Art During Covid-19?

Rose Moon Rising
20 x 30 watercolor on Artists Canvas $1350
Completed March 25, 2020

 If an artist is locked up in her studio does she still paint? Yes. But probably not with the necessity of when you are preparing for a show or exhibit or tour. Which gives you space for self-expression; painting what is in your heart and troubling your soul.

A friend reminded me today of where I was last year with my painting and photography as represented by my Angel Fire Studio Tour page. I was getting a lot of attention and sales for my photography. Painting was taking a back stage in my life. But beginning March 11, 2020 and the Covid lock down painting moved forward. I had the time. And I quickly bought up on line any materials I thought I might need in the coming months. Yes, consciously I thought it would be months. But in my subconscious I saw it as an end of things. Something which my mind had been projecting forward with my On the Edge Series which began with the painting below.

On the Edge
30 x 18 Watercolor on Artists Canvas $1350
Completed April 3, 2016

In spite of the bright colors my art for some has always had a dark side. And they will point out the crows or ravens which are in all most all day time paintings. When I was in Alaska decades ago I was told it was illegal to kill ravens because a lot of the Inuits believed they were carriers for the souls of the dead so they could rest before returning to an earth bound existence. On the Edge above was noteworthy because it had no flight of ravens.

End of Day
18 x 26 Watercolor on Artists Canvas $1050
Completed June 4, 2020

When you are not turning out just another view of another mission art goes slower. It spends more easel time while I wait for the spirits to give me direction. Glorious Dawn below began as one of those redo's of a much smaller painting which was just a study. The study sold and I was going to do the full sized one soon. Never seemed to be the time. Too busy out taking photographs but winter as well as Covid keeps me in. And there were rumors of covid in February and it was a dull winter with no photo challenges to I pulled out the drawing for that study of Mesa Arch in Canyonlands and it took over. It may have a positive title but I see it as an earth after the end of time.

Glorious Dawn
16 x 30 Mixed Media on Artists Canvas $1090
Completed February 3, 2020

Artists do not often put in completion dates these days. Photographers do, but some article in an artists' publication said not to do that. It has never been on front. Usually on the back right corner where once framed it was never noticed. I have dates for these works because my camera records the date I took their official portrait. And for this time or end of time it seems important so I have noted it here.

I have a wandering mind and as I was working on the sketch for the painting below I thought maybe all the old dwellings of the ancient ones were not vacated due to rampaging hoards or drought but a pandemic. The western United States has a few like Hantavirus and Bubonic plague. The working title for the painting below was Home of the Lost People. A friend told me that was too dark if I ever wanted it to sell.

Cliff Pueblo: Home of the Lost People
28 x 14 Mixed Media on Artists Canvas $875
Completed April 5, 2020

Sell? Now that is a lost art in this pandemic. And as I prepared to write this blog I came across so much else lost in the time of this pandemic. Like my inventory sheet. And this blog. Last post was in December 2019. Was I waiting and holding my breath for it to go away. No. But I was trying to figure out what the new post covid world would look like.

And I have been working on a new painting. It has been sitting patiently on my easel while I try to ignore it. Working title is Return of the Yei which were spiritual guides for the Dine'. I promise to be better at posting my wanderings here.

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 Creative Process - Birth of a Painting

Sky City Ladders by J. Binford-Bell

I travel with my camera looking for ideas for paintings. Or once, at least, that was the initial purpose for the Nikon.  And then the photos started being an end in themselves. But sometimes there is that good picture or a series of good pictures that isn't quite what you had in mind because of the wrong lens, the wrong light, the wrong angle . . . the gutters.

You get home from vacation and edit your photos and think, in a painting I can do away with those gutters. Time passes and I still haven't done that. Then in a Santa Fe office I saw a painting of Sky City and the ladders to the Kivas, and was remind of the painting I never did. I pulled up all the pictures I had taken that day on top of Acoma Mesa. It was more than just gutters that made them wrong.

First Sketch

On my work table was a sketch book where I had put in a drawing of the Ring of Fire eclipse with just a diagonal horizon below. I had been toying with what was going with that sun/moon combo -- a raven picking out a star from its edge? A canyon scape with river? Monument Valley? A mission church?

Or a Spirit Ladder! Or maybe a combination of several. The mesa with the pueblo being my canyon scape. And sneak in the towers of the Acoma Mission for my hint at the monuments of the Canyonlands.

Central Detail

Thank heaven for erasers. And after I do my basic sketch on drawing paper I convert to sketch to tracing paper because I can make some major changes by moving that over the sketch and transferring elements to different places or adjust perspective. Tracing paper also erases easier. Elements of the ladder and the building and ground upon which it rests were altered numerous times to give them stability and perspective.

At about this time I knew the ladder was going to be the central element and would be outsized as it reached for the eclipse above the pueblo. It represented the native spiritual beliefs. In the background are the towers of the mission representing the religion thrust upon the people.

Getting there

Now to place that detail into the whole. And put the pueblo on top of a mesa. I sketched in the sides of the butte and scribbled in a far horizon of the valley the sky city. Foreground was not quite right not that I could not create the drop with paint.

Possible foreground?

I like the idea but not quite the right size just yet and there needs to be more indication they are moving up a steep trail to the top. However too much foreground detail will take away from the focus of the painting.

Foreground details

I am liking the details of the mesa better and the size and placement of the figures but these scribbled in persons seem too much like sheep herders that I have used in my canyon paintings.

Sculpture at the Sky City Visitor's center

I think they will be carrying pots on their heads. And I like the head scarf as opposed to the shawls. I have transferred the sketch to the canvas but it is still not too late to do these little alterations to my women on the path. This is one of the paintings I will chronicle in photos for a blog or two. Hopefully the painting will be as rewarding as the sketching.

These days it is so easy to skip drawing. There are scanners and enlargers. You can take your photos and with a photo editing program reduce them to just lines to trace and transfer without the gutter. Or you can have it printed on canvas for you and then paint over the top. Creating a whole new scene requires a more creative process.