I am still not using the Roofing House- too cold and wet. There is very little damage, I got everything out in time, and I like the split, having my watercolors at home, and the more rough materials here. There will be some work to do once the weather dries out.
I inherited a stack of ecru dinner napkins, and last year was playing with acrylic inks. They are so absorbent it is hard to lay down a brush stroke. Maybe they need to be damp. Hmm, that can be arranged. I used flow-aid in places, and some folding and transfer.
Against the advice of our keepers, we snuck off to Santa Rosa to visit a mask-free paradise of art and food and friends. The tree, as ever, was crazy spectacular, and YT has a wide selection of fireplace videos. I took a book of Edward Curtis photos, and came back with a large monograph on Monet, and a tiny vintage travel set of winsor-newton watercolors.
Excellent food and drink, hikes, and post-holiday thrifting. The return to Berkeley has been productive. I am mixing media, playing with brush lettering, and touching up old pages.
vintage w/n set; sennellier travel tin with 6 additional colors
It has been a long time since I have done any calligraphy practice. I just downloaded some classes, and am starting out by filling some warmup pages. In January I’ll be back at the desk with an oblique pen and some sparkly new inks from Fox and Quills, LA, CA, USA. Until then, happy new year, everyone.
Oh dear, the rains have come, and I am so happy except . . . the Roofing House, nestled as it is in a redwood grove, is damp and dark and suddenly all my sketchbooks and papers and other frail things have to be moved. Again. I brought a stack of books in and wiped down the covers, but tins of watercolors and drawing papers and source materials and sketchbooks need to be boxed up and moved to Essex Street for the winter.
I have some classes lined up to download, calligraphy and figure drawing and portraiture, I can just as easily- perhaps more easily- work from there.
One thing I did this fall was these little maquettes, possible prototypes, like 3D printing, only done by hand. Can’t get a better photo right now with everything packed up, but here is the krop-otkin bumper sticker prototype, and the word “wood” built up from paint to look like wood.
Oh well, upload won’t load. Just as well. It’ll be my little secret
Creative expression- a giant wood pile we converted to a sunny 9.5×10.5′ “patio”, two folding adirondack chairs I found on the street and painted, a rusty sewing machine I wired as a night light; a balsa wood model Spitfire I got from a gardening client, a sketch of a big rat the cat left for us; and my new blue blockers.
There is a strange thing I am experiencing with acrylic paint.
Early in the day on Wednesday September 22 I brushed a glaze of gloss medium and phthalocyanine blue onto an old canvas, and also did some collage with a different bottle of gloss medium.
That afternoon I was using Liquitex chromium oxide green that I had earlier transferred to a jar, and thinned with medium and a bit of local spring water (w/ iron and who knows what else!). The paint in the jar was creamy consistency, but when I put my wet brush in it, the paint on the brush came away clotted, like miniature cottage cheese curds.
I put that aside, put a bit of fresh tube chrome green in a clean dish, and used a clean brush with distilled water- the same thing. I tried a clean, dry brush, other paints, other brands, so far, everything immediately turns to clots.
Golden fluid acrylics green-gold reacts to a clean brush w distilled water.
I am trying to paint without brushes –or painting the clumps out with a stiff brush, as in painting on bare wood which I did last night. In the case of the gold paint suddenly skinning over – no. After a few minutes exposed to air, mixing turned it to a strange solid mass without any sticking power.
a clump of Liquitex BASICS tube gold- a small bit of Golden interference blue cottage cheese on the right side.Daler-Rowney bottled Phthalo Blue seems ok! Very liquid. Very old.
So far Palette knives seem ok.
So, What? Extreme heat this summer? dehydration? sunspots? redwood pollen? Three outer planets retrograde in Capricorn . . ? I had used windex on a sheet of glass nearby last week, and am feeling some kind of residue on my hands today.
I am pretty sure ash and resin from the crazy smoke and fires settled on my brushes, activated the polymers and caused them to clump, and/or quickly skin over.
I had seen a similar reaction once when I accidentally put rubbing alcohol in paint. I have a lot of (mostly) old paint, never had this happen before, except thickening through evaporation, often resolved by thinning w/ medium. Old paint just dries up.
So, cleaning all brushes, palettes, rags, glass working surface with clean water.
Meanwhile, cottage cheese might be a fine texture/technique, worth playing with, until I get this sorted, and/or, go shopping.
California is aflame- we went camping but had to head north because Yosemite was booked and the forests were being evacuated. After a smoky and daunting Monday and night at 9600+ feet- -Pacific Coast Trailhead parking at Sonora Pass- -we came home Tuesday, to awake Wednesday September 9 to Mars Stationing in Aries, and a red-orange sky that lasted all day.
“Sinister!” “Apocalyptic!” shouted the headlines– Dorcas posted an interesting article about the scattering of blue light by the amount of ash in the air. There was little smoke at this altitude (600 feet, about) and for me, it was “Beautiful!” “Fascinating!” and that sort of thing. I only wish I’d spent more time out in it, maybe get a blue tan?
facing south 9 am, a true color, and ash falling9 AM, facing eastchannel 2 news- we had camped just south of the clear spot below South Tahoe/Markleeville
more experiments with color- my special simple meatballs and zebra farfalle. the original vodka cream sauce was much more orange, but then I added a can of diced tomatoes. The peas make it, tho.
After months of everything being closed–and getting so much done because of it–a camping trip. We headed up Highway 50 to the American River, looking for an area we had been to before, but couldn’t find it. We pulled into a parking lot at Big Meadow Trailhead as it was getting dark. The campground nearby was closed to traffic, and we weren’t really set up for a hike-in, especially with rain on the horizon. In the morning we took a 6+mile round-trip hike to Round Lake. It started to rain as we returned to the van, –so we spent another night.
Amazing things happened when people kept telling us about LAKES we should visit, and we ended up at three different areas: beautiful Burnside lake, which we hiked halfway around- and I think? hiked this meadow.
Burnside Lake
a lovely meadow
Then we drove to Blue Lakes campground, where they had just opened six days before, and according to the Ranger “the bears don’t know we’re here yet”; and we filled all our water containers with clear sweet mountain water.
The next day we drove to South Tahoe to try out a brewery that had outdoor dining, excellent burgers, and couple of tasty beers. We then drove the Blue Lakes backroad to Forestdale Creek, which turns out to be the area the guy at the campground had recommended– we spent the night, and took two longs lovely hikes.
We also had an adventure when Art drove the Westy into a gutter, and a feller came over to share his extensive expertise which resulted in spinning one of my tires bald on slippery granite river rocks before we finally got the van dislodged and parked .
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