Where I'm From

Where I’m From

by Lisa Ikegami

 

I am from parsley and piggyback.

from “Man Alive” and the gladiolas 

when I picked the colors.

 

I’m from the place underneath the tinseled fir tree,

before the presents.

I’m from frozen feet squeaking in glitter-snow.

and from the crackling fire that burned blue.

 

I am from sweet lamb, sour cheese and olive oil.

I’m from YiaYia’s grapevine-covered picnic bench.

From shining black shoes and white lace tights

From golden domes echoing in Greek and pungent incense 

as thick as my soul.

 

I’m from inside my Dad’s old cigar box

scuffed by a rainbow of unwrapped crayons.

I am from Pink foam rollers.

From plastic yellow hula skirts, 

and sparkling rhinestone crowns.

 

I’m from hot pastrami and “All in the Family”.

From Tangerine life-savers

on the Greyhound Bus.

From anisette

and the clinking glasses in cupboard

During the tornado

 

I am from white-hot sand and sharp seashells, 

mouthfuls of salt water.

From olive-red sea-grape leaves shining like sun mirrors,

when every seagull had a name.

 

I had a spy club under a boat on the beach

where we kept all our secrets.

I felt the rain needling into my skin

when I raced home in a boat in a storm.

 

I am from faith, and hope, and boundless love,

somehow more than enough 

for just one lifetime.

~~~~

As I was working on an autobiographical picture book recently, I was reminded of this poem that I wrote last last year after hearing an amazing podcast on NPR. In the podcast, they read some of the submissions that were sent in as a response to the "Where I'm From" poetry phenomenon: writing poems about memories of home.

You can listen to this wonderful podcast here:  https://www.npr.org/2019/08/28/754698275/where-i-m-from-a-crowdsourced-poem-that-collects-your-memories-of-home

I've been lax about blogging, and haven't shared much here about my work for the past several years with writing and illustrating children's literature. However, I hope to start sharing more about this either here or on my website, ikegamiart.com The "Where I'm From" above touches on some themes from the picture book, (titled I'M GOING TO TONY'S HOUSE!), especially the first stanza. I hope to have the book out in the world someday, but in the meantime, I thought it was an appropriate time to share my little poem!

If you're so inspired to write one after listening to the podcast and the wonderful poet featured there, please share!

Light of Play

 It's funny how I'm often just barreling along with the art without conscious thought. Then, when called to come to a stopping point and reflect, it can be surprisingly challenging but - wow - REWARDING - to make heads or tails of what it is I've been doing. I was recently asked to write a title and brief description of an upcoming exhibit, and although what I wrote for the event is much briefer, I also wrote the following words. I knew I needed to give myself an understanding of where I was, so that tomorrow at the show, I can communicate it verbally to anyone who might have questions. It turns out, it required a lot of thinking. I credit my son Nicholas for prompting me as such.  

As a collection these pieces represent where I am presently creatively – I titled this exhibit “Light of Play”, because I am usually in a state of trying to communicate the experience of the world as seen through the eyes of a child. The reason for that, is that I feel many times I do see things in such a way. This is not only in childhood, but in times where we are at a place of peace, of joy; a time in our lives when there is wonder, when the everything coming to us is almost too much. Think of the word “wonder” as in “wonderful”- when things were in awe, but in a good way. For me personally, (and I’m not sure if we are all wired this way or not,) I remember seeing things not so much in ‘still life’ or ‘static’;  what comes to memory are things that are so difficult to explain- my memories overlap senses, sometimes they seem to move. You can think of this almost as today we have the “live” photos. A snapshot,, but not static - and what if you could also taste what you’re seeing, or hear it, or smell it, or a combination of several.

Many years ago I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder – as that is sometimes something that can destroy someone, there are gifts too. It took me many years of struggling to come to balance. Everything was fine for me as a design architect, and as a mom, until I fell into a very deep clinical depression many years ago. For many years I couldn’t produce anything at all, and then all at once I started to do so much fine art that I had to stop doing architecture. Since then I’ve been drawn into a sort of impressionism: My dad taught me as a young child, and I have a distinct memory of him stressing that painting from life is ESSENTIAL. I didn’t really understand completely why at the time, but the older I get the more I realize it is because by doing so, you access those parts of your brain that can overlap those senses. Feeling the air, seeing the nuances of the light as it moves, or the subject, smelling the flower or the fruit that you’re painting. 

