Night of the Snow Blind Moon - Creative Process Blog

Night of the Snow Blind Moon
24 x 30 Mixed Media on Artists Canvas
$1650

One of the wonderful things about not being on the art fair circuit any more is I can paint what I want to paint when I want to paint it.  Or not paint. This winter seemed to be most about not painting. I was knitting. Something you can do wrapped in an afghan in front of the fire. And before that it was little paintings. And note cards and things suitable for a Christmas market.

Rain on the Mesa broke the spell. I was back to my canyons. And it would follow I was back to thinking of a theme for my on-the-edge series. I begin with a drawing. And as I stretch my own canvas the drawing determines size and proportions.

Minimalist sketch for elk of the snow blind moon - working title

Sky and moon floated and elk masked off in preparation of painting the canyon walls

I pour my skies, float my moons and suns. I do it first as it helps determine what colors I use in the rest of the composition. I had an idea of what colors I was going to use but I seldom do a color sketch. And I had no idea how I was going to paint the elk other than they would not be realistic. I was aiming for a petroglyph appearance.

Working from the back to the front

Next layer forward. Masking removed from the elk in front of painted canyons

At this point viewers started seeing a cat jumping over the moon

The canyons were also poured and the foreground. On the lower right you can even see some drips. It is at this stage I start refining the pours, and defining outlines. Still haven't a clue on what color the elk. Painting totally original pieces, not another church, leaves more questions as to where a painting is going. That can be the really fun part because the painting begins to call the shots.

Cat jumping over the moon gone and first layer of color on elk

Tweaking begins. Refined the sky and got rid of the cat.

Time to play around with the details

The on-the-edge series plays around with the mystical. All my canyon paintings do to some extent with spirals around stars in night skies and ravens in the sky in day skies.  This painting uses heart lines on the elk and spirals on their antlers.  And for days I debated the ravens. It was a night painting. When a flight of ravens is in the sky there is always somewhere a raven all alone and away. That detail was inspired by the missing man formations of airplanes. I debated just the lone raven but in the end put a distant flight across the sky.

Creative Process - Rain on the Mesa

Rain on the Mesa
20 x 28 Mixed Media on Artists Canvas
$1350

Been a while since I have painted a canyon scene. My first love was canyons. I returned from a trip to Utah and found all my photographs, while good, just missing something. Photography had until recently been a tool to provide inspiration on paintings. Plein Aire was always too much of a slug.

Lately I have been into painting scenes closer to home: snow capped mountains, Aspens in the fall, antelope on the fat grass, etc. I have missed my more colorful palette.

Sky poured on canvas

 I always begin with the sky. Since I generally pour them to avoid all indications of a brush being involved it is easier to mask off the main part of the painting and pour the sky. The colors and mood which results sets the tone for the rest of the painting.

Then I lay in the colors of the foreground

Tackling the middle

Canvas covered/major color blocks laid out

There is a moment after the canvas is all covered when I am not entirely sure what to tackle next. I had begun this painting with an image of the foreground where I was going to use oil stick to provide texture.

Is it done stage

At last happy with the foreground I become critical of the sky again. In this case I did not like the sky around the sun all that much. And having committed to calling it Rain on the Mesa the rain needed to be punched up a bit.  Watercolor is fast and quickly drying. Oil stick takes longer to dry and I end up with more time to fuss with the painting before applying UV varnish. With painting I used qtips to lift some color around the sun and especially the dark at the point of the mesa. As well as detail work with watercolor pens and pencils.

High Mesa Dawn

High Mesa Dawn
Mixed Media on artists canvas
28 x 28/40 x 40 on the diagonal
by J. Binford-Bell

I began this composition style with small paintings of New Mexico Missions largely because it allowed the best display of church towers, and a smaller canvas could take up more space on a wall. I sold them often in groups of four which could be arrange in a diamond shape on a wall. In the last year I have begun to enlarge the canvases I use in this manner and expand on the subject matter. I have done two paintings now inspired by Acoma Pueblo and both have been on the diagonal. High Mesa Dawn is by far my largest to date.

First the sky

No sense in spending hours and hours on the heart of the painting and then ruin it by trying to fill in a sky. I think of my skies as an integral part of the painting. They set the mood and to a large degree determine the palette of the balance of the painting. Since I have begun pouring my skies I always think of this part of the process almost magical. Never quite sure what I will come up with.

Then laying in the blocks of color beneath

Then adding in the sunlight

The sky determined where the light of the rising sun was coming from and so all colors have to be laid in with the direction of the light firmly in mind. Watercolor traditionally is lighter colors first and then turning darker. But watercolor canvas has changed that some because the colors can be lifted from it. And it is far more forgiving of layering colors than paper. With the complex buildings of the pueblo I first laid in base colors for the shadows, then added the sunlight on the walls facing the sun. And lastly I laid over some of the warmer yellows and oranges over the early blocks of shadow.

