Folk Art Mary

Woman Asleep with Guard Dogs # 26, Love that Sky!

 Toning down the whites, adding more yellows. Love that sky!

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Woman Asleep with Guard Dogs # 26, Getting too Dark

 

I've added more whites, but the rest of the artwork is getting too dark too fast.

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Woman Asleep with Guard Dogs # 26, First Paint Layer

Here is Woman Asleep with Guard Dogs #26, showing the picture after the first few layers of orange, yellow and green acrylic paint.

 

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Woman Asleep with Guard Dogs # 26, Carved

Woman Asleep with Guard Dogs #26 is now completely carved. This piece is reminding me of other dog pictures that I have carved and painted. In some of them my guard dogs look more wolf like and possibly threatening. In others the dogs look cuddly. I really don't feel like I'm in charge, what comes out of the wood is something beyond my command. These dog pictures come out of my gut, from emotions that are hard to put into words.

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Woman Asleep with Guard Dogs # 26, Sketch

Here is a sketch for another carving with a "people in nature" theme. The woman is asleep, trusting, dreaming, floating in her own world. The dogs are guarding fiercely- or here's another idea, might these be wolves about to attack? They either have teethy grins or teethy snarls depending on whether they are dog or wolf. What do you think of these doggies, are they friend or foe?

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Guest Artist Mile Davidovic.

Guest artist Mile Davidovic, self described "citizen of the world", lives and works in Belgrade, Serbia (former Yugoslavia). Mile makes colorful oil on canvas and oil on glass paintings. It being winter, I thought the art below would be good for representing his work.

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Wood Spirits in Nature #5, DONE!

Wood Spirits in Nature #5 - DONE!. People and nature are one, inter-connected.

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Wood Spirits in Nature #5, Tree Huggers

It's worth some (a little bit out of focus) close ups of these wood spirits. Tree huggers, I guess I'm just one of them.

 

 

 

As an aside, anyone out there have a close up lens for a Pentax that they're ready to let go of? Help, I need a better lens.

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Wood Spirits in Nature #5, Face Details

Besides painting the face details, I've added many more thin coats of paint to make this art work glow.

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Wood Spirits in Nature #5, Starting to Work

This version is a little better. I'm always disturbed until I paint the eye and face details, but that's still to come.

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Wood Spirits in Nature #5, Darks around Leaves

I'm using darks in the leaves to make the picture more crisp, but so far it's not working. I'll just have to keep plugging away until this picture works.

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Wood Spirits in Nature #5, Spirits Stand Out

Adding the flesh tones makes the spirits stand out from the leaves.

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Wood Spirits in Nature #5, First Coat of Paint

Putting the same color paint on the entire carved artwork makes the carving detail appear flat.

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Wood Spirits in Nature #5, Continuing with the People in Nature Theme

After my post on Guard Dog and Guy in Nature #25 and the post on Kevin Paulsen, I felt it would fit into the flow to write about my just completed folk art painted woodcarving Wood Spirits in Nature #5.

As people, we exist in nature but it's easy to forget how dependent we are on nature. These wood spirits are fitting in amongst the leaves, almost an organic part of the natural scene. I call them wood spirits or wood nymphs. Our spirits exist in nature, and when nature is well we are well. My wood spirits are neither female nor male, but are representative of the distilled essence of people. They are part spirit, nymph, elf or fairy.  They nestle among the leaves, and like the trees or rocks surrounding them they are mute but patient, feeling, aware and connected.

Here is the Wood Spirits picture carved, sitting on my work bench.

 

A close up from the side...

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Guest Artist Kevin Paulsen

Here's what guest artist Kevin Paulsen has to say about his work, taken from his website:

"History records for us an imagined past in which all civilizations perish... Art history and science describe cultural remnants as fact... This shared sentiment of collective memory we call human history. History makes us feel better but only serves up the proof that all human imaginings are perishable. Mankind repeats one simple narrative in myriad form: Man comes to town, a set of circumstances change the man; man leaves town. Artists and scientists will continue to reinvent this basic narrative structure...and mankind will continue to know himself as unique to the universe. No matter the form...tell again our story, therein lies our purpose. I attempt to make beautiful and timeless paintings that tell this story.
Kevin Paulsen, May 30 2010"

An interview Kevin Paulsen did with Mark Murphy gives still more information. I particularly like what Kevin said about his The Re-Seeding painting (shown below): "I tried to keep politics out of my art until a couple years ago, but in today's climate, I find it almost impossible not to comment on, at least, the social politics. In some way, it shows up on it's own. For example, the painting Re-Seeding (Flood and Thaw series) begun as a painting about the advent of spring, the seeds floating through the air, and the thaw from the snow in the mountains. But as I was working on it, the tsunami hit Japan, which spawned a slightly different idea. I thought about the receding water, and that contributed to the double entendre in the name. They can either be frolicking or drowning depending on the viewer's take, but it's that sort of push/pull—humans being oblivious to the destruction that's right at our door at any moment. It's a comment on the celebration of spring and our inability to see our fragile place in the world. And then it dawned on me that what I thought were mountains in the background was another wave cresting in the distance, ready to hit the shore."

The Re-Seeding (Flood and Thaw series) 5' x 7'. Pigment on plaster).

Moonlit Wildlife,  Kevin Paulsen and Geddes Paulsen)

Kevin very eloquently talks about ideas that I have trouble putting into words but that well express what I am trying to do in some of my own work, in particular my "person in nature" series.

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