Exploring Marbling: Suminaghashi

I enrolled in another FBAC on-line class: Explorations with marbling, taught by Catherine Cross Tsintzos

In this class we learned about Suminaghashi (“floating ink”), the accent art of Japanese marbling. Ink is placed on the surface of a dish of water using pointed brushes (Sumi brushes) such that it floats on the water. A design is created by alternating a ink (traditionally black or indigo ink are used) and non-ink (soapy water). Each new addition pushes early drops out across the surface of the water, creating concentric rings. I used black and other colored inks from a marbling kit.

Suminaghashi setup used

 

Disturbances caused by air (blowing or fanning) or touching the surface (toothpick or tiny brush) can be used to change the concentric pattern into an irregular shape or create a mirror image.

Paper is gently placed on top of the floating ink on the surface of the water to capture the pattern. The choice of paper determines how well the ink is picked up and how durable the print will be. I used Yatsutomo Hosho Rice paper, BlackInk Speedball Fine Printmaking Paper (a mix of mulberry and bamboo fibers), BFK Rives Printmaking Paper (100% cotton), and watercolor paper. I liked the results on the Speedball and BFK papers best. The rice paper was thin and tore easily. The watercolor paper was thick and the ink diffused a little.

Acrylic and oil paints can be used in a similar way to make prints. Additives are used to thin the paint so it will effectively flow on top of the water. Suminaghashi can also be used to create patterns on natural fabrics (raw silk, cotton etc).

I used some of the finished Suminaghashi paper as book covers and signature wraps to make additional Criss cross bound books.

Book spine and covers ready to be bound

Bound book cover

Trial garden

As the weather gets warmer plants and flowers fade in the heat.  One place that always has beautiful flowers throughout the summer is the UGA Trial Garden.  They specialize in plants that can handle the heat and product numerous blooms with vibrant colors.  Since many of the plants are new cultivars you never know what you will find.  

While walking through the garden the blooms of the Mexican Flame Vine (Pseudogynoxys chenopodioides) caught my eye.  By the end of summer the vines will overgrow the arch it is planted on, but right now it is just wast high and covered in vibrant orange-red clusters blooms.

The flower's orange petals open to display a bright yellow center.  As the flower ages it darkens to a deep red, and the yellow styles become a tangle of red fibers.  There is another reason to grow this vine.  The beautiful flowers attract butterflies and humming birds, which feed on the nectar. 

Backyard birds

This year has been a wonderful year for bird watching in our yard.  We noticed a lot of wood chips on the patio and discovered a pair of Yellow-shafted Flickers (Colaptes auratus auratus) had decided to carve a nest cavity in the old Paper Mulberry tree outside the kitchen window.  The location gave us a great view of the Parent birds as they came and went, and later of the fast growing chicks being fed.  We were lucky enough to watch the chicks fledge, taking flight from a dead tree limb.  I took many photos but haven't done any paintings of them yet.

On the other side of the house a pair of Bluebirds had taken up residence in one of the 12 cubbies in our Martin house.  In 12 years, our Martin house had never even tempted a Purple Martin once, it had always been a condo for Purple Finches and House Sparrows.  But this year we are the proud landlords of two beautiful Bluebirds.  While we could watch the parent Bluebirds fly about the yard catching insects and eating berries, the Martin house is too high for us to easily view the interior.  We set up a spotting scope that allowed us to see dim shapes moving inside the Martin house.  I spent a morning working on a sketch of the parents feeding the chicks (upper part of the page).

We had cleaned out the Martin house once we were sure the Bluebird chicks had fledged and the parents were no longer visiting the house.  This was a bit of a task since the telescoping pole the house is on has rusted together and we couldn't lower it.  We ended up using a 12 foot ladder to climb up to the house to clean it.  But it was worth the effort, we were rewarded by having the Bluebirds build a second nest the very next day!

We have spotted the young Bluebirds from the first clutch in the yard.  They look like odd half sparrow half Bluebird birds, with blue wing and tail, but a brown stripped head and breast.  I added sketches of the parents and one of the first clutch immature Bluebirds to the lower part of the page.

