Carrasco Studio

St. Nicolas Trudges On

I've heard it on the best authority (Drudge and Celebrity News) that the old guy is on his way through the frozen North.  He's been walking a lot and dieting (Recession) and the reindeer are on strike for higher wages, so he had to start early. Tomorrow he'll be at the Canadian border and be in line at customs, but if he clears that, he'll be at your house on schedule.

Since you all have been good, I'm sure you'll get yo-yo's instead of sticks.

Happy Holidays from me and Phil.

My cards, both for holiday and events,  are available at www.Emery-Burton.com.carrasco carrasco

 

Not the Right Sort

I tried working in the style of Victorian Christmas cards, but  lightweight that I am, I couldn't quite get the sense of queasy eroticism that you find in Victorian greeting cards.  All those jolly old squires with quirts dandling  cherry lipped little girls on their knees, nymphs with magnificent bosoms frolicking demurely around a Christmas tree, a merry family of 16 children(all discovered under a cabbage patch) clambering around Prince Albert and Queen Victoria parent types. (Close your eyes and think of England, dearest)

My Catholic girlhood +Hippy Days equals a dim understanding but not quite the chops to do it right....cancels each other out.  Well, darn.

But happy holidays to you all.  May you all have oranges and stars and striped tops and skates in your stockings and no coal and sticks.  I'm sure you have all been good.

HARK!

                        

CandP Coffee shop is sponsoring a  Silent Auction for Jewel our friend and cheerful barista........here's the basic information and we'd love to see you there.

December10, 6-9 pm, CandP Coffee House
              WINE TASTING AND SILENT AUCTION             

              5612 California Ave SW
            Seattle, WA 98136-1515
            (206) 933-3125
            Thursday Night!

Which one of you coffee swigging, wine drinking. kind hearted ANGELS will bid in the
Silent Auction for the JewelSurgeryFund?
 Jewel, one of our beloved baristas. is having a serious operation and some extra $ will certainly come in handy.  Put on your wings and flap over to the wine tasting and silent auction to help our our friend and give her some peace of mind about her big challenge.

 We want you well and smiling at us over our CandP Coffee, Jewel!

    Piece of jewelry by Rebekah Jaramillo  Designs
   Tennis lessons with Russ Childers
   Holiday photo session
   Lift tickets to local Ski resort
   C & P Gift Basket
   Massage session with local massage therapist
   Hand painted and crafted birch veneer poodle toy chest by local artists, Phil Yates          and Jennifer Carrasco
                                                 ......and many more treasures.........

WOOF!  Come to the Auction!

Book Announcement! Surfer Otters with Attitude!

The book!  The book!  (will be published and on it's way to my place by September 18!)

It's called "Lotus and the Golden Pearl" and it's written by Libby Pink(lotusandthegoldenpearl.com) and illustrated by me. First book for me to illustrate, and I loved it.

It's a little book (5x7"), what they call a chapter book in the trade, just right for next Christmas/Hanakuh stocking stuffers and our meager budgets ($8.95 each plus shipping and handling..which will vary, depending on how many books are ordered)

Anyhow, the writer, Libby Pink, the book designer, Shannon McCafferty, and the editor, Ceci Miller and I (the illustrator) collaborated online to turn out this marvelous story of how a young girl named Lotus brings peace to the animals living on a magical island.  A combination of her own bravery (imagine allowing yourself to be transported to an island in the beak of a giant pelican!, )the help of a magic pearl and more than magic white deer, and the cooperation (non partisan, folks) of the animals help deal with some very aggressive otter surfer Dudes.

 

Jade, the big sister otter is REALLY MEAN and very aggressive.  She tries to drown Lotus, but Lotus calls on her magic pearl and is saved.

 

And Zack, the more laid back Surfer Dude otter, comes to the aid of Lotus when he realizes that peace is the better option.  And little Dakota, the youngest otter....well, she is more concerned with eating clams than anything else.

 

 

In this exciting adventure story, Lotus gets to sleep in a beyond-cool bedroom inside a giant conch shell, and talks with animals. (Everyone takes turns to give their opinions...no screeching and yelling at these town hall meetings!)  And the awesome finale...well, you'll have to read it and see.....

 

If you are interested in ordering a book, contact me (upper right hand corner) and I'll put you on my list. (and confirm when I find out the shipping and handling....it's usually about 4 to 5 bucks a package)

By the way, I did all of the interior illustrations in Daniel Smith Lunar Black watercolor, which is utterly divine for illustrating.  It looks like graphite drawings, doesn't it? And frankly, it is nice to work small for a change...I like working back and forth in scale.  It prevents dotage.

And, a reminder, if you are in the area and would like to take my watercolor class that starts on September 8, 6 to 8 pm at CandP coffee house, send me an e-mail and I'll give you the details and what you need.  The fee is $120 per 6 units of classes.

