Author: Kelly

Copyright conundrum and personal consumption.

October 20, 2019

I have talked before about copyright as it applies to painting an image that you do not have the rights to, and here is a prime example.

In one season of the Starz production of Outlander [based on the Diana Gabaldon book series] I had seen a picture of an actor (Sam Heughan) and liked the lighting. As a result, I decided to paint the image. Here’s where copyright comes in. Copyright law dictates that I cannot display the finished painting in a gallery, sell the original, or make prints of it until I get back permission from the actor and from the owners of the movie. It’s too bad really, but I completely understand it. Intellectual property, whether it be the creation of who you are and your place in the world, or the intellectual property of the person who made the movie or owns those rights, must be respected. I enjoyed painting it and I share it here at an angle in my home so you cannot reproduce it. The photo doesn’t do it justice as it lacks the quality that seeing it truly does. I had fun, and it was good practice. 

Painting something like this makes me wonder about the folks who do fan art, and whether or not they worry at all about such things? Perhaps it’s because I have aspirations of notoriety someday, but I do worry and I sure don’t need to have the wrath of lawyers down on my head. If you’re a friend of the actor or know who to ask about the movie permissions, let me know. 

So for your enjoyment, in a voyeuristic kind of way, I give you Jamie looking contemplaitively out the window at Lallybroch.

Introspection and an "ah-ha" moment

October 16, 2019

This post is going to take a slight side step from my usual path of talking about my work or travels. I am about to philosophize at length so feel free to pass on this one if you aren’t in the mood or short on time, I will not take offense. 

I owe this post to a playful challenge from a friend to take 7 days and list 7 favorite books on my personal Facebook page. My 1st instinct was to do it because it sounded fun, but changed my mind and decided not to play. No, it doesn’t mean I don’t support literacy, or care about my friend, or anything else. I just don’t tend to copy&paste, play the game, take the test, or find out ‘the real truth’by clicking ‘next’. 

I have a pretty fair idea of who I am at this point in my life. I know I have a huge list of things I truly love like art, and beauty, and truth, and love, and light, and kindness. I know I have a shorter list of things I hate like cancer and dishonesty and loss and hate and emotional manipulation, just to name few.  I celebrate the fact that my love list is longer than my hate list. I tend to talk about the good list and shun the bad one. As a librarian I absolutely support literacy, books, writing, and all tangential topics of enrichment of the human spirit. 

That being said, I’m going to indulge myself and talk through one of my personal revelations of the past few weeks. I think I know I have always wanted to be an artist. Some may say that I am already an artist. OK, that can be another discussion another day. I do often get asked when I started drawing. I usually laugh and say that as a child I would sit in a corner and color to stay out of trouble. That is only a partial truth.

Let’s start with the book challenge. I can’t do it, I am too busy over thinking it. I couldn’t begin to pick 7 books that represent my tastes, or what might have influenced me. I would need to qualify a moment in my life, an event, an emotion, an interest … so where would I start? My bookshelves from the time I could read would reveal a golden book sitting aside a zoology textbook, and couldn’t begin to make sense. What is the common thread? Maybe it should just be a fun thing, but it started me thinking.

Another friend of mine wrote me earlier in the week because he saw the cover of the book I just finished illustrating and said, “I’m immediately reminded of the paintings Wesley Dennis did for Marguerite Henry’s many horse and dog books.” It hit me like a ton of bricks. The common thread is the illustrations.

Illustrators who influenced me such as Dennis, Pyle, Wyeth, Muth, and Pinkney …to name a few.

I looked up Wesley Dennis and ran down the list of books that came up and realized I had read them all. I had owned most of them and read them over and over growing up. Horses, dogs, foxes, donkeys, and then I moved on to anything animal related. I wanted to be a zoologist, then a veterinarian, and took all of the pre-med courses because I thought it was about the science. I considered medical illustration, and eventually cartooning and wound up illustrating manufacturing catalogs for industrial hardware for 20 years. My next career was in Library science and as a cataloger I would spend way too long processing the books with illustrations, especially children’s books. I am a visual person. I wanted to paint Misty… and Golden Sovereign … and Brighty of the Grand Canyon. I wanted to be Dennis and Froud and Muth and N.C.Wyeth and Pyle and Pinkney and a dozen other illustrators that made stories come to life.

When I was a toddler my greatest joys were to sit in a corner and watch the dust float in the beams of light, or on the back steps watching the light change the colors of the yard. Now, when I look around me I am always painting. What I mean is, I am always painting in my mind. Always. I see the world in the fluid motion of continual analysis. The motion can be unnerving so I try to capture everything I see in visual images or illustrations of that precise moment in time. I have spent my life trying  to capture fleeting bits of color, light and movement and falling short because it all moves too fast. Plein Aire painting tries to capture the impression -tries  to slow down the speed of the image in an effort to remember the moment. A photograph captures the exact moment mechanically and allows me to hold that image still with hopes of painting a picture of it as filtered through me.