The medium of alcohol ink on Yupo paper really allows me to express those emotions. I must let go and trust. I have to work very fast with the alcohol ink because it dries so fast, and so I’m having to rely on a different part of my brain than I usually do. I have to make very quick decisions. It absolutely delights me to no end that thinking more usually produces less. I feel like we all have so much in our subconscious that never sees the light of day. Accessing that part of me, I believe, allows me to make that connection – to be able to communicate. I like to think that in that level of the subconscious, we all have a lot in common. There’s a certain type of lighting inside that room in the brain. It looks a lot like the sunrise. Or just around the eclipse. Its cool and dappled. In that light, in the light we used to be in when we play and laugh and wonder. – that’s where we connect.

Nowadays I do paint also from photos, but not as a direct translation. In fact if I do try to translate a photo eye-to-hand it will completely die underneath me. The only way to truly make it come alive is to access that part of my mind that is memory.  For instance, If I’m painting from a photo of being near the sea, I have to feel it in my mind’s eye; I have to  remember everything that was happening when I took the picture for it to translate - to smell and taste the salt air, to see the sun dappling in real time, to feel the waves at my feet. 

I also paint now a lot just from my own minds eye with nothing in front of me. Being at my age and having done enough sketching from life has afforded me the ability to trust my hand. That trust is crucial to letting go and allowing my hand to make the changes it needs to – in order to tell the story. And still, pulling from memory.

The black-eyed susan piece came out of an interesting place of memory. I was actually talking to my son about it last night – he was asking me the story behind it, and I had to put it into words. It started with a photo actually. I take snapshots often, if I see something that sparks inspiration. In this case, it was great because I happened upon a photo I had taken of a large group of black-eyed Susans. I remembered that at the time of the photo, the experience was so overwhelming. Again, it was one of those moments, full of wonder. For whatever reason, what I was seeing at that moment in time was so beautiful to me - I know it sounds silly, but for some reason, that little patch of flowers was almost too much to take in. 

When I saw the photo on review, it was still beautiful, but the experience wasn’t captured just by the snapshot. I had the same emotion happen to me that often does. (In counseling, I’m told that the is emotion of sorrow, and loneliness, comes from a feeling of not being able to share the beauty that I see. Feeling that no one can understand the enormity of the joy that I feel when taking things in.) I came up with the idea to merely copy the scene the way it was in the photo, but to eliminate the color out of all but one of the flowers.

It was an experiment, but it I hadn’t expressed it or really formed it out….my assumption was that in the end, it might express my feelings by making the viewer feel the same sort of longing and loneliness that I feel in my life - that I simply can’t get across to others the enormity of beauty in the world. I was trying to pass on that wistful feeling.  In this piece, I only rendered one flower in color as a poetic metaphor to maybe make the viewer think: “I wish they were all yellow.” parallel to my feeling , “I wish they could see what I see.” 

When I finished the piece, I wasn’t sure. It didn’t seem like it said what I was trying to say yet. I thought about doing more to it – adding some other media, adding words... My daughter is also an artist- but much more talented than I. I often send her process pictures to get her thoughts on my work. I sent the Susans piece to her just as it is now, almost apologetically. I didn’t think anyone would get it- I was almost afraid. What I was surprised about is that she saw it the absolute opposite. Instead of seeing it as something sad, the art brought her an incredible amount of joy and peace. She was overwhelmed with hope, and she told me that seeing the art actually turned  a very bad day around for her. J.  I asked her if she thought it looked finished, and she said - 'ABSOLUTELY'. As soon as she saw it that way, I could see it too, and I left it exactly as it was. It was finished.

I hope that some of you reading this can come and enjoy the exhibition tomorrow, Friday, August 2, 2019 at FAVO (Faith Arts Village Orlando) from 5-9 pm. Location is 221 E Colonial Dr., Orlando FL 32801.

More info on the event can be found at Light of Play .  Many thanks to the host, Art For All Spaces, and to FAVO!

Many Hands, One Pulse

(Edited 6/12/21)

It was a challenge for me to figure out how I was going to start to move forward and heal from the horrific shooting that occurred at the Pulse nightclub here in Orlando. It affected me much more deeply than I would have thought. I was not emotionally able to go visit my friends at the vigils that occurred. It took a few weeks before I could even really talk about it, and I talk a lot.

A friend of mine, Thomas Thorspecken (Thor) of Analog Artist Digital World, organized an event on July 3rd - Orlando (United) Drink & Draw, in which several artists would gather together on an evening downtown and together sketch portraits of each of the 49 lost in the tragedy. I knew as soon as I heard about it that it would be a perfect thing for me to do. I was admittedly worried about how emotional I would be, but something told me that it would be a personal venue to process what happened and begin to heal.

