Happy Mother's Day

I found this tender image by Claughton Pellew at scribd.com.

Illustration Friday: Revenge

At a time in my life when vengeful and resentful thoughts haunted my mind, these words of Jesus helped to change my feelings. I did not suppress the resentful thoughts but used them as reminders to repeat Jesus' words to myself. After a week or so the resentment died away and was replaced by love and emotional freedom.

Claughton Pellew

Quietness of a shepherd leading his flock in the predawn cold, a passing train shedding a different kind of light from a different kind of place, soon to leave the shepherd in quiet again. From The Bookroom Art Press.

I have discovered a new to me artist, Claughton Pellew (1890-1962).  He was English, a Catholic convert, a conscientious objector who spent World War One in jail. He lived with his wife, artist Emma Tennent way out in the country, used a bike instead of a car, used paraffin lamps instead of electricity, loved rural England. He is, as far as I can tell, little known. His face in this photograph moves me. It seems to express purity of motive, sensitivity and vision.

Here are a few of his woodcuts. The next is from the blog Modern Printmakers. You might want to go there to learn a little more about Pellew.

These are from A Polar Bear's Tale.

Illustration Friday: Vanity

Vanity means not only conceit and excessive interest in appearance, but also (and more basically) emptiness, meaninglessness and futility--as in "our efforts and hopes were in vain." I tried to express the opposite of this week's prompt.

This is an image that has been rattling around in my head for awhile. I did most of it late, late last night when I couldn't sleep. I want to try it again, make it bigger and more complex, make the waves more watery, put some fruit, flowers or more birds in the tree.

Update--

Well, I just tried to upload to Illustration Friday, but I'm too late. The new prompt is already up--"revenge." I might have to do another opposite!

Spring beauties

When I was in high school my art teacher loaned me a large book about the art of Andrew Wyeth. It was love at first sight for his drybrush and egg tempera paintings, with their dull, restrained colors, tight brush strokes, and sharp details. I loved how the images were realistic and believable but charged with dreamlike, mysterious significance. They evoked a feeling of longing in me for I didn't know what. I haven't looked at Andrew Wyeth much lately, but the spring beauties blooming in the woods nearby put me in mind of this 1943 drybrush painting, Spring Beauty.

Andrew Wyeth once said, "The great danger of the Pyle school is picture making." (His father and only teacher, the great illustrator N.C. Wyeth, was taught by illustrator Howard Pyle. Many great illustrators were taught by Howard Pyle.)  I'm not sure I know what he meant, but I wonder if this painting might count as a "picture,"  an exquisitely observed picture of tree roots, a spring beauty blossom and a maroon and green-streaked skunk cabbage blossom.  To me it does not have the charged, abstract power of his later works. Not that I miss it in this piece. Picture or not, I like this painting very much.

The younger kids and I went into the woods this afternoon. They played in a sandy spot where the sun was warm while I did very quick sketches of them, of violets, and of spring beauties, shown here.

They're not much to look at, but that's not the point. I wasn't working on making art but on making an artist. I haven't been doing enough of that lately, so I'm trying to squeeze short bouts of sketching into odd moments when I can't do much else anyway. 

That bit of wisdom from Danny Gregory is crucially important to remember if you are prone to discouragement as an artist.

Illustration Friday: Natural

We slept with windows open last night, and the air was cool and sweet, easy to breathe. The spring peepers were out--little tree frogs that make a soothing, trilling sound at night. I seem to remember them being louder in past springs. Though they can survive freezing to a certain extent, our bitter winter must have killed off a lot of them during their hibernation.

I sketched these fawn lilies in the woods last spring. Lucy found some blooming yesterday and more today, but I have not been out to look at them yet. Another, uglier name for them is dogtooth violet. (Why ever?) Their bulbs were a food of the native peoples of this region, and I've heard that in very early spring they taste sweet like corn on the cob. I've wanted to harvest some bulbs ever since I learned about them, but I never think of it at the right time, which is very early in spring before their leaves come out.

I used graphite and white Prismacolor on kraft paper, which got wet and wrinkly at some point. For me, unfortunately, that sort of thing comes naturally.

Alleluia! Christ is risen!

 The Resurrection, by Matthias Grunewald.