Artistic Inspiration

Saguaro National Park

I love taking walks on nature trails in the woods, parks, or desert scrublands. I recently was in Tucson, Arizona and had the good fortune to explore some of Sabino Canyon, an arid natural area on the northeast side of the city replete with trails for walking, biking, and hiking. I was visiting with friends who likewise enjoy getting out in nature, though they aren’t looking for artistic inspiration. I love the fresh air, the trees, the play of clouds across the sky. I love being out in all of it strolling along looking for whatever new or exciting thing awaits me. I’m not looking for big vistas. I’m looking for the details, the color changes, the unusual. I’m trying to find what others might have missed, or if not, at least provide a different perspective on the ordinary.

Sabino Canyon Waterway

It was a beautiful sunny day as we meandered along the dry walkway through the canyon. Cactuses were just beginning to bloom and the snow melt from the Santa Catalinas were providing a torrent of water through the arroyo, cascading over a spillway that usually formed a trickle. The air was fresh and warm. My mind was half tuned to the conversation while trying to explore the images in front of me. The Palo Verde trees cast shadows on themselves from a rising sun, thin elegant branches shaded onto their smooth olive green bark. Saguaro pointed skyward and outward, people in disguise. I wasn’t used to their playfulness so I kept smiling at their poses. My friends caught the mood and we posed in front of several to become saguaros ourselves.

A Massive Saguaro Reaching Skyward

Being creative doesn’t have to be serious.

The cactuses seemed like natural subjects. Beyond the saguaros there was so much variety – a host of chollas, prickly pear, bunny ears, teddy bears, Arizona fishhook. Their colors and shapes dotted the otherwise barren earth, providing food and shelter to a whole cast of characters, mostly unseen, there in the desert. We saw unidentified birds flitting about in the Mesquite and Palo Verde, and others like the common Road Runner scuttling about the underbrush. But there was a lot in hiding, like the mountain lions and bobcats we’d been warned about. And rattlesnakes. Low lying signs at the edges of the paths cautioned us to beware. I kept watching but I never saw one. I’m sure they knew better than to show themselves with all the daytime hikers and bicyclists about. But a girl can dream.

Cactuses of various types

Before we left I heard an insistent cascading call from a clump of trees. Sitting on a high branch at the top of the mesquite was a thin shiny black bird with a pronounced crest and skinny long ebony tail. He kept up his calls and seemed unfazed by my slow movement in his direction. He looked nonchalantly upward and side to side in apparent disinterest at my close proximity. A quick search on my phone told me he was a Phainopepla, a northern representative of the mostly tropical silky flycatcher family. They feed mainly on mistletoe berries, which we had seen in abundance. I lacked the right kind of camera and lens to get a good close up of this fascinating little bird, but I noted his name, delighted to have added him to my list.

These are the kinds of experiences I long for to feed my creativity. Even if I don’t get a lot of pictures, as happened this day, I feel renewed by the presence of so much wonder and beauty around me. Especially in those places we least expect it.

Watercolor Workshop!!

It’s been a while since I taught a watercolor workshop, but a couple weeks ago I sat down with 8 willing and eager participants at Ephemera Paducah to help them navigate the idiosyncrasies of all things watercolor. Thanks to Kristin Williams’ superior market skills at Ephemera, my two-day class was full with a small waiting list.

Painting in progress in an earlier workshop

This workshop, like the ones I’ve conducted in the past, was for anyone with an interest in learning more or trying their hand at this challenging media. I’ve been at this for nearly 40 years, and I still learn new ways to make watercolor work its magic. Even I have my challenges, one of which is becoming a more adept teacher. I lean heavily on my experiences with past teachers who taught me in workshops and classes as I was starting out. And then I’ve picked up some tricks that I found to work well for me.

From an earlier workshop

We started the first day with practicing wet-on-wet washes to get the hang of handling brushes and how much paint to apply versus water. The key is learning that balance – too little water and the paint won’t flow, too much and you either lose your color or produce “blooms,” thin areas of color with ruffled edges. Both extremes are things you want to avoid.

Tropical beach demo – with salt, masking, and applying Saran Wrap, this demo has it all!

From there my eight charges followed along as I demo’ed a tropical beach scene with a rocky outcrop just off shore with waves crashing behind it and three palm trees in the foreground. I love this picture because there’s a lot going on in terms of technique. Apply some salt at the bottom edge of the blue sky wash and you get the effect of wild spray. Crumple a piece of Saran Wrap into the wet wash in the foreground and you have gentle beach waves once the paint dries.

The second day I introduced a more challenging subject to learn more about painting wet-on-wet as well as how to paint reflections. Again, I provided the step-by-step demo as they followed along, guiding them through the process.

Mermet Lake Blooming – finished painting

It really is true that when you teach something if you’re doing it right you come away learning as much as your students. Demonstrating forces me think about the techniques I’m teaching, and giving them voice helps to reinforce them in my own mind. At the completion of the lesson I also love seeing my students’ results. It’s always amazing to me to see their interpretation of the image I start with. Each painting has its own style and feeling. The tonality, movement, expression, in spite of starting from the same vantage point, are all unique. That’s one of my favorite things about doing workshops.

Stay tuned for more – I’m planning my next one for early Spring 2019.

Reflections On Vevey From A Hill In Rhineland

Lake Geneva from Vevey

Coming to the end of our first week in Europe, we find ourselves in Bacharach, Germany, a quaint medieval village from the 1100’s. We’ve managed three countries in this first week, though it seems a lot longer than that. Starting in Paris I began to adjust to the travel life like Dave and I managed back in 2005 when we rounded the globe in 70 days. Like then, we planned and are managing the trip on our own. It can be hectic and stressful because you figure the details out for yourself, and sometimes as you go. So train connections, like getting here today, take some patience as you find the track and figure out the system the particular country uses. Humming along in the train always brings me back to those past trips and I feel that connection to the groove of our previous times on the road.