I think I may be at a point where the pieces are all coming together, finally. While I have always thought of myself as an illustrator it never felt like it had the credibility as that of calling myself an artist and the struggle is to come to grips with the terminology itself. I wanted to illustrate the story that is my life. I don’t know where to go with this thinking or with my next steps. Perhaps this is merely the next step of a woman stepping forward in faith.

Opportunities continue to arise.

October 10, 2019

Today I am so pleased to hear that the book I illustrated for author Michelle Minor Smith has come off the press. She is a horsewoman with a passion for God’s creatures and her story is about a racehorse who was no longer earning his keep – considered past his prime. 

I am proud to have illustrated the book and to help her in her efforts to help with racehorse rescue awareness. 

It will soon be available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and a Christian bookstore near you. Michelle will also do book signing events at bookstores and libraries, and I hope perhaps I can join her on occasion.

Growing and learning in public view

October 8, 2019

This year has been a continuously challenging, learning experience for me as an artist as I have pushed out of my studio more and more and find myself doing my learning in the public view. It boils down to this being somewhat daunting – to reveal that I am actually an emerging artist at this point in my career. While I was extremely experienced in the handling of pen and ink back in the two decade long industry phase of my career (the days of pre-CAD drawings of nuts, bolts, and screws for the automotive and aeronautics industry) or studio painting illustrations, painting plein air is not something I am adept at…yet.

Last weekend I was at the Autumn Harvest Festival event at the Spring Valley Nature Center and Heritage Farm in Schaumburg, Illinois. 

I dressed as a 1880 Victorian era woman, impressionism painter. I must admit I had fun. I will also heartily admit I was in new territory since it was not rooted in lecture or art show. Having people scrutinize my work as I discover new techniques and then ask me how long it takes to do a painting was unnerving. I had to tell the truth but it made me think about what that might mean in an era when we want to equate value with hourly wage. How do I explain that an artists wage is based on years of training and accumulated knowledge and experience and not on an hourly minimum wage set by an employer or the State of Illinois. 

Their follow up question was often  “…when this is done will it be for sale … and how much will it be?”  I had to answer in all truthfulness that I didn’t know? I threw a couple prices out there to test the waters but that’s not the most professional way to determine worth!

Working loosely, making color and light choices, even the mechanics of structure and layout are not things that I am at all fast at. Perhaps it is ingrained in human nature to avoid showing fear in the form of lack of self confidence, lack of experience, or to basically avoid any show of weakness. I bring that fear into my art development and I suspect that many artists do. It’s why we make a drawing that gets thrown away before anyone sees it. It’s why we paint over canvases in the studio. It’s why we only bring out the best when we want to show someone our work. But as I’ve said in this blog before, that’s not honest. It is deceiving anyone who is beginning to walk the path of art and they think that somehow when a person is an artist farther along that surely they make no mistakes, they have no failures and they’re already at some nirvana place in their career. Well let me be clear. I am still learning and always will be. If I’m not, then I am doing something wrong. Case in point is the personal growth begun the last couple of years by incorporating the plein air style to improve my paint handling techniques and increase my speed. I look at my work when I’m around other plein air painters and I feel blatantly amateurish but I also know that those elements of my art that are strong will eventually blend with this new labor and I will improve. I don’t know if I’ll ever be competitive at the plein air competitions, or can even get good enough to be invited into them, but the romantic notion of being at some event painting shoulder to shoulder with other artists that I admire, is appealing. When that day comes, I will be painting in public, baring my learning process to the viewer, and growing.

Continuing to evolve.

August 25, 2019

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about how we, as artists, accumulate information and use it in what we create. We continually think about comments we hear and think about images that we see and internalize what we admire or dislike about them. We live and work and rejoice and cry and absorb bits of everything into a fluid and cumulative story. 

If we take the time to analyze even some of the barrage of input coming at us, as an artist it can’t help but influence our work. That should never be something that causes angst. It is not a frightening evolution but instead an exhilarating and stimulating one.  For those who have been watching my painting progress over the last 4 years, you know that I have gone from a much more tight and illustrative style to a slightly more impressionistic and gestural one. I have always admired the impressionistic looseness and how that imbues life and vibrancy.

My personal style is admittedly not as loose as those artists found within that artistic movement. Some of my current peers that I admire greatly are also gestural and impressionistic in their medium handling. I love the look that they are achieving, and it can’t help but influence my work and change it somewhat.

We are an accumulation of what we admire and absorb. My own transition has been intentional and part of a growth process. Painting in plein aire has been a tool to help me with that process and I am seeing a positive effect. I had an opportunity to show someone unfamiliar with my work, one of my paintings on my phone. Their reaction was, “Oh, I could never paint that loosely” . I found myself slightly startled and then pleased. I couldn’t help but think of how far I have come from a very strict pre-CAD pen and ink style, to a much looser handling of oil on canvas.

All of the paintings shown here are considered oil sketches, done en plein aire if you will, and considered exercises to help me continue to evolve. 

 

Enjoyable weekend with Tall Ships.

