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.

 

EXcellent TEXas EXcursion....Mural making, Big Bend, Dinosaurs and Donald Judd

Bear with me.  This will have to be a wide and spacious entry since it is about Texas.

First of all, my friend (since we were 14!) Alan had me fly down to Austin to paint a mural on his 5' x 9' entry wall.  He initially wanted something abstract with a nude, but it turned out that he wanted something impressionist (he's an engineer and doesn't do artspeak)and he chickened out on the nude.  so we regrouped, walked around his property.....

.....went over to the Llano river..... clear clear water running over granite in streams....

and I sketched and pondered and came up with a plan he liked.  It also had to have bluebonnets (mandatory in Texas murals) and three "Queen" butterflies....one for Alan, one for me, and one for his 102 year mother. (also a friend of mine) 

In five days I was done, and like God, I rested.  Alan supplied me with Shiner beer and Texas Bar Bee Que (part of my contract) and at night we killed scorpions on his big back porch (a plague for new construction in Hill Country)...20 scorpions in five days.  Also, a pack of coyotes on the trail of something tasty came howling by my window at   2 pm one night.  I thought I was surrounded by wolves.  Nature rules at Alan's place.

Then my friend Norma Jean came down from her home in San Angelo to pick me up and return to Austin to get Phil at the airport.  Norma has been my friend for 45 years...we were roomates in Peace Corps, and I was there when her twins were born.  We went to her daughter Natasha's place and stayed the night, left early the next morning for Terlingua, down on the Texas Mexican border at the west entrance of Big Bend National Park.....600 miles of Mostlly Flat.....through Fredricksburg (adorable), to Fort Stockton on the killer highway 10, Marathon and dropping down through Alpine and on to Terlingua just at sunset.

We checked into the El Dorado Hotel...a homey place that Willie Nelson would have liked....and went out to watch the sunset over the mountains with liquid refreshments and lawn chairs.

Later we went into the bar to listen to music, have a delicious burger, and later View Art.

The next day we drove up to stay in Big Bend National Park (60 miles) with our friends Larry and Gary.  The room was small so it was quite cosy.  Gary and Norma drug their sleeping bags out to sleep on the porch, and Larry, Phil and I snored in harmonic chords.  D-flat, I believe.

Big Bend is an extinct volcano, and you can see Mexico through the awesome notch in the crater.  It has javelinas, skunks, bears and the largest community of mountain lions in the USA.  Uneasy lies the back of the neck of those who sketch alone in Big Bend.  I was always on the alert in the midst of such stunning natural beauty.

The next day we hiked 2.5 miles into the desert to see dinosaur bones.  I blanked out the location name because people steal the fossils and sell them for money.  It was hot, very interesting and full of what Phil called " all those goddamn plants with stickers." Our friends Gary and Larry are men of wide ranging interests, so I learned a lot about the wild life, the history of the area both geologic and human, and the plants.  I LOVED the hike and I did pretty well on my new hip.

People ask me how I found time to do these journal drawings.  Well, I memorized what I could and then spent a lot of time drawing in the back seat of Norma's KingKab on the long stretches.  Texas roads are usually very straight and smooth.  Washington roads are curvey and bumpy....if I drew in the car here I would throw up.

After  Big Bend we drove to Marathon and on to Marfa.  I wanted to see Donald Judd's installations.  He was from New York and is a famous minimalist/conceptualist sculpter (think I got that right). He also started the Chinati foundation there.

It was not Phil and Norma's thing.  Lots of comments about concrete and aluminum packing cases.  However, I enjoyed it.  Very peaceful, and there were lots of dead birds (flew into the plate glass) around the perimeter of the buildings housing the aluminum cubes, and some fantastic grasshoppers.  Shadows and highlights kept moving with the changing light.

After Chinati, we drove through charming Ft. Davis and up to the McDonald Observatory.  Phil and I decided we wanted to come back to that for a whole day of exploring....many wonderful huge telescopes and night skies to see.  I bought myself a sky chart in the gift shop, but it won't do me much good in cloudy Seattle.

We ended up in San Angelo where Norma and her husband Donald were wonderful hosts. Norma has a Huge Garden where she grows heritage veggies and flowers and takes her produce to the farmer's market. I picked peppers for her and Phil helped her cover her tender plants from a threatening frost.  Norma also took me for a massage from her favorite masseus.  His technique was one inch away from Rolfing but I was brave and felt wonderful afterward.

We also went to the water lily garden and of course I went nuts.  I met the man, Mr. Landon, who set it up, and he is very concerned that this national treasure (most complete collection in the USA) is going to be closed by the Texas Legislature.....they have decided that any water plant not native to Texas has to be destroyed.  If you love waterlilies and want to save this contained  collection, contact http//www.internationalwaterlilycollection.com. Mr. Landon said that years ago he planted several species in the Concho river, but the turtles thought they were lunch and ate them all up overnight.  In short, the lilies are not invasive.

