A Happy Mother's Day

The very best Mother's Day present I have ever received was 36 years ago when my first child was born. She was born on Mother's Day 1977. The day before she was born I had picked a bouquet of wild daisies I found by the roadside. I picked them for my own mother who had come from Texas to be present at the birth of her 8th grandchild. Amanda came easily and with dark curls all over her head.

Three years later her brother was born and added smiles and laughter to our lives. Two sweeter children never existed. They have truely been a joy all of their lives and now I have a wonderful time enjoying their children. It was a great Mother's Day--one I shared with my children and my grandchildren. We planted gardens and built fairy houses and even had a little time for chicken chasing!

A little time in the evening I spent following my passion--painting. I have an exhibit coming up in July so I began a new painting.

This is the first stages of a painting of a rescued Pit Bull named Charly. Pit Bulls were once called "nanny dogs" because they helped  take care of children. They were and still are very protective of their families. Charly is very much like a little boy--playful and fun one moment and curled up in your lap the next--fast asleep.

He is alway ready to chase a ball.

 

This painting is oil on a wooden panel I prepared with gesso and sanded smooth.  I do a very rough sketch on the board just to block in some colors.

I am considering a monochromatic color scheme in a sepia tone -just for fun. But this could change at any moment. It is  good  to start with a value study even if I decide to add color later.

We will all be surprised at the outcome!

 

Summer Yearnings

School is about to wind down--12 days left. Everyone from students to teachers to janitors seem to be less engaged with the present and more speculative about the forthcoming vacation. The weather has been unseasonably cool and wet--it still feels like early spring. But I know just around the corner summer will make her appearance and no doubt rather abruptly. As the sidewalks heat up and the shade seems harder to find I wonder if the West is still as beautiful as I remember. I have been there a number of times but each time is a new experience. Things change. I travel west to collect images with my camera and   my spirit. Next year I will apply for the artist-in-residence program in one of the National Parks.

Colorado River

Many, many words have been spoken and written about Yellowstone, the Grand Canyon, and Yosemite as well as many photographs and paintings have tried to capture their beauty. Ken Burns did a great job with his film on the National Parks. It is human nature to express how we feel about things that we connect with--a need to share.

I have Coyote Oldman playing in the Bose and it takes me right to that place where I smell the dust of the trails, the charred remains of the trees that burned years ago on the north rim, and the sound of the vastness that is everywhere.

A favorite experience I like to give  my students is the gift of visualization. It is a meditative practice I learned years ago in my college days. We all get comfortable, play Native American music, and close our eyes. I tell of a journey complete with sounds, smells, colors, temperature changes, and images. Many times they fall asleep they are so relaxed but they can tell me of the many things they saw and felt along the path. This, then transfers to the drawing paper or the canvas, and sometimes in the form of a sculpture. Here is a painting of Andy standing on a rock where the Colorado River and Tapeats Creek merge. It is a dangerous place, but I think he finds it magical--so do I. There are not enough years left to paint all the wild places I  would like to paint.

Sunday Afternoon on La Grande Kitchen

There is a famous painting by Georges Seurat that hangs in Chicago called Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. Many individuals and pets are lounging on the green grass of soft hills bordering a serene lake. Everyone seems contented and at ease, enjoying the outdoors and companionship. Everything is perfect. It could not be otherwise in a painting made up entirely of small dot-like brush strokes. When viewed from the proper distance the eye mixes the dots into areas of color, then into areas of form.

My Sunday afternoon today was made up of areas of color that transformed into shapes born of free flowing youthful minds, small hands, and smiles. I painted with my grandchildren.

Maddox is the older one with a great heart for things done properly. He is a thoughtful lad of five on the cusp of kindergarten. Reaching out with curiosity and exuberance he studies his paper, his paints, and his creativity before putting brush to paper. He is as careful as a five year old can be. He has confidence in his thought process but like the rest of us when doing creative work he noticed that the painting didn't turn out quite like he thought it would. I told him, "I know exactly how you feel". I don't remember having such insight when I was 20 let alone five. I think he will be a fine artist one day. He was a fine artist today.

 

The little blonde on the opposite side of the easel is a whole different set of standards. She is oblivious to rules, blind to advice, and beyond direction. Her painting was free-form and unbridled. She mixed colors, swirled the brush, and applied drips in thoughtful locations adding just the right touch of the Jackson Pollock influence. With Zoe behind the brush painting has no content and no critics--it is painting at is purest. She allowed the paint to flow from the brush to the paper of its own accord--she was only along for the ride. She and the paint and the paper had a great ride through reds and blues that turned into purple butterflies, to yellows and blues that turned into magical rivers of green. When she found how to make dots she turned into Suerat. And through it all she just smiled. I wish I could paint through Zoe's freedom.

