Carrasco Studio

The Spinach that Ate Seattle

No, I have not abandoned the Art World.  I have not flown up on my own private rapture.

I have been waiting for the planets to align so I can get photos of this year's big mural projects.....about three of them.  However, due to Seattle's extremely wet winter, the stucco has sprung a leak  for the site of my three 5'x 9' canvases. The wine room client has had to have surgery, and the 9'x12' mural in CleElum is installed, but the furniture has to be just right before the client will set up for photos.  Sigh. Life.

So, I have been busy with my other art....gardening.  Note the size of the spinach  on the right hand  side of my raised box and other spinach slithering along at the box base.  I got the seeds from Annie's Annuals and Perennials and the combination of rain and compost  and this special seed has created acromeglic spinach. Huge, and more huge.

  Phil is getting tired of spinach dishes and the whole green thing is getting out of hand.  We've started to go to bed with a machete on the bedstand.

Also, we have put in a living room space in our basement apartment, and it has really amped up it's cuteness factor. (and we can charge more)

Got a new sleeper sofa, found the 50's TV trays at a neighbor's estate sale, and a real little Persian rug at a dry cleaners. Phil worried about the vases tipping over, but I told him that for 99 cents at Goodwill, we could deal with a little tipping.

And, I lowered my standards (and enjoyed it) by painting some Sofa Paintings. Two acrylics...sort of color fieldish with some leaf and water elements, and a gouache ala DeKooning/Carrasco for old times sake. Like when I struggled in Painting 101.

Leaf color field                                                                                    5'x 2' Acrylic on Canvas

Leaf color field                                                                                  3'x 1.5' Acrylic on canvas

Garden Frenzy                                                                 20" x 30" Gouache over watercolor

Hint: I painted the gouache over a big watercolor I screwed up....it was really fun....worked mostly with chip brushes, sharp points to scratch with and pastel pencils. I think I'll do more of these.  After 40 years, I finally got the hang of it.  Besides, I have enough messups in watercolor to keep me busy for a while.

Abstract art is a lot harder, in my opinion, because you don't have the resonance of an image to play against.

And Phil  had real challenges with making the new room watertight. Seattle basements always leak.  I thought Lynne would appreciate this, since she has an artisian well in her basement.  Note also that Phil has installed earthquake plates all around the foundation of our house.  San Francisco is not the only shaker and mover along this ring of fire!

I made the mistake of showing Phil  the levels of finish for sheet rock that Regina featured on Fauxology. Now I warrant that our renter will be the only one living in a level 5 finished apartment!  Painstaking.

Sheet rock knees.  A disease of carpenters.

And also, I've been working on a series of watercolors called, eponymously, "Clear Water"  They are quite large, some of them.....20" by 30", and so far I have about 10 I like.  Here's one.

And then.....I have developed 4 images for a children's nursery that I plan to reproduce.  But I'm keeping those under my hat until their grand opening.......

So, you see.  I haven't been lolling on the couch eating bon bons.

 

Watercolor Triptych. A Day on the Llano River

I finally mailed off my Austin client's watercolor triptych.  I framed them with cherry and left extra wide mats, and I think he'll like them.  My client wanted a realistic rendering and wanted a local butterfly included, so I spent some time developing a technique for working with glazes and textures appropriate to the subject.  Here's a close up of my left painting. 

I got better as I went along.

The effort of coming up with detailed work was helpful, since I plan to do a series of loose paintings of the same... closeups and  and more abstract.   I spent  actual time on the river and took many photos and did many sketches.  There was a gentle wind, and I kept singing to myself, "Hear the wind blow..."

The Llano River and I became well acquainted.

My right painting.

My center painting.

...and my left painting.

The center painting is wider...12"....and the left and right paintings are 9" wide.  All are 30 " long.  The right painting is the river coming "in", the wider center painting is the point of view, and the left painting is the river going "out"

I was taken by the granite rocks, the transparency of the water, and the animals and the colors of the underwater strata.  Since the rocks are metamorphic and have been carved by rain and wind, they have strange inclusions and holes.....the navel(s) of the world.

    
 ..... ikebana-like arrangements of pools, rocks and grasses.

and pockets of still water and creatures....

I am fascinated by the river and water in general, and find the transparency and the difficulty of watercolor both appropriate and  challenging for the reflections, clarity, the torrents and deep still pools.  I will get better.  I can hardly wait to start on my series.

Fairies, Continued

I promised my Web designer that I would collate and label my images for a new site he is setting up for me.  So groan.  I am weeding out, drifting through and discarding the slag.

Today I am in my Fairy File.  Here's the project I did for a client who wanted a fairy birthday mural in the deep woods.  She loves Victorian art and decor. I did some vignettes for ideas, and while I usually do a careful rendering before I start, this time I just Did It. 
I decided all the animals would bring presents, and be dressed up.  However, nature girl that I am, I had the animals wrap their presents in leaves and flowers instead of Hallmark, and wear costumes of the same. Some fairies and animals brought light. The deer, of course, were exquisite and brough their present to the fairy on an elegant travois.  The moles, being astimatic with severe sinus problems were mouth breathers and  pictured in too large hats of skunk cabbage (they couldn't smell them) .

As a rule, I am not fond of possums, but wanted to be democratic.  Note the rabbit with many piercings for his earrings, the garter snake with an avalanche lily hat, and the ladybugs traveling from vine to vine on a blackberry expressway.

The fox, transfixed by the event into his gentler nature,  is being observed by an elf.

This is a section of the mural, and the waterfall rushes down over the toy box opening into a blue "water" rug.  I wanted to put inserts of green lily pads rug into the "water" rug, but we didn't get around to it.  This was a project that seemed to ramble on and on...butterflies in the bathroom, constellations above the bed, morning glory borders, etc....the design shows it...a bit tacked on and discursive.

This mural was taken down and put up in five different houses.   The mural even went to Maine. My client liked to move around a lot.

©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.

Grey Whales in the Llano

 Llano River and Boulders                        ©Jennifer M.Carrasco  11/21/10

 

I am working with a series of watercolors about the Llano river in Texas.  I find, that in painting, it is always a fine balance between honoring  both the surface and depth of water.

The river is very clear and runs  over granite boulders smoothed by water and time.  The boulders, where they emerge from the water, make me think of grey-backed whales....and pockets of grass in some of the stone declivities add to the illusion.  Blowhole spouts of grass. Each boulder has a middle ring of dried salts with  the water marking a hem of dark pink granite in the lowest ring.

The water doesn't  rush into rapids, but slides sleek and transparent from gentle level to level, eddies in dark green channels and occasionally stills in a hollowed out bathtub of stone.

And all day the Texas wind blows, and the minnows dart in the shallows.  Tiny frogs leap from still puddle to puddle, and hide in the algae from the herons that stalk them.

I could play all day in this sparkle of clear water, smooth  granite and faded blue Texas sky.