Ditto for the Plein Aire extravaganza on Sept.11 and 12.....

And, very important.  My beautiful little cousin Lucy was my model for Lotus!

Queen of Heaven

 

I signed the contract with the card company today.  38 images, all copyrighted and in card format.  This image will come out with others of the same ilk (see medieval girl.) The company asked me to tone down the background into more of  a garnet color, because they felt it would look richer.

All this was A LOT OF WORK.  I learned far more about PhotoShop than I ever really cared to learn, but I guess I am a Better Person for learning it.  (Frankly, I'm tired of building my character.)  My mother used to tell me to "offer it up". Catholic, of course.

Speaking of Catholic, the title comes from the Litany to Mary at the end of the mass.
I always loved the titles the priest would call out.... "Rose of Sharon", "Tower of Gold", "House of Ivory", and the congregation would murmur, "Queen of Heaven,Rejoice, Allelulia" while incense billowed around the priest and the altar boys and the light streamed through the stained glass window above the altar. 

I am not a practicing Catholic now, but a few years ago I restored the painted marble  pillars and the baptismal font of the pretty little Gothic altar in my former church. It was very peaceful and familiar, painting a faux marble finish on the plaster pillars and listening to Mozart.  The priest lent me his tapes, and I played my favorite, the Requiem, again and again.

I wrote a poem about the Virgin after the project....about the difference between our plain statue of Mary and the glamour of the Spanish/Filipino Marys kept by the old families in Manila and brought out once a year for processions.

I hardly recognized Filipino Catholocism as being Catholic....it was so mystical and contained more than a few aspects of the old Malay culture.  Same religion?  I don't think so.

Procession of Virgins

Tonight Manila frees
God’s mothers
from  glass boxes
in the living rooms 
of old mestizo families.
At twilight the Madonnas  lurch
from somber gates,
their altars hoisted
on the gleaming backs
of praying men.


Ave, Maria de Santa Rosa, the Virgin of Sampoloc.
Ave,  Queen of Sorrows from Binondo.
 You and your sisters show pale faces
 like the tilted eyes of God,
ivory ovals in a radiance
 of crinkled hair and diadems.

My childhood gods were plain.
The church placed prim
among the ordered neighborhoods,
where Mary was the patron saint
of varnished pews.

Blandly, she and Jesus smiled
on farmers and their women;
the mothers with their babies
crying in the back.
I’d fidget in my seat, and dream
of  boys and high adventure
while glancing idly
 at the blank
of Mary’s face,
her plastic flowers,
 lacy curtains at her feet.

Where you, Madres, your Spanish brilliance spikes
 a retinue of comets in the dark.
Your generators surge, electric candles
urge light across moire, along your goitered neck,
and snag on jeweled ears, the lace at breasts and cuff.

 Your light slaps facets on  sweating walls,
spins glamour out of filthy ground
and clothes the  beggars squatting by canals.
Tonight you scatter glitter in the streets
where day shows only garbage,
circling dogs,
and slinking rats.

Royal Birds

 

OK, OK.  More birds.  A card company is picking up a lot of my images for greeting cards.  Keep checking and I'll have more information for you.  I may be offering the line on my website! 

This bird, Le Piaf de Foo Foo,  descends from nobility, but due to reduced circumstances, he has had to run a bed and breakfast in his chateau-in-the trees.  Although he still has his family coronet and a star or two up under his wing, he has had to go out in the world to feather his nest.  Hopefully, his modeling fee will help defray his expenses.  His image will appear on Christmas cards all over Canada and the US next year and we both will benefit.

Merci beaucoup, mon cher Monsieur.

Chinoiserie Cockatoo

My friend and photographer, Gary Van Est, came all the way down from Friday Harbor to photograph details of a chinoiserie room I did for some other friends, Ann and Jim Sobieck.  I'm putting the images into a line of cards with a company called Emory Burton (local Seattle folk), and I had forgotten how pretty that style can be.

I have to face it.  I am a true decorative artist.   Don't have the chops for Sturm and Drang.  Once in a while (like at 3 in the morning) when the darkness crowds in, I can turn out something profound and heart wrenching, but most of the time I do pretty real good. I think it stems from my early exposure to china patterns.

Oh well, to take a line from a poem by Jack Gilbert, "To make injustice the only measure of our attention is to praise the Devil"  We do need to have a few lovely Tiepolo clouds drifting across our stormy existence.

I'll be putting a few more of these images (just what is it with you and birds, Jennifer?) out from time to time as my own small donation to the Bank of Beauty.

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.

Fa la la

 More riffs on the Nutcracker

Wardrobe Fowlup
  
 Pas De Duck


    Cossack Cheep Dance


And, alas...a holiday reflection on my IRA.  "Holiday Hedgefund"