Red Shoes

Encaustic adventure…..

Encaustic - meaning "to burn into"- is an art form I thought I would leave on the 'back burner,' so to speak for a good while yet.  However, an adventurous artist from our Big Sky Artists' group, who is also a fantastic teacher, agreed to give us a class and these are my results.

lower part of picture below

Encaustic applications date back to ancient Greece when it was used to highlight statues. Egyptians used it to decorate vases and tombs and later, it was used for icon paintings.  This is an art form which uses hot waxes and paints and at times must have been rather dangerous and toxic.  It became less popular once oil paints made the application of colour much easier.  Now, with the development of new products, coloured beeswaxes, special irons and heat resistant papers and materials, this art form is becoming more common.

Some artists use a thicker form of the wax on canvas and use it in conjunction with acrylics/oils.  In the class, we simply used a special type of 'waxy' paper, specially made coloured wax blocks, and small hot irons. A stylizing tool was also available but I didn't get to it.

I was intrigued by the variety of marks one can make simply with the iron! Anyway, here are my results with a few 'close ups' as well.

 This is supposed to be a fantasy landscape…  It is the largest one at 8" x 12"

 

Here I was thinking of canola fields.
6" x8"

Below, in the enlargement of part of this picture, you can see some drops of wax.  If one was to pour the wax it would be much thicker - but that would also entail a whole other work place.

 
 The ones below are 4" x 6" and were the result of trying out the 'technique' of using the iron.

 

 

on this one you can see the shape of the iron quite clearly

  

This is an enlargement of the bottom left corner of the picture above.  

There are fascinating pictures within pictures.

the Cottage Garden

In this world of white, grey, and blue - when the clouds move aside to let us see the open sky,  green is virtually nowhere to be found.  Our evergreens, where they are not covered in snow, seem almost black.

Strangely, in the stillness and bleakness of winter we still have visions of the garden.  We dream of the first green shoot to push aside the last snow crystals, we delight in planning new garden spaces, search for places to purchase new and unusual perennials, or look for a seed source for that heirloom carrot we long to taste.

Having had an English grandmother, who loved to spend time in her garden, and who took the time one spring to help me seed and then tend and harvest about 15 different herbs, I have always had an interest in the "Cottage Garden." While one might think that such gardens have been around 'forever', according to Anne Scott-James in, The Cottage Garden, while the English cottage garden has achieved the status of a legend it is not nearly as old as we like to think.  In fact it is difficult to find even the 'flimsiest record of a good cottage garden' before the second half of the eighteenth century.

Interestingly, artists did a lot to encourage people to see small places as beautiful places.  From about the 1860's water-colour painters viewed the cottage garden as a "background to family happiness. In dappled sunshine, slender young mothers hang up their snow-white washing; pretty little girls in pinafores and sun-bonnets tend geese on the green; small boys go fishing with worms and a pin; there are halcyon hours of birds' - nesting and bluebell - picking; in the gardens, fruit-trees blossom and sunflowers peep over the hedge.  Every picture tells a happy story, and the cottage garden has become an idyll."

In these days and in this place, where greenery is virtually non-existent outside for 6 - 8 months of the year, we bring the garden inside by taking myriads of photographs.  Somehow, I feel like each summer I should be outside with my paints and easel painting the garden… more often I find my camera in hand rather than a paint brush.  I have found that it is during the winter that I actually spend time painting garden plants and flowers.

As I stood by the window looking at a backyard filled with snow, a path running diagonally across it to the compost, and chickadees seeking out their particular seed from the bird dish on the gazebo deck, I loved the whiteness, the grey, and the splash of blue as the sun began to push the clouds away.  I realize that I need both - the warmth and comfort of the garden and the stark white clarity of the snow.  This is reflected in our house renovations as well.  While the main level is a place of warmth and colour, the upstairs level is fast becoming white, cool blues and greens, with a bit of colour…  In a strange way the contrasting palettes complement each other.  An interesting topic of its own to pursued another day!

This fall has resulted in two 'garden' paintings:  Rhubarb #3 and Hosta Garden - this latter is based on a photo from my sister's wonderful Cottage Garden where hostas reign supreme in a large area.  The rhubarb paintings are shown in my last blog.

Here is the just completed, Hosta Garden.