After three days in San Angelo, we returned to Austin and stopped by Alan's to pick up my paints and luggage. In Austin,   Natasha arranged for us to meet her twin brother Bernabe and his lovely wife Lauren at a Taco Express (fabulous food and atmosphere).

Me, Phil, Norma, Madeline, Brandon and Natasha and Donald.

And Lauren and Bernabe.

And then we went to the Capitol Building and also to the highlight of Phil's trip, Lance Armstrong's bicycle shop.  Then we flew home.  Jinglejanglejingle.  Git along, dawgies.

Oh yeah.  I forgot to mention.  I made Alan a paint shirt like mine.

 

 

 

 

Night Spirit

Last week I read a wonderful tribute to marriage and art on Connie and Randy Coita's website, Studio Abbellire,  http://studioabbellire.com/blog/?p=444,  as well as a stunning post of her latest project, a trompe l'oeil Luna moth on a lichen covered panel. Connie is a gifted painter, and her husband Randy is a fine painter as well.

Randy writes that like the Luna Moth,  we artists often start our lives at night and work until dawn. Yeah, I know, it takes a very understanding partner and no other obligations (i.e. kids) to do this very often, or at all.  It's a very uneasy balance with doing art and doing the mother, wife and worker bee at the same time. I've been there, and like many women, I felt I was pulled in too many directions to be good at any role.

But, if your life has evolved into a situation where you can work into the night, it is the most peaceful and focused time to do it.  No meals to prepare, no bank accounts to balance, no kids to soccer.  Like the actual Luna moth I encountered on our screen door one humid night in Georgia, you have time and space just to be.....to  fan out your creative wings and make beauty. For an artist, it's the gift of a quiet time to create in your mind , on a canvas, or to connect the lights of  fireflies in the night.

I have loved the Luna moth since I was a little girl and my mother gave me "Girl of the Limberlost" to read by Gene Porter. Mr. Porter wrote of many lovely things, but the Luna was a repeated icon in his book.  If there is ever a tender, evanescent testimony to the beauty of the natural world, it is this exquisite moth. 

My painted image of the Luna is from a chinoiserie room I did for a client.  Here's a wall of that room.  Like Waldo, the moth is hiding with a lot of flora and fauna. Can you find her?

And thanks, Connie and Randy, for sharing your vision of "a little night music."

Moths and the Nerd Princess

One of these fabulous creatures actually clung to the screendoor of my house one hot Georgia night. I had always wanted to see one, since I was fascinated by insects ever since I was little, but never had the chance until we lived in Georgia. It was so lovely, so still, as it worshipped the lights inside the house.  I paid it homage  for 15 minutes, then turned out the light.  It loosened it's grip on the screen and flapped regally, slowly back into the darkness. 

I wonder why moths, as creatures of the night, are drawn to light and often their death because of this attraction. I wouldn't be the first to draw morbid analogies from this.

The above Luna moth, which I painted as part as a chinoiserie room,  rests forever at the top of a wall in West Seattle.  Since the top of the canvas was a trompe l'oeil bamboo border, I put all the chinoiserie creatures, and they are many, toward the top as casting a shadow like the bamboo.

As a girl, I collected insects.  I was an odd shy child, nerdy and romantic, reading anything I could get my hands on and spending the rest of my time roaming the hills and the creek of my hometown, Pomeroy, Washington.  It's located in a sparsely populated S.E. corner of Washington named the Palouse. Remarkable, in part because of its hills, bare of trees but covered with grass or wheat.

I would go fishing with my Dad in the summer and spend a lot of time among cattails with the redwinged blackbirds and the butterflies sipping in the mud at the edges of the lake. At the age of seven, a shirtless brown little savage, I would stoop down and gently pick up the big swallowtail butterflies and place them on my chest and shoulders.  They would walk slowly over my body, attracted by the salt on my skin.
Slightly scratchy, deliciously  tickling, they quietly opened and closed their gorgeous yellow and black wings. They also had a wonderful smell, like the flowers they frequented for nectar.

Anyhow, even at 14 I was out in the bushes with my butterfly net, searching like Nabokov for the rare butterfly.  I even had boyfriends helping me, although I think they were hoping for something else besides butterflies.

The nuns at the parochial school I attended used my etymological skills to capture the black widows that were always coming into the music rooms.  Dad showed me how to put some carbon tetrachloride onto a piece of cotton, place it in a jar, and sneak up on the evil looking spiders and clap them into their jar prison.  They would die, and I stored jars of them in my closet among my pretty dresses and go-to-church MaryJane patent leather shoes.  My sister Megan, who shared my room, swears to this day that I created her phobia about spiders.  She was positive that they would escape and come out to bite us in the night.

My interest in nature and my father and grandfather's knowledge of the land and it's creatures created an encyclopedia of images and names in my brain that I draw on for my painting today. Grandad and Dad taught me the common and the Latin names, and I must confess that some of these names are beginning to escape me, but the images remain.  Indian paintbrush, swallowtail, white tail deer and willow.

I will know their shapes and smells and color and the way they move as long as I live.