The day after the shooting, I was beginning a week-long art camp, and my art students had created a work on Yupo Synthetic Paper that reminded me of how I felt. It looked like someone had cried tears all over a rainbow of colors. 

It was exactly like how I felt. There is too much pretending. I had been, like many in our community, woken up in horror, wondering if friends were dead. I went to church but felt alone in my grief.  Everyone around me was standing and professing the faith, I was on my knees sobbing and I just didn't care who was watching. I was done pretending. It seemed in one morning I was feeling my own load, but now I just felt the sacrifice the victims had made, and I just chose to give up and trust that God would carry me that day. And what was the point, of hiding the tears...I let them fall.

So, in my first thoughts about working at the event, I decided I would work with watercolor on Yupo.  Like my students, I wanted to be able to flow with my thoughts freely, literally, without worrying about making a mistake.  I wanted my work to show the vibrance of the life in each person, and somehow bring them visually into a place that is better than here, and I knew that medium would do that for me. A few days into the thought process, I realized that I may have gotten in too deep with the cost, because I thought I may be responsible for at least half of the portraits, and that would be a big cost. I reached out to the Yupo company, who has been great on Facebook to acknowledge my work, and they offered a donation through their distributor Legion Paper. A week later I had 30 pounds of Yupo paper at my door, no questions asked. I knew that God was beginning to bless the effort truly.

So the evening of the event, I showed up at The Falcon downtown with my watercolor, brushes, and Yupo, and an open heart. But I would not nearly be ready for the unbelievable outpouring of energy that would surround me.

When Thor arrived, the owner of the establishment where we were gathered began writing on a marker board the names of the victims, and assigning artists to each one. I had seen a lot about each of the victims but learned more as the process happened that night.

The first name that I was given was Amanda Alvear. Each of the artists were to research the victims on our digital devices to get an image to work from. I looked up what I could find about her, and saw and amazingly beautiful young woman. I read that she was only 25, and loved her little nieces and brought them out shopping. I saw a snapchat she had taken inside the club and heard the gunshots ringing out. I read how she would not want hate spread from what had happened.

I could have read more, but a huge knot started up in my throat and I had to step outside and get some air. I decided to pray that God would bless my efforts. I knew I did not have long to complete things so I went back in and as I did, I saw that someone had painted the words, "We all have a pulse" on the sidewalk. Under the circumstances, this saying has many meanings, but to me, at the time, it represented the common energy of us all, living and deceased, and the connection between us.  As if to say, "We all have ONE pulse: together"......The electrical blood flowing through all of us.

I could feel it moving me forward and to work. It seemed to flow through my brush and on to the paper, one, two, three, four, five, and never stopped until my task was completed.

Amanda Alvear

There was something so bizarre about what was happening. So much energy, so much work. So many many people. The board would get filled up with victims' names, attached to an artist, completed, erased, and then more were begun. "Who is doing 39?" Was something you would have heard....Each life held in our hands and pencils and fingers and brushes. Too much responsibility to be sure. It must have been a million times worse for their doctors and nurses.

I moved around to a few different tables, and even a couch once, to get better light as the evening turned to night and my window spot turned dark. I read about each victim which I was assigned, one by one, fought back the urge to give up and cry, and kept going. Frank Hernandez, the beloved big brother. Akyra Murray, the youngest victim, a beautiful young woman just out of high school with a basketball scholarship. Luis Velma, the 22-year old with a terrific smile and amazing heart who worked at Universal Studios, and Jerald Arthur Wright, the handsome young man who worked at Disney. I don't have the words to give them the descriptions and honor they deserve.I just did my best at painting their smiles the best I knew how.

Frank Hernandez

Akyra Murray

Luis Velma

Jerald Arthur Wright

When I got to reading about Luis Velma it took me a lot to get past the familiar feeling of the night that I just wanted to cry.

And here I was, God was putting him in my hands, with the Yupo...I let my tears fall through my paint onto the Yupo.  I let them fall...

