Carrasco Studio

Keep them Foxes Coming

Fox crossing the snow in the Copper Mountains           ©Jennifer M Carrasco 10/23/93

 

        The Thought Fox

    I imagine the midnight's moment's forest:
    Something else is alive
    Beside the clock's loneliness
    and this blank page where my fingers move.

    Through the window I see no star:
    something more near
    Though deeper within darkness
    Is entering the loneliness:

    Cold, delicately as the dark snow,
    A fox's nose touches twig, leaf;
    Two eyes serve a movement, that now
    And again now, and now, and now
       
    Sets neat prints into the snow
    Between trees, and warily a lame
    Shadow lags by stump and in hollow
    Of a body that is bold to come

    Across clearings, an eye,
    A widening deepening greeness,
    Brilliantly, concentratedly
    Coming about it's own business

    Till, with a sudden sharp hot stink of fox
     It enters the dark hole of the head.
    The window is starless still: the clock ticks,
    The page is printed.

            .............................Ted Hughes

Or painted.  Or sung...... Carved, Composed, Collaged, Connected.

The Cruelest Month and CandP Coffee House Drawing (ta dah!) class,#1

April Fool!  And you thought it was spring.  I am shuffling around in the house in my Great Aunt Min's mink throw (an inheritance), my boatlike warmest slippers and a cup of Cand P latte in hand (courtesy of Phil).  All I need is a Camel hanging out the side of my mouth and the TV blaring in the background.  A 21st century Grapes of Wrath Woman.

Well, enough.  Here's the first Drawing Lesson of our Drawing with the Right Side of the Brain.  I must say I am so delighted with all of you.....many returning students and new.  It certainly takes the edge off this cold spring.

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain....3/31/09

1.  Intro...why take the class? (students)  Why am I teaching it?( I saw the need...difference between knowing  and seeing ...show chart. Left( logical, sequential) and right (intuitive, spacial)PARALLEL....  All drawing is the same....some is just more complex.
FIVE BASIC SKILLS...edges, spaces, relationships, light, whole....components to whole.

My hopes and expectations for the class....that you can learn to switch over to “see”mode. I hope you can make it to every class...it will have a great deal to do with your success.  Life happens, so I will put the lesson and the assignments on the blog....do access my blog after every class and do the assignments in a timely manner .  ....These assignments can’t be done at the last minute.  Like piano practice, put aside at least 20 minutes for each assignment in a quiet place...not to be disturbed, not in front of the TV.  One a day. Consider it meditation.

If, after the first class, you think that you will have a hard time attending each class or doing the assignments, let me know and we can pro rate your fee and you can take the class another time. If you are late or still want to attend sporadically, I certainly won't give you a hard time...believe me, I am always glad to see a friend!

I want you to succeed in something that’s really important to me.  I’ve kept the fee very low...it’s my gift to a community of friends. In return, my real compensation is your success and pleasure.

Draw and date in your sketchbook: ALWAYS SIGN AND DATE.  THIS IS ONLY FOR REFERENCE LATER ON.

a. Your hand.......
b. Your face (use mirror)
c. A person from memory

Training the eye......Discuss and demo stereotypes, natural urge to hurry, to be “efficient), BUT DURING THIS TIME YOU HAVE NOTHING ELSE TO DO BUT FOCUS AND DRAW. Don’t be anxious  We all start somewhere..

1. Blind Contour drawing of hand......turn from paper(taped), use soft pencil,  DON’T LIFT POINT,  Go Super Slow! Don’t look at paper.

3. Do a “semi-Blind”contour drawing of your hand, looking down only to change direction..  Don’t lift the point. SHARE with us!  Don't be embarassed....this kind of drawing always makes your hand look like one of the Creature from the Black Lagoon.
The point is to SLOW DOWN and really OBSERVE.