Sketching birds

The plan was to spend an hour or two sketching flowers at the  Georgia State Botanical Garden.  The roses are in full bloom now and they were my target.  The roses are in the new terraced garden, at the far end from the lower parking lot.   As I walked along the winding garden path on my way over to the rose garden I heard an irritated chirp chirp chirp.  As I got closer I caught fleeting glimpses of a small yellow bird flitting from branch to branch.  Stopping only to emit a few abrupt chirps before moving on.

Since I had binoculars but not a camera or bird book, I decided to take a few notes and do a quick sketch of  the bird.  This should be quick and easy I thought, and I could identify the bird when I got home.  Well 30 minutes later I was still working on the sketch.  The bird was small, fast and dodging around leaves and branches giving me glimpses of only bits and pieces.  It lead me up and back down the garden path several times.  I did however, with the help of the binoculars manage to take enough notes that with my pencil sketch I was able to identify the Kentucky Warbler (Geothlypis formosa).   This was a new sighting for me, so it was well worth my time.

The yellow underside without any spots or stripes, the black mask that extends down the neck like side burns, and the yellow stripe that wraps around the eye were the distinctive characteristics that helped me identify the bird.  After reading that these birds nest in bushes near the ground I realized the bird was trying to defend a nest (which I never saw).  This also explains the mohawk hair style the bird was sporting.  I never heard the bird's normal call, since it was so irritated with the foot traffic along the path.  

I did finally make over to the roses, but by then it was hot and there isn't a lot of shade in that area of the garden for comfortable sketching.  The roses sketching would have to wait for another day.

Water across the landscape

Water was the final landscape element for the class.  Marilynn did a great demonstration on reflections in water.  Water is almost always darker then the sky.  The reflections in the water always go from the object toward the viewer, and are never larger then the actual object.  Reflections can be dark or light, since they exhibit the same color as the object.  Also the depth of the water and angle of light effects the reflections.

The clouds had finally brought rain.  The ground was very wet and the sky was overcast.  Instead of trying to find a spot outside to paint I picked a photo that I had been wanting to paint for a long time.  A photo from a 2007 trip to Scotland of the small town of Dornie.  Dornie sits along the shore of Loch long close to one of the most photographed castles in Scotland, Eilean Donan.  I found the town to be as picturesque as the castle.

While there is only a bit of water in the photo, there are lots of clouds, hills, trees and rocks.  It seemed like the perfect time to try this painting.  I selected Phthalocyanine Blue, Lemon Yellow, Yellow Ocher, Quinacridone Red for my palette.  The mixture of Phthalocyanine Blue, Yellow Ocher and Quinacridone Red made the perfect gray, which I used for the sky and rock wall.  The sky was done wet-on-wet to make the blanket of clouds.

Marilynn and Carol helped me make some adjustments to the values of the water, houses and rock wall to make a much improved painting.

Composing a landscape

We were finally ready to put the elements we had learned about together in a plein air landscape painting.  Marilynn did demonstrations on controlling your wash, creating perspective though size and color, color harmony and selecting pigments to use in your painting.

Warm

Cool

We reviewed color temperature, and then painted cool and warm color wheels using limited palettes (showing primary, secondary and tertiary).  We discussed the concepts of employing analogous colors to bring harmony, and complementary colors to create contrast in our paintings.



We were then sent out to practice what we had learned on our own plein air landscapes.  A brilliant red tree caught my eye in area across the road between Davidson Hall and the herb garden.  The expansive lawn around that area had large patches of Mustard (Sinapis arvensis), known locally as 'Yellow top'.  

I found a place with a good view and composed a painting of the landscape around that wonderful red tree.  The day was warm and bright, providing the perfect opportunity for me to test out my new ShadeBuddy Umbrella which worked great!  I should have taken a photo of it in action but was preoccupied with painting.   After testing different colors, I selected a pallet of Ultramarine Blue, Crome Yellow, Lemon Yellow, Quinacridone Red and Raw Siena.

