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.

 

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