Assignment.  Chapter 2 and 3

Do a “semi” blind contour drawing of: 1.  a crumpled piece of typing paper.  2. a twig, a popcorn or a pine cone

Painting Carrousel Horses

This is an old post on my blog from before I joined Facebook.  My friend Jeff Raum, a most excellent painter, has been commissioned to do a painting of an armored carousel horse, and I thought I would put this out there for him (and anyone else who might find it interesting).  This carousel work got me started on decorative painting and murals. (Long ago, when the earth was cooling)

In 1983 I was askesd by a friend if I would be interested in painting the antique wooden carousel animals in Spokane's Riverfront Park.  It wasn't restoration in the sense of repairing the original finish....the badly neglected horses had been totally stripped and repainted in 1976 for the Spokane World's Fair.  My painting was done because  the horses are loved to death and ridden nine months out of the year, and belt buckles, shoes and purses take their toll on the finish and need repainting every two or so years.

The animals, which include a fearsome tiger, a swan, a dragon and a giraffe, total 58 in all, and were sculpted by Charles Loof in the early 1900's and presented to his daughter as a wedding present when she married the owner of Spokane's Natatorium Park.  My grandmother and granddad, who rode them as did succeeding generations of my family down to my own son, Carlos, told me that people used to take the trolley to the park to dance, and end their evenings with a ride on the merry-go-round.  It sounds terribly romantic, and there is a definite aura about the animals, somewhat like the old statues of the saints.  So many hopes and dreams were carried on the back of these lovely sculptures.  Here's a watercolor I painted of the horses, and the warrior horse stands out because he is so dramatic.  

 

I would work on the animals for two months in the dead of  winter, and  I can tell you that winter in Spokane is an event.  It snows. And snows. And snows.  The park staff ...mostly guys....would come in and prep the horses for me....filling and sanding during the day,, and I would paint them.  I used Pratt and Lambert Alkyd paint because it was hard and brilliant, and it's a wonder  I can still put 2 and 2 together, because the fumes were awful.  No ventilation to speak of , and if we opened the door of the glass house of the carrousel, I would freeze to death.  However, I ended up painting all 58 at four different times.  Even after I moved to S.Carolina, they flew me up to paint.

I would paint until about 9 pm, and dark comes early in Spokane latitudes.  The snow would build up in glittering piles outside, and I would be alone in my world of brilliant animals.  They gleamed in their enameled splendour.....their pretty Arab heads with dished profiles and flared nostrils, their arched necks  and  tumbled manes.  Their tails were/are real, and their eyes and jewels are glass.  There is a place in Kansas where you can get carousel horse tails and glass jewels and eyes, in case you wondered.

The field mice would come out at night to eat the leftover popcorn, and were totally fearless.....doing acrobat leaps over my boots and behaving disgracefully. Sex. drugs(popcorn heightens mouse libido, evidently) and rock and roll. 

 Finally it would be time to go home, and I'd clean my brushes, spread my rags outside, and close the heavy glass door with a click I can still remember with my fingers. The park could be a threatening place at night and I was an easy target, working inside the brightly lit glass house, but I was never bothered.  Only once, while I waited for a bus, did a guy make kung foo moves all around me for about 15 minutes.  That was a little weird, but I think he was fighting imaginary enemies, not me.

A woman named Martha was my boss, and she kept the machines of the merry-go -round in good condition. I liked Martha and respected her sensitivity and good sense.
I wrote and illustrated a story about carousel animals who came alive on winter nights and went out to play in the snow with Martha.  She was a wizard at night and brought them alive with her magic wand. I imagine her as she is in my watercolors...wearing her billed cap and Carhart overalls, polishing the brass and feeding the mice.