As the night wore on, artists came and went. We had figured 4 portraits per artist as things had started, but more artists came, some left, and we got all 49 accomplished. They were laid out on some tables near me, an incredible body of work. FORTY NINE. In one night. The vastness of the art was both a testimony to the vastness of the tragedy, and the energy and love of our artist community. And it was beautiful.

At the end of the night, I was finishing up the last portrait, and Thor and I left while my last two paintings were still wet at 1 am. It was surreal walking downtown to my car at that hour, holding the two wet paintings flat while Thor and I noticed how bright the sky was. A bright, royal blue color at 1 am with bright puffy white clouds, and it was so quiet on the streets. What time was it?..Had we stayed there till sunrise? I felt like I was holding two souls up in my hands, and I just had to keep walking,  no matter the time. I had to keep them safe.

Thor walked me to my car and I passed the paintings to his safe keeping. He carried them the rest of the way, and it was like a weight was lifted from me.

But I know, so much that we all are holding passing on the load of this and so much grief in this world, helping each other along the way. It feels here in Orlando since the shooting that a lot of us are much more aware, caring, loving toward another. Working together to make things right, somehow. I'm really glad that I was given an avenue to contribute my way, and I truly hope that somehow the work brings peace.

Thor is looking into showing all of the portraits from that night at an appropriate venue. Please let him or me know if you all have any suggestions or a connection for this.

Thank  you to Thor, my fellow artists, to Yupo and Legion Paper for their donation, but mostly to God for truly blessing our efforts there that night.

I'm melting!! A Greek Exploring the Ancient Process of Encaustic

Recently I have decided to dive head-first into encaustic painting. Encaustic basically means making pieces of art with melted wax. This technique, which was found in art as early as the 1st Century BC, incorporates heat to create layers of pigment. The word originates from the Greek word, "Enkaustikos", which means, "To burn in".

I've found it to be an absolutely LIMITLESS medium. It's so much fun to put layer upon layer, and using sculpting tools to remove layers, revealing things underneath. It also allows for some pretty fun incorporation of many many other media, including but not limited to- photographs, drawings, oil pastel, chalk pastel, alcohol ink, found items including metal, wood, etc. plastics - just about anything you can imagine. I also loved what I learned about applying wood glue to the wood and using a torch to burn it. It gives some amazing texture to work with.

Over the past few months I've been experimenting with some fun works. This first piece came to me when I was looking at pencil shavings on my desk. I was submitting for an art show titled "Viva la Diva" at the Orlando Museum of Art, and had done some concept sketching for female figures with a frill. Little did I know as I was conceiving this idea that right in front of my face, I would find my perfect material from discarded remnants of another project.

My vision turned at this point to a ballerina. My concept came from my own memory as a dancer when I was young, and my love for nature. I wanted to convey a connection between the young woman and the energy of the outdoors. 

In doing this, I decided to allow the wood of the substrate itself to show through and represent the wooded scene behind the lady. First, I drew the lady onto the wood base, and used my woodturner to make a basic outline of the figure and the trees so that I could keep an eye on where everything was and possibly keep some of the lines in the end.

I had seen a video online which showed "wood glue burning". Basically, painting something on using wood glue, using a torch, and allowing the glue to blister and burn. This then creates an interesting texture to the surface, and in my case, actually created the look of bark on a tree, and even allowed for the actual wood to burn, which I wanted, to create a double earthy effect. 

The following photo is actually from a more recent project, but it shows what happens to the wood glue really well. 

In the case of the ballerina piece, The wood glue was the tree trunks and barre. I allowed the fire to burn parts of the wood itself as well as you can see below.

After the burning of the wood and the wood glue, I added several layers of encaustic medium - which is basically  beeswax mixed with a resin. As I did this, I added piece by piece, the pencil shavings that would become her tutu.  In between the layers, the heat gun is applied - to fuse the layers together. In some cases I used my sculpting tools to pull off wax in order to create the layering effect and dimension I wanted. I also sprinkled some of the colored actual pencil parts - they almost looked like "confetti" and I wanted them to create a magical effect to the natural background.

 From there, I decided to actually add oil pastel rather than the pigmented wax that I have. I did not want to overpower the texture or burn effect on the wood. I just wanted to add a bit of color to bring out the color of the pencil shavings on the skirt and to add some depth and interest. Again, every layer of oil pastel covered in wax medium and then heated with the heat gun to burn in the layers. Using clay carving tools to pull layers off when I chose to. More medium. Heat. etc.

