Illustration Friday: Spark

As I thought about this week's prompt, I got a mental image of some of the earliest

flowers of spring bright against the damp leaves of a forest floor.

!!!!!?!!!?!

Posted by Lucy

Last night it snowed!!!! Now before you say "Oh, it's so pretty!" please remember that it is March! And that I am making a series about spring! Once you have recalled these things, you may proceed to admire the landscape if you still wish to.

I must admit, I am slightly appreciative myself off and on. But I am so longing for spring and warm weather! Thus my reaction to the snow was and is very negative, in spite of its beauty. I wish we had a punctuation mark for angry eyebrows. However, illustrations are even better. This one expresses my feelings pretty well:

The weather prophets predict fifty degrees again on Friday, and for their sake, I sure hope they're right!        

Spring garland number one

Posted by Lucy

Today it was fifty degrees outside! After a winter of toe-numbing, ear-freezing, bone-chilling weather, that is very warm. So when I stuck my head out the door this morning, instead of slamming it closed, shaking my head and saying "Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!" I ran and put on three extra long-sleeved shirts (I couldn't find a sweater) and went outside. The  ground, soggy, muddy, covered with dead grass and leaves though it is, is beautiful to my eyes. It means that spring is on the way! Not that there isn't plenty of old snow still hanging around. It takes more than a day or two to melt two feet of snow. But spring is putting up a good fight, and the snowdrifts are slowly but surely melting away.

Today I am starting a series of posts called "spring garlands."  Every week I will make a garland of things I find growing outside. Here is the first one:

First (from left to right) is bittersweet, then a twig of some sort of boxwood type hedge (we're not entirely sure what it is), then a twig of pussywillow buds, followed by three pussywillow catkins. After that comes a twig of witch hazel, a twig of pine and lastly, some old grass and more "boxwood." Next week's garland will, hopefully, have more variety.    

An old favorite: Beatrix Potter's "The Tailor of Gloucester"

All week I have been looking forward to posting some new-to-me watercolors by English artist Eric Ravilious, but this morning when I woke up, I just wanted to share my favorite Beatrix Potter illustrations.

I love how decorative art is detailed in these pictures--painted china, lace and printed and embroidered fabric.

During the summer between my junior and senior year, I went to England with a college study program. We spent awhile in the beautiful, beautiful Lake District where Beatrix Potter lived. Some of the students went to see Beatrix Potter's farm, but not me. I am disgusted with myself, in retrospect, but at the time I had not realized my love for illustrated children's books or for old-timey, small-scale agriculture. Maybe someday I will get another chance to look at Beatrix Potter's house and furniture and china and garden.

The Tailor of Gloucester is one of my favorite books to read aloud. The story is as delightful as the pictures. 

I found these on The Tate Gallery website.

Illustration Friday: Voice

From my sketch-pile.

Her pocket is full of candles. She goes to children who are afraid of the dark and have bad dreams. She lights a candle and sings a beautiful dream.

Watercolor flowers by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, part two

These are botanical studies from Mackintosh's sketchbook. They are airy and lightly finished, somewhat stylized. I love the spare pencil lines and how leaves and blossoms overlap without obscuring each other.

I found these at the The Hunterian Gallery at the University of Glasgow.

I'm not making art, I'm making an artist.

For a period of time a few years ago I would stay up very late after my children were asleep and draw with colored pencils. It was partly an experiment to learn whether the joy of making art would make up for sleep deprivation. For awhile, the joy of making art won out. I felt happy and energized during the day even though I was tired, but in the long run I damaged my health by using dessert to fuel late nights. (No more sugar for me, and usually a decent amount of sleep.)

I was trying to become an artist. I would still my thoughts and see what image wanted to come out of me. I would take careful pauses to discern what colors to use, what lines to draw by giving my intuition space. I would wait quietly when I was unsure, and go ahead trusting my intuition when it spoke. I didn't use an eraser. If I made a mistake I let it stand to add irregular beauty. I learned  by doing and doing and doing. I didn't push myself or force anything and it all felt very easy. I didn't worry about it when I made drawings I didn't like much. I just kept moving. My motto at that time was "I'm not making art, I'm making an artist." I didn't finish much, but I filled a sketchbook with seed and reference material that I still use.

I'm in a different place now. I often try to make art. I often try to finish things, anyway. Right now I am struggling to finish a wax model for a pendant with a tree of life enclosed in a circle with a cross integrated into the design. Here I am working on an early version with my lovely assistant.

I want to make a beautiful, delicate, meaningful thing to cast in silver, but I am finding it difficult. I've started over twice. I expect to begin again once more. I feel half-guilty anxiety over taking so long over this one thing (a hold-over from paid-by-the-hour carving work.) A part of me wants to quit and do something easier so I can just get stuff done to fill up my Etsy store, but I also feel driven to stick with it. My husband says that's because I know I can do it. I am learning a lot about design and my craft, and I do expect at last to make something pretty to wear, yet the struggle is painful for reasons I don't fully grasp. I keep thinking of the last line of this passage from a favorite book, The Dean's Watch, by Elizabeth Goudge:

"It was a glorious clock.....The golden fret that hid the bell was the loveliest Isaac had ever made. The two swans were just rising from the reeds, one with wings fully spread, the other with his pinions half unfolded. Job could understand from experience, and the Dean through intuition, what an achievement it had been to form those great wings and curved necks into a pattern that was a fitting one for a clock fret and yet alive, but only Isaac had known how he had sweated and labored over it. It had been a costing clock."

This pendant I am making is a costing pendant. In the end I don't expect it to be my masterpiece, but it will certainly represent an important step in my skill development. I think I'm still making an artist more than I am making art. I am making an artist who not only knows how to follow the easy flow of intuition but also how to persevere in recovering from mistakes and solving (for me) difficult problems of design and craftsmanship.

wallpaper design by illustrator Walter Crane (1845-1915)