 

Snow Bound and Flying in Alaska

From 1991 to about 1993 I was hanging out with a bush pilot in Alaska, so I saw lots of snow and a good sectiion of  Alaska, more from the air than anything else.  I substitute taught in Kotzebue for a month while I was staying with Ben, and I learned to memorize in order to draw later inside the apartment.  Otherwise, my ink would freeze.  I would stand stock still, like I am doing here in my drawing of the beginning of ice fishing in Kotzebue inlet, and some of my elementary students would come up and ask me what I was doing.  I would tell them I was memorizing, and they, being little kids, would nod wisely at the strange white woman and run off to skate/fish/tumble/ fight on the ice.

Once I flew with Ben  into the Copper Mountains (the boundary between Alaska and the Yukon Territory) to bring supplies to a gold mining operation.  The days were sunny, and quite comfortable in the light, so I did a bunch of watercolors on paper outside along the plane landing. The paint did freeze and make these great patterns, especially with the cobalt blues.

A fox came running across the mountains, a brilliant orange against the complements of blue and violet shadows. 

 

Trees in Winter: 3rd Watercolor class at CandP coffee shop

                      
photo: Palouse Landscape :  Jennifer Carrasco

Landscape transformed:Watercolor
Jennifer Carrascco                                               

Note:  I refuse to be dictated to by a photo, and I expect my students to be the same way.  It's just there to prime the pump.

Theme:  Trees in winter....Xmas landscapes....glazes and values

 Discuss values....look at Kim’s snow pictures.   Then look at development of snow scenes...kid’s books. Usually cool colors, but not always. For fields and drifts of snow, keep your glazes subtle and soft on the edges. Leave white for where the light is brightest (by day) and pale bluish for moonlight areas. Many children’s books are illustrated in water color.  Get in the habit of analyzing how artists did the work.
Plan on tissue paper a sketch of a landscape with trees and land......look at pictures.  Choose one to do.  Think of Grouping trees (show example).  Take a landscape photo and cover it with snow.   You can do close ups but be sure to include simple areas snow areas as well as trees. Look at my chart of grouping, values, and development of a snow picture.

To start, use tissue and lightly draw out your shapes. On back of tissue, “color” in where the lines show through with the sides of your pencil .  Then trace onto your taped paper.(big piece...at least 15” by 10”. )  Trace lightly.  Start Light, at the Top, Large, work from back to Front, Cool to Warm. Large to small.

 Dark values on under part of branches.....very light values on snow...bluish or purplish shadows   [and pale pinks and yellows if you want sunset effects or colored light effects for snow....otherwise LEAVE white.)Put some tracks in the snow somewhere...footprints, animal, ski, snowgo,ect.

Here's some of my charts to jog your memory.

Just remember.  Start at the Top.  Light to dark.  Back to Front.  Cool to Warm (or, in the case of snow...warmer than blue...more purple red, more umber.  With snow, paint an area with clean water first and stroke an area in the middle of the "watered"
area so the color will be disbursed and soft at the edges.  Keep colors very light and transparent for the snow areas.  Avoid "knife" edges. 

And here is a breakdown of glazes for a summer landscape....same sequence....light to dark, top to bottom, etc. THE OUTLINES ARE JUST DIAGRAMS.  DON'T PUT THEM IN YOUR PAINTINGS!! ACK! NO!! QUELLE HORROR! PUHLEASE!

The sequence, roughly, is...1.Paint all the "blue outlined" area a pale green and paint sky your blue of choice.  Let horizon line "bleed" a bit into the sky. 2.  While first areas are still a little damp, paint all of black outlined area a soft, slightly more intense green.  Drop in a few areas of the same value of umber and raw sienna. 3.  When layer number 2 is still a little damp, paint the red outlined areas a slightly more intense yellow green and spatter or pick out a few areas of umber or more intense dark green.
4.  Use umber and green to pick out yellow outlined shapes and float some variations of intense greens and yellows over pale green field areas.  AVOID FLAT SHRIEKY GREENS !!!  Alway mix a little umber, blue, even red with your true greens before you apply your greens to give them character and true panache.  (Panache is good in almost anything...right?)

OK.  Keep calm and carry on. Teach.