Corinne and me

We stayed with our artist friend, Corinne, in Vevey, Switzerland, which took our breath away. The beauty of the towering mountains that came down to the edges of Lake Geneva, enveloping it in their embrace was indescribable. We’re already thinking about how to make it back there and experience more of Lake Geneva.

On our first day in Vevey Dave and I took the Vevey lake tour which rounded the eastern part of the lake into Montreux and beyond and then back to Vevey. The day was cloudless with a cool breeze as we skirted the lakeshore. A group of high school students on a trip lounged on the ferry deck with us, laughing and being boisterous as teenagers are wont to do.

Fairmont Le Montreux Palace, Montreux

Grand hotels and houses from the Bell Epoch period lined the shores at each city, throwbacks to the early twentieth century when excesses were all the rage. With life as it is more than a century on, I wondered if anything had changed.

Hotel in Montreux

Driving north out of town the second day we realized that besides being an area prominent for wine (and stunning landscape), we were in the land of cows. Lots of them, and all looking not very much like the ones from home.

What? No cows?!

Swiss cows come in cinnamon brown and dusky tan with charcoal markings. Their bodies and heads are blockier. The rolling hills, bordered by mountains, were a patchwork of corn, wheat, and pasture with cows grouped in clumps looking decidedly bucolic. I wanted to hug them.

Gruyere

We drove to Gruyere where there’s a castle and a walled city. Lots of cheese. I’ll let you guess which kind. We had fondue and a special kind of Swiss dried beef that was like heaven. Paper thin and with a creamy, smooth taste. More like a mild ham than beef. Dill pickles and pickled pearl onions to accompany it all.

Handmade wheat jewelry

After lunch we strolled around the town’s main street looking at German tchotchkes and signs with cranes, the city’s symbol. It seemed a fitting place since it was a symbol on our wedding invitation.

Gruyere’s symbol, the crane, as a hotel’s logo

From Gruyere, Corinne took us to Mont Cheseause, which is little more than a restaurant at the end of a winding country road overlapped with trees and studded with a delightful farmstead here and there.

At road’s end. What a delightful place!

At the restaurant, we got two different tarts topped with creme, one with raspberries and the other a condensed apple that was the color of apple butter and the consistency of a firm custard. Nothing like it in the world!

Corinne and I waiting for dessert!

We ate at a small covered outdoor terrace in the back overlooking a grand sweeping valley with the Alps rising across the way into jagged peaks. A bit of the sublime.

We drove back toward Vevey, coming into the upper winding streets, high on the hill above the lake. Corinne found a parking spot near one of the grand hotels so we could go in and look at the view from their restaurant terrace.

Overlooking the lake from upper Vevey

Walking down some steps we noticed an older woman, perhaps 70, waiting by the outdoor elevator with her rolling bag. Standing next to the railing there, overlooking the lake and mountains beyond, we began talking about our day and what we’d seen. She suddenly spoke, saying it was so unusual to hear English and asking if we’d been to the monastery on the hill above. No, Corinne told her, we’d not seen it. “I just happened to see the sign. You should go there, it’s so peaceful.” When Corinne countered that we were running out of time, the woman said, “You have to follow your own way. I’ve been all over and would do much more, but my body isn’t what it once was. My mind still wants to, but the body has its limitations.” I stood next to her as she spoke, looking at me and over my shoulder to Corinne and Dave. Her eyes were an intense blue and her voice a soothing alto. Beyond reason I instantly felt drawn to her and realized I was on the verge of tears. Her words flowed over me like a balm, and I sensed something in the moment that went beyond mere words or language or even logic. I restrained myself from hugging her, though that was my instinct. She bade us all goodbye and strode away down the stairs, saying I had beautiful eyes. Or so Dave and Corinne told me. I had not heard that part, stunned to feel the tears rolling down my cheeks and wondering what had just occurred. “It was beautiful,” Corinne assured me.

Magical place, indeed.

The eastern end of Lake Geneva from upper Vevey

In Dedication

I work two sides of my brain and sometimes it feels like neither functions very well. At this certain age I suppose that’s to be expected. They say doing complex activities keeps the dimentia at bay, and if that’s the case I should never have to worry. To help feed my creative side, at least until I’m “discovered,” I work as a nurse a couple days a week. In spite of the work being extremely stressful and sometimes down right impossible, I love what I do.

Nurses don’t always get a lot of credit. Doctors are canonized and are portrayed in heroic parts in movies and TV shows. But those of us in the trenches know it’s absolutely true that you better have a good, smart, savvy nurse when your body starts sending signals it’s trying to check out early. So this Spring I thought it might be nice to do something a little special for my fellow comrades-in-arms. Something more than a carnation (one hospital I worked for in the past gave all its nurses a carnation on Nurses’ Day) or the hospital-wide activities that aren’t specific enough to let each of those I work with know how special they are.

Four Seasons

So I did what I do best with the side of my brain that “relaxes” when I’m at work as a nurse. I painted a picture that could be turned into a banner with each of their names on it. It didn’t take a lot to sell the idea to my manager, and I’m happy to say that if you come to my unit, one of the first things you’ll see when you step off the elevator is my banner. People notice and I like to think it’s made a difference.

Nurse for all seasons, which is exactly what we are.

I love my job because I love the people I work with. They’re an incredible group of people who care desperately about the patients who find themselves on our unit.

I hope you’re never “lucky” enough to meet us there.

“Four Seasons”

Watercolor on paper

15″ X 22″

$650