to learn this is to paint without color... (Tom Lynch) 

Jerry drawing                                                                 ©Jennifer M. Carrasco  5/15/10

Value does all the work and color gets all the glory. Unknown quote.

Lesson 3...Water color and Water.  The "Green Thoughts" is a quote from the poem, The Garden, byAndrew Marvel.

1.  Would people be interested in a coaching type watercolor class?
Look at waterfalls....lay them out and make suggestions. Show pictures again of my steps...then show Marsden Hartley's waterfall.  He just got in there and let 'er rip! Bold, direct and almost abstract.

Ask about pigments reading...stain glaze? Use for first wash...can lift only for a short while.Sedimentary, granulating and opaque.? Name a few...good for rocks!...let move, don’t overwork  Hand out pigment chart.
2.  Discuss frisket and maskoid  (show leaf frisket)  ...would suggest using old brush for liquid frisket, (rubbed in soap first) and applying that way.  Look again at brushes.....fan brush is not appropriate for watercolor.  When you scrub with something like a fan brush, it forces pigment into the paper where it dies, and because of the bristle shape you have no control in making marks.  It’s for blending with oils.

3. Brush movement...Show Homer..rounds and riggers are good for squiggles. Flats are good for sideways marks and chunks of color or value. (Show on example). Demo.  The flat 2D surface...it is a flat plane....the surface of the water!

4. Values....in landscapes and sea scapes.  Show Albala’s diagram of planes.  When the sun is shining, the sky is usually the lightest value, the water the next value, and vertical and slanted areas will be the darkest.  Show examples in Trevor Chamberlain’s book. (flop a tissue over the example so students can see)....then tell them to Squint!!!!  When a plane changes, the value changes. (show “bendable” strip of a single grey value...how it changes the value of the grey when the strip is bent into planes.).

5.  Make a four value watercolor strip.  Leave a moat between each value!

6. Flop tissue on your seascape and  the shapes you see....Exterior shapes...simple straight and curved lines. No minor details!  Draw some interior contour lines that describe the planes and curves of some of the shapes....a topography of sorts. Bend paper to show example. “Color” in the 4 values (show Mitch’s design) with your pencil and then do the same thing with lunar black on watercolor paper.

Assignment.....Re-read 36 and 37 of Jan Hart’s book.

-on painting a watercolour...
Make the best of an emergency. (John Singer Sargent) 

©Jennifer M. Carrasco 5/17/10  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

The Light of the Moon

This lesson is actually  about sunrise or sunset, and all the wonderful cloud effects of those times of day.  I don't happen to have any sunset paintings for examples, so this nighttime view of trees against the Sound, the far Olympic Penninsula and a night sky will have to do. 

The basic techniques...top to bottom, light to dark and back to front puts the painting together.  Instead of vivid background sky, I just used a "manganese? blue, went around some star spaces which I softened later with a scrubber brush and dropped water into the moon shape so it would bleed out.  When all was dry, I started laying in the foreground...working with a light lunar black and lunar blue combination and waiting until all was dry to do the darker forground...note, that I put a little sap green in with the lunar black in the closest tree.

Lesson 3, CandP watercolor lessons 11/10/09

1. Review and look at work.   Discuss complementary colors.....Demo how they work. Review graded washes.
...re-read 86-89

3.  New students....do graded washes on 1/8 paper.  Cool color on top, warm color  on bottom, 2nd paper, vice versa .
#1. Cobalt blue or pale pthalo  on top, raw sienna on bottom. Leave some unpainted areas for clouds. and let the color blend imperceptibly toward the middle (barely any color in the middle) show examples.
#2 a pthalo blue or cobalt on bottom and a pale auroelin yellow on top. Blend imperceptibly toward the middle. 

Pick out three gourds  and  sketch them, overlapping, on a piece of bond paper which is the same FORMAT as your watercolor paper.  Think of the negative space. Show Garret’s example   Do your designing on tissue paper (quickly!) and draw hard on the back to trace VERY LIGHTlY onto your cobalt blue and raw sienna paper.  Paint the entire gourds with a medium wash of Auroelin or raw sienna yellow.  Develop the gourds step by step, always thinking of where the light hits and the shadows appear. (In this case I used a little cobalt violet (transparent) and lunar black (granulated for the shadows...)

On the #2 paper,  create some “sunset” or sunrise clouds in the yellow sky with some soft alizarin crimson and purple ( mix alizarin crimson and pthalo blue or cobalt blue  to make purple). work wet with this part, then let dry while you work on your gourds  and put in a bluish mountain range toward the bottom  (read page 88 and 89)  Work back and forth between #1 and #2

3.  Old hands.. Sunrise or sunset? You choose.   Again, demonstrate how you can match value “tabs”
 
Read all through before you start.
 Wash one entire 1/4 sheet in pale auroelin yellow

  On  a smaller piece of WC paper, do some cloud studies while you wait for the bigger sheet to dry. Do #1with an orange and greenish  sky and the setting sun behind the clouds. (see page 86 and my example ....You can substitute a light value of alizarin crimson for rose madder)

 Do #2 with daylight clouds  with the sun behind the clouds.  Pay special attention to the shapes of the clouds as they recede in space, and the color of their “ragged” edges....look at values...use your tabs. Squint damnit! 

Think about the negative space (sky) and where the light is coming from (in this case behind the clouds), and how the sky seems to lighten as it goes down to the horizon. Soften some of the edges of the clouds while the paint is wet, and be sure to keep in mind that clouds seem to "flatten" on the bottom and become more narrow as they move away from you.

For the bigger sheet covered in auroelin yellow wash.  Pg. 88-89

Think of gazing either east (sunrise) or west (sunset) through a landscape of trees and far away hills or mountains.  In both, the color would be warmer and more intense at the edge of land.  What steps would you take ( write them down if it helps) to evoke the fierce exultation of the sun rising on a cold winter morning through the bare trees?  Or, the bittersweet end of a winter day as the sun disappears behind the mountains and casts the tree skeletons into sharp relief?  Think how the long shadows cast by early or late sun can “marry” the trees and their bases to the land ( and show the curves of the land as they are cast in long bars across the ground)  Remember, shadows are TRANSPARENT and usually COOL.

Work as quickly and as emotionally as you can, using large brushes until the end.  You have the information and techniques to do this now.  Be Brave.  Be Bold.  Go to the edge of your comfort level and if the work  doesn’t turn out, you can always do something else on the back.  Try to finish in this class session.  If it ends up somewhat abstract, that’s cool.  Like the poem below, "Make big shadows"
If you have to wait for an area to dry, work on your night landscape or try some more clouds or tree shapes on your scrap paper.

And here is one of my favorite poems .......

You, sent out beyond your recall,

go to the limits of your longing.

Flare up like flame and make big shadows.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.

Just keep going.  No feeling is final.

  Marie Ranier Rilke

Assignment:  Both old and new students read pages 24 to 31

New students..........try placing some trees in front of your sunset.  And, try  finishing your gourds.  If you like, get wild and crazy with the remaining colors.  Experiment.

Old students........do another sunset or sunrise if you like....place a grove of trees in the foreground, or a reflecting lake.  How about some fiery clouds?

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.