Weimaraner named Greta

A recent painting of a beautiful Weimaraner named (a very German) "Greta".  This breed of dog is very loyal and has a sweet disposition. One could go further and say this particular dog is exceedingly loyal and exceptionally sweet! Greta had a promising litter of three puppies--all of which died shortly after birth. Greta was devastated. To assuage her grief she would arranged her stuffed toys around her, place her chin on her paws, and sigh.

Her owners didn't know if she understood about her puppies or she just knew something wasn't right. It is very hard not to attribute human characteristics to animals. Maybe doing so is what connects so many of us to our pets.

In truth, there are many animals I prefer to many humans.

On a happier note Greta is  now the proud mother of several little warm bundles of Weimaraners born a couple of weeks ago. Everyone is happy and healthy and they promise to grow up to be great hunting dogs like their mom.

Greta

Follow Me on Pinterest!

Who doesn't love Pinterest!?!? If you want to see more of what interests me, follow me on Pinterest by following this link: http://pinterest.com/hollisdtaylor/
Some people have asked  about my Pinterest boards so I have decided to make a short mid-week post with my Pinterest link. I hope that when you check out the link you find some fun stuff to repin, make, or laugh about. Let me know what interests (or shall I say Pinterests) you the most.
 Happy Pinning!!

Lost in Plain Sight

A post did not appear last week because I was in an old growth forest in the southeast corner of Missouri--far from a computer. In this area along the Mississippi River, where I have never been, stands Big Oak Tree State Park. These are very large trees, several of which are Champion trees. Last Sunday morning as I stood among these towering beauties the silence almost hurt my ears. There were no car sounds, no boat sounds, but most importantly, no people sounds. There were myriad bird songs and a cacophony of frogs.  They would make their frog sounds, building to a frenzied pitch, and then slide into silence for a much needed respite. Disappointment was to shadow the walk as the champion Bur Oak (we had driven four hours to see) lay silently on her side half buried in the soft, moist earth. She was more than 17 feet in diameter--so large she barely seemed real. Her top was scattered here and there across the forest floor partially there, partially gone. She was probably young when the Declaration of Independence was making its way across the ocean to England. She must have been a real beauty when she grew along the river and only indigenous people sat in the shade of her branches.

Lost in Plain Sight

As we traveled home we saw many hillsides with the trees pushed up into piles--left to rot,  not even used for firewood, soil washing into streams. You can't see the forest for the trees because it's not there. These were huge trees that will take centuries, if ever, to regrow. More pasture does not seem the answer to me and I am terrified my grandchildren will have a poorer quality  of life because of attitudes that currently persist.

 

 

 

The painting I want to share is called Lost in Plain Sight. I feel a connection between this painting and my trip to the forest. In my mind she is like the old oak tree a bit. She more or less blends into the background with only her lovey tail and blue, blue eyes drawing attention. Like many people who can't see the forest for the greed or perhaps need (I don't know) you can't see the whole cat for those mesmerizing blue eyes.

If anyone is out there write a comment about my naming of the cat painting and any thoughts on old oak trees--or about frogs for that matter.

My Three Brothers

My Three Brothers

 

This seems like an odd name for a painting that consists of two boys and a dog. The truth is the dog was my constant companion while my two brothers were older, with lives that didn't very often include a small sister. I was more of an annoyance than a playmate.

We lived in the watershed of Benbrook Lake in Texas when I was between four and eight. Occasionally there could be found a rattlesnake crawling through the short grass and dust of suburban Ft. Worth. I asked my mother if she had been concerned with letting me play in the backyard alone (in the fifties children played outside in groups called neighborhoods). Her response was that I was never alone--that Tippy was always at my side or waiting patiently by any door I had previously gone through.Tippy was old by the time I was wandering around needing protection and she did not last past my eighth birthday. She was ill and my parents had to make the unbearable decision to not allow her to suffer but to a seven year old it was a decision sure--in my sometimes still seven year old heart, I have yet forgiven. Tippy was the first "person" to die in my life and I sit here fifty years later with tears rolling down my face. Tippy was there, watching over me and her loss made me vulnerable--I still am.

My brother with the beautiful red hair has been gone for more that ten years now. And the brother with the blond hair lives far away in Texas.

This was the first "pet painting" I painted and it resides on my sunroom wall.

My memories of all my pets, my farm animals, my friends and relatives that have filled my life, and with their deaths left gaping holes, reside in my heart and on my painted canvases.