I added in some ground to the dancer, reflection and shadow, a wall to the left to rest the barre, all with oil pastel, worked with pulling off layers and putting more on some more, each layer covered with wax medium and melted with the heat gun. Below is a photo of the final piece. 

I was so proud to present the piece at the 25th Annual Orlando Fringe Festival. It got special recognition in Watermark Online, which listed it as one of the "Top 10 Fringe-iest Pieces at Visual Fringe", and describing it as such: 

"This abstract depiction of a ballet dancer on a fiery and bold background combines two key aspects of Fringe: dedicated performance and courageous passion."

It is always an amazing thing when a complete stranger sees your vision just the way you did. How incredibly grateful I am for the whole experience. Since this piece I've made several more and learned even more about what encaustic can do. I hope to share some of that with you in the not-too-distant future.

Encaustic is a messy, interesting, baffling, frustrating, beautiful, challenging, limitless medium.

And I guess that's why it seems to be one of the best thing I've found so far.

You Who Lift a Penny From the Gutter...

Last year, as some of you might remember who have been reading this, my daughter got married. It was a ton of fun, putting together all of the flower arrangements for her, helping with her dress, and the event itself was so amazing.

I wanted to give her and her new husband a gift of art that I would make, but with everything that was going on, the piece I had in mind just slipped among all of the things that needed doing, and I set it aside for their first anniversary.

Fortunately, the piece that I had in mind had enough power of vision in it to wait until I had time to make it. My daughter and her husband had gone to Victoria, Canada as part of their honeymoon. They took some amazing photos of Butchart Gardens which were so inspiring to me. I also saw among their photos a statue in the city which adorns the words of Victoria Canada's first poet Laureate, Carla Funk:

"You who
lift a penny
from the gutter
and with the same hand
point out stars,
find me."


this poem truly struck a chord with me, and I felt certain that if I created a piece of art that centered on those words, it would be a message from me to my daughter and her husband- my blessing - and my belief- in their love.

Among my daughter's photos, I also found one that was absolutely exquisite:

The photo of the creek with the wishing coins transported me to a magical place- and the Gardens really look like that. I could smell the fresh moss and pine needles, feel the cold stone, hear the trickling water, and it was so incredible.  Immediately I knew I had to create a piece that "married" the idea of the "pennies in the gutter" to the "stars". 

I thought about how that would reflect the poem. The coins in the painting were not pennies to lift "from the gutter," but they were the opposite- wishes thrown into a gutter, if you will, perhaps with the same purpose. Either the penny was lifted to save due to physical poverty, or it was lifted for luck. But either way, the point is the same- the notion of hope, that a person who was special enough to find hope in something as insignificant as a penny, and could also have a mind so open to believe in eternity- to believe in things beyond this world - and to believe in the promise of the future - was desired by the writer. In the painting,  My desire was to represent this back-and-forth reflection between the sky and the water through hope.

I decided to use the technique I had experimented before on both the New York Gapstow Bridge work and white feather painting - Gesso on board, and then acrylic, with soft pastel on top.

My first step was to sketch out the concept- I pictured this very same image of the creek and the coins at the bottom, but imagined the trees reaching up to the stars, literally as if the coins could be a "reflection" of the stars. Next I covered the whole thing with clear gesso.

In this case, the coins and the stars would be important. I decided to go ahead and use masking fluid for both so that they could sort of "recede", as stars do, once I removed the product. I could then go over the coins with some color to make them look more realistic.

Unfortunately at that point the piece laid dormant for awhile as other things came to the forefront, but I was determined to complete it for their anniversary. I found myself hesitant to put on the fist strokes of color- I think because this piece was so important to me. I knew I wanted to include the poem somewhere, and I played around with how on tracing paper. I was making the mistake of trying to see it all complete and make it perfect before starting.

Then,  when there just wasn't time to worry anymore, I just made myself start painting. Something, anything. Anything that "felt" right, lightly, with acrylic.

