This is the beginning of a painting started yesterday celebrating my new birthday, one year after cancer surgery. I am one happy camper. Now I have a few paintings I’ve started. That is the easy part. I have to go back in and adjust or take care of areas that don’t work. This gets tricky because each stroke I make changes the whole painting, so I have more problems to solve. As, Henry J. Kaiser used to say, “Problems are opportunities in work clothes.”
This is Not a Flower Pencil and watercolor
Unfinished Blue Painting acrylic on canvas 52″ x 36″
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One year ago today, I was operated on for cancer at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. During my stay at the hospital, I made little paintings in a moleskine sketchbook. The whole time I was there, I was surrounded by an extensive collection of art. There was a volunteer who brought a cart full of paintings into my room each day. Patients could choose a painting to be hung in their room. Today, I’m going to work on a larger painting started yesterday. A lot can happen in a year. Art heals.
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In Morocco, moushrabiyas or geometrical screens keep Muslim women hidden from view. These screens allow women to observe their surroundings without themselves being seen.
When making an Artists’ Book with this beautiful young lady, I asked her in sign language if she had some scissors. She took me to her room where she flicked on the TV. A static zig zag pattern filled the screen. The room was set up for her family, three outfits hung on rope across one corner of the room. We tore the sheet of paper, folded it and sewed it together with a piece of thread we found. I wondered what this girls’ future was going to be. This idea was the impetus for my book. Zellig, also spelled Zellige, is a collage of patterns making up the tile decoration in Morocco. When making the book I used a collage of my work made up of my poems, paintings, drawings and photography.
Iris printing, on Somerset 175 gram soft white, by Urban Digital Color.
Typography and letterpress printing by Norman Clayton One Heart Press.
A limited edition of twenty copies and three artists proofs
Bound by John DeMerritt, Emeryville.
Copyright by Carla Trefethen Saunders
San Francisco, California 2000 $750.00
Zellig 2000
Limited edition of 20 with 4 artist’s proofs
Letterpress, iris prints, vellum UV Ultra 11 white, Somerset 175 gram soft white,
Rives heavyweight buff and Lamili Lokta paper
Images and poems by the artist
Original drawing
8 x 8 inches
This book is in the following collections:
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Lifting the Veil 50″ x 40″ oil on canvas 1998
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Bundle of Sticks 23″ x 23″ oil on canvas 1998
While I sketched sitting by a wide, dried up river bed, I looked at the entrance to the Sahara desert. Across the riverbed was the Kasbah, Ait Benhaddou. I watched a small girl make a wide arc around me. On her back she carried a bundle of sticks. The bundle was bigger than she was. After awhile, she put down her sack and very slowly made her way over to me. We ended up making Artists’ Books using torn pieces of paper and paint. I taught her how to paint and how to use a paint brush.
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Pink 8″ x 6″ acrylic on paper
Gauguin‘s color ! I just wanted to try it. So I’m painting some little guys which is good. I need to remember how to use my brushes. More than that. I need to remember how to paint. My hand needs to figure out how acrylics work on paper. I used to paint in oils on canvas. This is different. It’s not easy for me which is a good thing.
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8″ x 6″ acrylic on paper
This one looks like they are having a conversation.
Drawings are from my moleskine sketchbook.
Deux Femmes/La Chevelure Fleurie (Detail) 16″ x 6″ acrylic on paper
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One hundred and ten years after Paul Gauguin was painting in Polynesia I copied some of his paintings. Making some notations in my moleskine sketchbook,
Gauguin La Chevelure fleurie (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I was blown away by the way Gauguin used color, the way he drew space using shapes and line. I sketched very quickly and noted the color of his simple shapes with the idea of going back home and painting a little rendition of a Gauguin.
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Mixed media on paper 6″ x 8″
Guess I’m into pink this week. This one looks pretty tame compared to yesterdays post.
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We are going backwards here. The top image is the last one painted. This is the first painting I’ve done in over a year. Here is your official notification Terry, http://terrygreenepainting.wordpress.com/paintings-2011/ I’ve been following Terry’s just another painter blog. Gail, http://www.gailtrobertson.com/helped get me to this point, also. This little series of 6″ x 8″ images started out with me going to to a friend’s house and making collages. I didn’t know what I was doing – no inspiration. I came home with nothing. The next morning at 5 am I was tearing up magazines. Abstract eight – Shadow was born. That reminded me of a photograph I had taken showing the shadow of a sculpture in my apartment. Early morning sun hit the stone sculpture in a way that created a soft realistic shadow of a nude.