Attending to Rhubarb

"Attention"

A few thoughts from the book, Lost in Wonder by Esther de Waal:

"Time and again the writer, the artist, the poet will remind us that we are living in a transparent world, and that all we have to do is to open our eyes and to see - as they see.  Sometimes they jolt us with a shock of surprise which forces us to look anew at something which we had failed to see, whether through over familiarity, or laziness, or because of the speed with which we habitually live and work... It may mean opening our eyes to what we had not noticed, and perhaps something that hitherto we had not regarded as worthy of attention...

Something not apparently beautiful becomes beautiful as one sees afresh.  The actual place may not be so important; it does not matter in the end if it is a gentle Welsh hillside or an untidy table.  It is the eye which counts.  The eye can be entranced by a street scene as much as a scene of natural beauty."

If one looks long enough at almost anything,
looks with absolute attention at a flower,
a stone,
the bark of a tree,
grass, snow, a cloud,
something like revelation takes place.
Something is 'given',
and perhaps that something
is always a reality outside the self.  [May Sarton]

I've completed three paintings of rhubarb now, all slightly different and I feel like I have a long ways to go to have the beauty and complexity of the tangle of stalks and leaves revealed.  This time I used a different green than before and the leaves are much brighter.  Each time I complete one, I say, "Never again!" but I'm often drawn back to them... but perhaps I will try swiss chard next.

Doing these types of paintings [planned, plodding, wash after wash] are rather meditative for me - that is, I must slow down and calmly work through them, a little bit of leaf here, a bit more there, one wash of paint after another, [but only after the first is completely dry!], learning I hope not to muddy the light.  I am often confused by the curly leaves and the variation in colour of the stalks which wind around one another, vying for a spot in the light.

Paying attention, to me means, seeing the jumble of stalks and leaves, but not needing to untangle or dissect or change it in any way... simply liking and observing the tangled mess.  I do know though that I prefer rhubarb in the garden to rhubarb on my plate!

A splash of colour....

This year, more than any other since we have lived here, has proved to be a year of colour in our yard.   I've mapped out the various garden spaces and have identified 10 different corners. A bit hard to see here but there really are at least 10 areas - a few corners I've rolled into one.... you might be able to make out the letters on the map and identify them with the list and pictures with the same letter.

Because friends have spoken of their love of lilies and said, "wow" when I mentioned that I had counted 19 different ones in our yard I thought I would gather them here - it will also be important come fall or next spring when I plan to make the needed changes to our 'yardscape' due to the loss of our two giant weeping willows this past year.

So here goes - they range from white to black!  well, almost black.

  our only two 'day lilies'

 

another 'peach' coloured lily - lovely!

burgundy - and somewhat fragile

a very 'fragile' peach coloured lily

  

 double petals

Garden inspirations...

Green is my favourite colour! But it is made more special by splashes of colour. Without the green the flowers would 'overwhelm' me, but together they naturally complement the other - without both the garden would be less... 

 

A few lines from John O’Donohue’s “In Praise of the Earth”

Let us bless

The imagination of the Earth.

That knew early the patience

To harness the mind of time,
Waited for the seas to warm,

Ready to welcome the emergence

Of things dreaming of voyaging

Among the stillness of land.

And how light knew to nurse

The growth until the face of the Earth

Brightened beneath a vision of color...

 

Let us thank the Earth

That offers ground for home

And holds our feet firm

To walk in space open

To infinite galaxies…

The wonder of a garden

Trusting the first warmth of spring

Until its black infinity of cells

Becomes charged with dream;

Then the silent, slow nurture

Of the seed’s self, coaxing it

To trust the act of death…

I am amazed by what the Earth brings forth in the summer garden.  After long months of snow and cold I long to soak in as much greenery and splashes of colour as I can – the feel, the scents, the visual beauty – to hold it close and carry it with me for future reference.

 

This summer I mean to document the flowers and plants of the garden as, due to the loss of two huge willows this winter, our yard of shade has been transformed into a yard of light.  This means a few changes in garden structure and plant locations are in the works for this coming fall. 

The following then documents some of our flowers so far:

 

my favourite daylily!

A new Red Rose - specific names escape me!! But this is the first bloom which opened today.

Dahlia - a new flower for us this summer but we love it!

one of our first flowers out, this iris always impresses and is a promise of more to come

 

our first hydrangea - growing beautifully 

the Daisies bloom unabashedly by the front sidewalk!

in a sheltered hidden place in the front garden

Mock Orange - one of my favourite scents!

first flowers out - Nanking Cherry