Later I went over to the to the garden to identify and sketch the bright red tree.  It turned out to be a beautiful Redbud cultivar.  The wind had picked up and to take closeups of the flowers I had to hold the branches.  Each time a gust of wind shook the other tree branches, thousands of bumble bees that were feasting on the nectar in the blooms were blown off the branches into a buzzing cloud surrounding me and the tree.

The red bloom covered branches looked lovely against the blue sky and green land.  I did a quick watercolor sketch in the field.  I used that sketch along with the photos to complete a painting back at the studio, were Carol lent me some additional colors to boost my palette: Yellow gouache (for the mustard blooms) and Opera (for the lighter shades in the tree blooms).  I think the title should be 'Simultaneous contrast'.

Mighty trees small and large

Marilynn did a demonstration on observing and sketching tree shapes.  Even from a distance you should be able to tell different types of trees apart based on their shape.  Trees can convey not only general locality, but also information on the weather, season and time of day.

We practiced sketching different types of trees from photos.  Working on over all shape, grouping foliage and simplifying details without losing the identity of the tree.  When we had finished several pencil and ink sketches we did watercolors of two of our tree sketches.

Trees can also be used as an important element of perspective, leading the viewer into the painting.  Distant trees are smaller, their shapes are simpler, and details of their foliage are less distinct.  They eventually fade into an indistinguishable mass of colors.  The colors of distant trees and hills are paler and shift toward blue. 

For my landscape of trees, I picked a photo of El Capitan,  Yosemite National Park.  I used a variety of techniques to add depth to the sketch.  I used a graded wash for the cloudless sky, and limited palette of Ultramarine Blue, Cerulean Blue, Crome Yellow and Quinacridone Red.

Strathmore online class: lesson 3 part B

Ink drawing over top of a wet-in-wet wash.

Last week I did a few test wet-in-wet pages to see how the colors blend together.  This week I selected one to use as the background for an ink sketch.  I did a few pencil sketches on the facing page to help me determine the shape and positioning for the sketch.  The line of text refers to T. S. Elliott's poem "The Song of the Jellicles"

Belle likes to sit next to me (or in my lap if she can) as I type on the computer or sketch and paint.  She likes to chase the cursor on the screen, or my brush tip as I paint.  She does her best to add some adventure to what she must see as boring.  Not nearly as interesting as chasing bugs or lizards or scaring birds off the feeders!

Strathmore online class: lesson 3 part A

The first part of lesson three is to use ink for the sketch.  I do this a lot, so decided to try two slightly different approaches on what I inked.

For the first I began by placing a pencil sketch of a Cherokee Rose branch on the page.  I went over it using a superfine tip Pitt artists pen, and erased the pencil.  I used plastic wrap with some very wet paint to create the background on this sketch.  Finally I added color to the rose using my Koi field watercolor kit and Niji large and Koi small water brushes.  The background turned out a bit dark, but I think the texture fits the feel of this sketch well.

For the second sketch I did a quick pencil sketch of an old birdbath in the backyard that in spring is surrounded by a succession of different flowers.  The early spring daffodils have faded and been replaced by bluebells.  I inked only the birdbath and statue, then painted the back ground.  I used a large flat Niji water brush for the fence and bluebell leaves.  Once the background had dried a bit I used a large round Niji water brush to paint in the bluebell flowers with a mix of blue and purple and the birdbath and staute with green and black.  The green is for all the moss and algae that have colonized the bowl and statue.  The text on the page refers to Anne Bronte's poem "The Bluebell", which is actually about the native English Bluebell not Spanish Bluebells but still seems to fit.  Below is the poem and finished sketch.

     A fine and subtle spirit dwells

            In every little flower,

Each one its own sweet feeling breathes

       With more or les of power.

       There is a silent eloquence

          In every wild bluebell

 That fills my softened heart with bliss

      That words could never tell.