At that point I felt confident enough to paint in the sky. There was a bit of a dilemma as I made this in my mind: WHERE would the light theoretically be coming from? If I paint directly from the photo, It would seemingly be daytime, because that's when the photo was taken, under a deep canopy of shade trees. I really wanted that beautiful pop of light green highlighted moss in the upper left of the creek. But then, how could it be night time then, so the stars would be out? After some worry, I decided to create a world in my mind where a very bright moon was directly overhead. 

When I laid in the sky, I used mostly cerulean blue, with some mars black. I played around by putting some white to the right, and it gave a little mystery to the sky, so I left it.

After smoothing out the sky, I gave myself permission to really go for it with the acrylic. I even pulled out the palette knife for the stone, and got in some dimension. It was a lot of fun. 

I painted in some trees in the foreground and got the colors for everything mostly where I wanted them. This shows after the paint dried and I rubbed off the masking fluid for the stars.

For the coins, I removed the masking fluid, and then went over them with a brush with a little color, so that they'd look more realistic. Here are some really close-up shots of how that looked, and also how I added the soft pastel to pull out more color for the soft browns, mossy greens, deep blues and purples of the creek.

As far as putting in the words, it's funny, but the way the sculptor put the words of the poem in that tree sculpture is sort of parallel to how I might have chosen to do render the words.  (Although without the "ribbons" behind them) How wonderful to be looking at the words of the poem while you are looking at the stars. I wanted to allow that to happen in this piece as well, and also to champion the poet's idea of "finding". I liked the idea of "hiding" the words a bit, and through exploring the growth in the nature, finding a completion in the soul. 

I thought that there wouldn't be anything better than the incredible joy in making this piece but there was- and that was seeing the look on my daughter's face when I gave it to her. I am so gifted to have a daughter who just...

gets me.

and more than that, who really loves me.

It's also interesting that I found so much freedom in making this piece, that I might just do more with my own poems. You never know where the path takes you on this creative journey. You start down one way, looking at the ground, but then, there are also the stars.

Leaving this for you all as a Merry Christmas and thank you for reading my blog!

Frosty Feathered Friends

I recently completed several mixed media pieces on board, just using watercolor as a background and popping out the subject matter in soft pastel.. I'm finding this technique to allow rich layers and varied textures in the pieces, and I seem to quickly get the best of all the worlds.

Over the past few weeks I completed a series of "wintery" birds. This started with a simple feather as a gift. Symbolically, this little eagle feather was almost autobiographical. I'm learning a lot about the philosophies inherent in Native American culture, which tie the animal world, and really all of the natural world together with humankind. The feather connects the owner to the bird. In this piece I just took a piece of watercolor board I had laying in the studio, painted a background in watercolor and then made the little feather with soft pastel. It went really quick and it turned out to be a perfect Thanksgiving gift for a special person in my life.

After the feather, I made a cardinal in memory of my dad, just for myself, but after I made it I decided that the technique was so fluid and gave such good results, and also, that I was really enjoying focusing on the birds. I thought I should keep going and make several, to share with the people at Faith Arts Village Orlando for their holiday show. Here are a few that I made-

"Chickadee"

"Bluebird in snow"

"Cardinal in Snow"

"Snowy Owl"

They all were created in similar fashion as the little eagle feather- watercolor and soft pastel. I did use some colored watercolor pencil, and in some cases chalk pencil, on the eyes and beaks, to get more detail in. Each piece happened slightly differently as I tried to get the best effect. For instance,  I sketched the scene lightly in pencil, then painted in the watercolor background, rendered in the eyes beak and feet with either watercolor pencil, chalk pastel or both. It was really thrilling how quickly each piece seemed to come out of my hand. I really just had FUN.

After applying water to perfect the feet, eye and beak, the body of the bird was rendered with soft pastel. For the snowy owl above, I started with all the white, added in the grey shadows and blended, and then applied workable fixative. When that dried I went back in on top with more white highlights, and also the black feathers in the back. More fixative, then a final work of the white and final matte finish. For the cardinal above, I painted in the grey background and the grey shadows in the snow, went for the reds of the bird with soft pastel, drew the tree needles with watercolor pencil, sprayed fixative, and finished up with the white snow (the falling snow I made by rubbing pastel on rough sand paper and also drawing dots) and also covering up some of the tree needles and around snow with final coat of white pastel. Every piece was finished with a coat of matte fixative.