Filling in around the central buildings

I admit to going in a different order on this painting. Usually I do the skies and then the foregrounds. And lastly work on the subject or center of the canvas. As you can see from the progress photo above the foreground was left for last. I think this approach (artists do not always know why they do something) was because wanting to create depth in this painting. I worked from back to front. I also found I changed the sketch in the foreground to give more a sense of height of the mesa.

Foreground floated

I love working rock and canyon walls with a floating technique. This can require more masking to protect the areas you do not want the color to float too. But I will apply water to an area of rock and then drop in various colors of liquid watercolor and in this case a granulation medium which creates a visual texture to the rocks. You can stir with a brush or push the colors this way or that but no painting.

Canvas covered and details beginning to be added

There are chickens on the mesa and sheep down by the canyon floor pens. Ladders are casting shadows, and deeper shadows are added to the passages off the mesa. I am still at this point working largely in watercolor and some inks for detail. Next step is the use of oil sticks to the clouds and sky and to the canyon walls. I did not want to totally cover up the great textures achieved with the floating of mesa walls but I wanted them darker to accent the sun on the pueblo.

Finished painting with ravens and signature

I reposted the the finished painting here at the bottom so you can see how it has changed from the one just above. I did manage to darken my foreground with the oil sticks, and pick up the clouds in the poured sky. I also deepened the shadows, and added more details with pen and ink.

Lastly I add the ravens or crows. There are two flights of ravens in this painting. That was inspired by my visit to Acoma where you can look over the edge and watch the ravens rise from between the mesa walls and soar above you. All my daytime paintings have ravens. They have become a signature of mine. And since the death of a very dear friend there has always been somewhere in the sky one raven that is all alone.

Sky City or Acoma Pueblo is not at this time of drought this rich in water. The adding of water to my paintings of the desert and canyons is a wish or prayer for its return.

I poured the sky on February 4th and finished it twelve days later. Working on High Pueblo Dawn was a spiritual journey in many ways. But that is true of most of the paintings I have done since I quit art fairs and took the one year sabbatical from painting.

The Painting Procress

The Beginnings

I often work on several paintings at once. This is often about technique - the pouring of skies, and sometimes about color - four of these have those dark blues in them, and upon occasion it is about a spurt of inspiration. Yes, it can become a bit crowded for lay-down space in the studio but it is highly productive to work like this with a water media - no down-time waiting for paint to dry. In addition to the five in this photograph I also had a canyon triptych working at the same time. More about that painting in a later blog.

As I am a camera nut as well as a painter I frequently record the step by step process of a painting. And this morning I was going through my picture folders assembling photos in an art progress folder. Some paintings are more recorded than others. I suppose it is like parents and children in a way. This morning I thought I would cover the odd child in this group - the one with the orange sky.

The arch in shadow

I absolutely loved the sky. But I felt like I had literally painted myself into a corner. I had put dawn behind the arch so it was by the laws of nature going to have to be dark. This is by the way Cleft Arch in Lavender Canyon of the south Canyonlands district of Utah. I call it Debbie's arch because when we were approaching from the other side it looked like a niche in the canyon wall to all but Debbie. But I digress. What to do with the arch against a yellow and orange sky. I stared at it while I worked on the other paintings. Then I just decided to go with the color wheel. Orange is the compliment of Purple. That seemed appropriate to Lavender Canyon.

Sunshine spilling through the arch

The stripe of cadmium red spilling down the hill through the arch set up the repetition of the arch angle and also opened up the lower part of the painting to be other colors. I have also played with the sky but using a soapy Q'tip to lift and soften the line between colors in the ski and give it a more cloud like effect.

Colors blocked in

I find that once I have the major elements determined it is then relatively easy to block in the other colors. I brought in the gold to echo the strong sky color in the upper left corner and also to put more light on the dark side of the arch as it were. I was working from a photograph I made of this arch when visiting the area last May. I have done one realistic rendering of it. Sometimes that has to be gotten out of the way so that I can just go with the color.

I generally allow the painting to dry before detailing out as it were. Finishing a painting can include top washes and glazes that require the paint to be dry. And brush lines I add that I don't want to bleed into their neighbors also require dry surface.

The Other Side of Tomorrow

Line adds definition and also movement and shape. The iconic flight of ravens adds distance. And title adds to the mystery. Some paintings name themselves. This one didn't at first. I asked for suggestions on Facebook. I liked several but it was as I was typing the caption that I actually named it. The title is a mixture of a couple suggestions that just joined themselves together. What is the other side of tomorrow? Who knows but we all want to go there.

Lab Month - New Skies

January and February are often months to experiment with new techniques and subjects and colors. A mask maker friend of mine used to call them lab months. One of my goals this month is to work on more dark mood paintings of which the three above belong. But I am also working on different ways to handle the skies.