August 5, 2019

This last weekend with the tall ships was outstanding.

I painted and watched all of the tall ships come in under full sail right off the shore from where I was camped. Once docked, it was a quick morning walk to go over and walk alongside these magesties and take pictures.

I brought along my gallery walls and some works pertaining to water and had them set up inside our marquis. My show, entitled “For the love of water” was spot on and quite successful. I had the loveliest four days meeting new people and talking about art and life in a way that always makes me quite happy.

I also took the opportunity at this event to launch a few new additions of gichlee prints of works that I’ve done recently. I say that now because while I have stopped by my home briefly to unload my art show and large house, I am leaving in the morning to go up through Wisconsin, Duluth, and along North Shore Superior to Grand Portage, Minnesota for a much loved  annual event there. For those of you who are participants at that event I wanted to alert you that I will be bringing 3 new additions of requested images.

  1. The 1st print is Sunrise at Grand Portage which was a very lovely pastel sunrise from lake shore at a spot we all know and love.
  2. The 2nd print is of the great Hall that I painted on site in 2017.
  3. The 3rd is a sunrise that was actually over Lake Michigan but I have brought along because it still exibits that rich, raw color of a sunrise over the Great Lakes.

The additions are small and the images have been reduced from their original to make them more reasonable for today’s crowded wall space. I plan to bring them out after hours to participants only.

Art show on the shores of Lake Michigan

July 27, 2019

Northern Illinois and Southern Wisconsin friends and patrons… this is going to be worth a day trip! Mark your calendars for this next event coming up. If you’re free, I will have a gallery show set up on Simmons Island for the Pike River Rendezvous – the first weekend of August. 

The Tall Ships are coming to Kenosha, Wisconsin and the arrival begins with a parade of sails held on Thursday afternoon, August 1st. This is when all of the tall ships will move up-and-down the coastline before seeking their moorings sites in the inlet adjacent to our historical encampment area.

I will have the show mounted by the parade of sails and then, every day from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. through Sunday, I will be in our 16′ square marquis style tent displaying my work. There will be original paintings and some prints with a general theme of water, coastlines, ships and boats to coincide with the tall ships event. [https://www.kenoshatallships.com/]

The encampment I am in has no charge and is in sight of where the ships will be docked. If you have wanted to see some of my work live and in person, this is a good opportunity. 

The weather looks like it will be wonderful. I hope to see you there! 

The Artist: looking for the next subject to paint

July 7, 2019

I have just returned home from being in an historical camp for the latter part of the 4th of July week at the Farm Museum site on Washington Island, Wisconsin. That was a great setting. If you look, you can always find fun topics to paint there, from farm buildings of the early to mid 19th century to the faces of the people sharing my encampment with me. There are also boats in the harbours, deer in the fields, residents and tourists, lavender fields, and musicians and… well, you get the idea.

In an effort to remain a little more true to my portrayal of a woman in the late Georgian, early Regency period, I only took water colors and brushes in my portmando to the field. It really was delightful to wander, seeking sites and topics to paint. This was the first of my summer events where the woman artist, living in history, meets the Northwest Territory.

My summer agenda – come out and find me.

July 1, 2019

Hello all. I have had several people recently ask me where I’m going to be this summer, and if I’ll be doing demonstrations, lecturing, or selling art. Yes to all three. Summer is when I try and slip out of the library a little more often and become a historical time traveling artist.
I would love to see some of you when I am “out in the field”, so to speak. 

Let me try to provide a brief agenda for the summer …here:
July 3-6    Starting this Wednesday, July 3rd and running through Saturday evening, the 6th I will be camped and in period costume at the farm museum site on Washington island, Wisconsin. This is a more informal setting where I will be found talking about life as a frontier woman artist and creating water color sketches, or oil sketches since I will have my plein aire kit with me as well.
July 11-14  From Thursday, July 11th through Sunday, July 14th, I will be camped and in period costume at the historical museum site in Lapointe, Wisconsin [Madeline island of the Apostle Islands]. Here I will be talking about the challenges of being a woman artist in the Northwest Territories, and demonstrating pigments, tools and craft.

August 1-4   Beginning Thursday, August 1st and running through Sunday August 4th, I will be camped and in period costume on the Simmons Island in Kenosha, Wisconsin for the Pike River rendezvous. At this event I will be setting up a 16′ square marquee tent gallery to house an art show. In honor of the arrival of the tall ships to Kenosha, the theme element of my show will focus on boats and various water settings. There will be original oil paintings on canvas, as well as gichlee prints available for sale.
August 7-11   From Wednesday, August 7th and continuing through Sunday, August 11th I will be camped and in period costume at the Grand Portage National Monument in Grand Portage, Minnesota. Here I will be enjoying a broad variety of activities from painting Plein-aire within the camp to enjoying the rich historical presentations of fellow historians in the Great Hall.

If you want a chance to meet me, or sit and chat about making art, or some topic in history, or the positive impact libraries have on education, come find me this summer. I would love it.