In the middle of pouring my heart into these works, some things presented themselves that reminded me of the fragility of life, and how are we are so connected to the animal world. And this shook me to my core. It even made me re-evaluate my entire lifestyle, in order to live a more honest life. It's funny how each foray into an avenue of art seems to make me understand who I am, despite myself. It can be a really scary and frustrating experience, but I know that is how it is supposed to go for an artist, and I've committed myself to that journey. And so be it.

I decided to donate a portion of my profits to the National Audubon Society. My dad used to love birds, and used to call me his "Little Chickadee". I saw that with a donation there I could symbolically "adopt" a bird, and they sent me an "adoption certificate" along with a plush black-capped chickadee that sings its call when squeezed. It came on my birthday. And I know that my late father helped me to paint each one of these pieces.

It was so surprising to me how many people resonate with the feathered friends, and also, how many people seem to have feathers follow them! I made so many new friends at the show. Many of the birds flew to new homes, and my soul was nourished into its next artistic adventure!

Painting the Flying Spirit of the Bird

When I last posted, I was following the feathers. They led me to the peacocks, and then, as always happens in the creative process,  I ended up somewhere I had not even imagined!

I was recently inspired to create some art for an exhibition hosted by the Orlando Museum of Art called "Animals!". It was funny that this exhibit came up, because I had put off creating my peacock painting in alcohol ink for a long time, the whole process seeming overwhelming. If you followed my last post, you'd see how I had struggled, but really wanted to move forward with this new medium, and well, how I was so enthralled by the peacocks.  The next logical step was just to DO IT, and the exhibit provided the perfect motivation.

Here's the photo from the last post of the incredible creature that I chose to render.

Unlike the earlier alcohol ink works that I had done, I decided that with this one, I'd use a couple of different little tricks to help me start. First, I used some watercolor to sketch in the image of the bird. This way, I could always pull it up with some water if I wanted to make changes before starting on the alcohol ink. Then I did something else new- I used some masking fluid to outline the bird, thus letting me be a little more free with creating the background. I was surprised at how much it looked like an angel!

The next step was dropping in some different greens, and brown, and blotting them with paper towel to get a first layer that was homogeneous. I knew I wanted the top level of the bird to have a different treatment, so I focused on creating sort of a horizon line. Then I just had some fun dropping in some other colors to create shading within the greens.

This next photo shows what happened when I also dropped some rubbing alcohol to mix everything up.

I went at the colors as they mixed with a little brushing with dry brushes, and some blotting with paper towel, to create this look.

At this point I decided that the background needed to have a little more definition of darkness under the wings, to help the bird stand out from the background. I played a little with that. Also in this picture you can see how I started to put in the upper part of the background. My thought was to make it appear more like "sky" while the bottom looked more like "earth", and the bird itself and the activity of its flight was the transition. The technique I used for the sky was to drip some colors on the left edge of the paper, and lift the paper to let it run to the other side. You can see how things started to get a little messy over the peacock's head, but I knew I was covering that with bold and dark colors, so that was ok. I played with the sky until I liked the look.

Here's how it looked when I removed the masking fluid. Still a lot of work to do.

This was the tough spot for me- to just get bold and start dripping color for the bird. However, Once I told myself to loosen up and do whatever needed to be done for the whole piece, including working more on the background, so be it. I started light to dark. I decided to use even more layering of color and drops of alcohol ink to make the "earth" part of the background interesting.

Next came a critical point in the piece for many reasons: I worked in the very dark feathers behind the orange ones, and started to do the detail of the "eyes" on the peacock feathers. I started to get really frustrated and went back and forth washing over and erasing things and redoing them several times. Once during that day I was reading and happened upon this quote by Robert Henri: "Paint the flying spirit of the bird rather than its feathers." Reading that gave me permission to really let my hand knew it was supposed to do all along.

Here is the piece as finished- I ended it with more work on the wings, tail, and doing some free splattering of fun. and I think he was finally flying!

I was so honored that this work, plus two others were selected for the show at the Museum, which turned out to be an amazing show, and so thankful that they were received wonderfully. Now, I'm inspired to create more!

Please comment if you have any questions!!!