This painting is merely a different color of blue sky. I mixed Cobalt blue with carbon black to give it a darker night look. Other than the color the technique of pouring the sky remained the same. The larger painting below in the top painting I used Prothero Blue with the carbon black but did not like how they played together. I came out far too busy for what I wanted to do with the foreground. Dark mood paintings should not have dancing skies in my opinion.

So I put a wash of the original color over the sky and then brushed in a subtle texture with a barely wet brush. I am very fond of the finished effect - well, not finished as there will be stars added.

This sky is a Prussian Blue water based oil. I am working on the assumption that since it stays wet longer I can work the sky longer on bigger canvases. This one is 21 by 36. A friend thinks I can get a more even sky color with the water based oil but only when you add oil to thin and not water. Something I also need to play with no doubt.

BTW the little painting on the top right of the opening picture is more water than sky. I plan to experiment with an iridescent wash over the water to enhance the "liquid" effect. Not all experiments in Lab Month work but I will let you know my successes and failures.

Triptych Update

Triptych Sky - Progress Photo

The total expanse of my triptych is 40 inches so even if it was one painting instead of three the sky would be a bit tricky in watercolors. I have some watercolorist friends that have switched to oils or acrylic because of the difficulty of doing larger pieces. Oil, because of the out-gassing, is just not an alternative for me. And I detest acrylic. I used it for 15 years when doing masks and am firmly educated in its limitations. Blending is its biggest.

What I love about the liquid watercolors I am currently using is their ability to blend. And in the pouring of this sky they needed to blend themselves. There are only three colors used in this sky apart from the metallic gold. I sampled the blends by using a scrap of canvas I keep for such purposes. Not all colors play well with each other, but I was very happy with these three. I love the accidentals which occurred here like the orange and the magenta.

Being a triptych I painted the sky all at once with the three canvases laying side-by-side on a table. The colors needed to go from one to the other in a smooth transition (and around the edges of the canvas) and at the same time each painting needed to be complete within itself. So while looking at the whole I had to consider each piece of sky. Quite obviously this is going to have to be how to work the balance of the painting(s). Today the mountains and the foreground. Middle ground (the churches) will be last. The churches are unique to each painting but the three parts of the triptych share the sky, mountains and foreground.

Mind you I am making this up as I go along. This is my first ever triptych and I am learning a lot.

My Roots - You have come a long way, Baby

Cities of Gold

Watercolor and Ink on paper

At lunch Tuesday with my artist friends Katherine McDermott, Jennifer Cavan, and Julia Margaret we chatted about our roots and the directions we had taken to arrive where we were. Not that where we are is the final destination. Artists should continue to grow though there are any number that achieved a degree of success and then froze their style at that point. But most artists continue to explore their limits and so there is a progression of styles.

When I was majoring in art at the University of New Mexico I fell in love with watercolor. Oil smelled and was impossible to get out from under fingernails, pastel became this colorful dust cloud that followed me about, and acrylics just never would do what I wanted them to do. It was not in their nature.

After college my day jobs got in the way of my art and I transferred to photography as a creative form of expression. And textiles. But I still dabbled in watercolor creating art for my own apartments and houses. But when I returned to New Mexico and my creative life I by happenstance fell into making masks and did that as a profitable business for 15 years. Until the summer of 2006 when a falling garden shovel almost totally severed my little finger of my right hand. Pins and cast and physical therapy sidelined my 3-D work which definitely required two hands. And so I painted. First with my left hand and then tentatively with my right as the casts got smaller.

The above traditional watercolor with the addition of ink as the Chinese do is still one of my favorite works. I keep it on my wall at the top of the stairs to see it daily. It is a mile post in the development of my current style. It shows the love of my cliffs and canyons and the beginning of color for the sake of light: portraying a scene as you remember it.

It would be interesting to take the sketch for this piece and do it again on canvas in the style I have since developed.

The Next Step

This is my painting of Teardrop or Keyhole Arch after the first two pours or floats. Working in this large of a format I find it works best to flood the area with water and then drop on the high concentrated liquid watercolors and float them around with a combination of brush and tilting the canvas in the direction I want the "rock faults" to run. You can also "scare" color away from an area with a brush with dish soap and blow on puddles of color to get them to spread out.

I did this in right side and left side. For those that think this kind of handling of paint can speed up the covering of large areas of canvas you are right and wrong. Right in that a lot of paint goes on at once but wrong in that with manipulation of the surface and drying time it becomes a lot longer. I did the right side first and let it dry and then the left. Both have to be completely dry to remove the masking and paint in the black.

Thus far I am pretty happy with my results. The right has more red due to sun striking it but also to give the arch dimension. If both sides were the same colors it would flatten it out.

Tomorrow the black.