Nature Art: Patterns

Patterns can be geometric—like a modernist Piet Mondrian painting—or organic. Organic patterns take their repeated shapes from nature, like the dots of frost on the flower heads, above. One of the earliest frosts ever hit Maryland last week, and these sedum just barely survived. I thought the frost would melt before I returned with my camera.

Many Japanese patterns are nature-based. The Pattern Sourcebook: Japanese Style 2: 250 patterns for Projects and Designs contains 250 full-color images of historic Japanese fabric patterns, many of them based on the tiny repeated dot pattern you see in the sedum, above. The dots themselved were stenciled onto dyed fabric. Some are so evocative!  This one, at right, of fiddlehead ferns, dates from the mid-1860s.

The book includes a CD of 250 copyright-free images.  Most designs repeat evenly, like wallpaper, which will allow you to copy and paste them as tiles in Photoshop. You can also change the original colors and combine patterns as you wish, perhaps creating your own business cards or website. A second example appears below. It's called  "dandelion clocks."

Try changing the background color (or the dots) and see how the mood of the piece shifts!

-- Sue Fierston paints and teaches just outside of Washington, D.C. in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. As a painter, she works in acrylics and watercolor and is in the middle of a series called "100 Flowers." As a teaching artist, she works with teachers to bring art into their classrooms in grades 4-8. Her posts focus on her nature-themed art collaborations. For a look at her paintings or more about her teaching, check out her website at suzannefierston.com.

 

 

 

 

Three Ways to Lighten Your Pack

Are you stuck in a rut with your nature sketches? Do you find yourself using the same colors over and over? Are you wedded to that one special style of sketchbook?

Maybe it's time for a trip to the art supply store. It's easy to purchase supplies online, I know, but I find that actually seeing new colors of paint and touching real paper is more inspiring. Then again, if trolling for what's available online helps you think outside the canvass and try new techniques, then that can be inspiring, too.

A dazzling (and lightweight) way to try new colors and pack them along on a walk is to use a color chart. Daniel Smith Art Supplies makes one with 238 (or 66) watercolor samples, each one a dot of colorful paint, labeled by name and grouped by color on four different sheets of paper. I made a color chart right away, touching each paint dot with a damp brush, curious to see how "rose of ultramarine" compared to my usual "quinacridone violet" (much livelier, I found). This particular product is only available by phone from Daniel Smith at (800) 426-6740.

Many hikers include water brushes in their traveling kits, but I couldn't understand why until I actually saw one while perusing the art supply store. Think of a fountain pen: You dispense the ink in its reservoir by pressing the nib to paper.

The Ninji water brush works in the same way, holding clean water in its reservoir, which you dispense by pressing the brush to the paper. To use it, simply run the water brush over a sketch you've made with watercolor pencils or crayons--and you have paint! The brushes themselves come in three different sizes, and I find "small" most useful, comparable to a number 6 round watercolor brush. Why do you need this tool?  For convenience. You can leave at home your water container, your travel palette, and even your paintbrush if you tuck a water brush and a few watercolor pencils in your pack instead. I painted this image of a lemon and kumquats using a waterbrush.

And how about painting on an artist trading card?  These tiny cards measure 2.5 x 3.5 inches and have become the darlings of the art world.  You can even find online galleries of them on Flickr and in Switzerland! Artists hold swaps of mini masterpieces, painted in watercolor, printed in ink, even collaged. You can mail them as little postcards or tuck them into tiny envelopes or clear plastic bags to exchange. You can find mini pre-cut mats if you end up creating a masterpiece! A package of 10 artist trading cards weighs far less than a spiral-bound sketchbook, and you might find yourself painting something totally unexpected on this miniature canvas.

At left is a trading card next to a water brush.

Have you found other ways to travel light with art supplies?

-- Sue Fierston paints and teaches just outside of Washington, D.C. in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. As a painter, she works in acrylics and watercolor and is in the middle of a series called "100 Flowers." As a teaching artist, she works with teachers to bring art into their classrooms in grades 4-8. Her posts focus on her nature-themed art collaborations. For a look at her paintings or more about her teaching, check out her website at suzannefierston.com.

Low-tech Leaf Printing

 If you've never tried leaf printing, you may be surprised by how easy it is.

Start with a leaf that call to you, as the trident shape of the sassafras leaf at left calls to me. Textured leaves--those with lots of veins and crinkles--print best, because the roughness holds the ink.

You'll need water-soluble printing ink (I used Speedball red, yellow, and blue), which you can find at a crafts or art supply store for about $5 each. You'll also need newspaper and white paper plates on which to mix the ink. If you can afford it, a mini paint roller or brayer (about $10) will help to transfer the ink onto the leaf, but you can also spread the ink onto the leaf with your fingers. I used both a brayer and my fingers as spreaders to print the image on the left.

I mixed yellow and blue on the plate and ran the brayer through the mix, making sure to cover all sides of the roller with ink. Then I laid the leaf on a piece of clean newspaper and rolled the inked brayer all over the surface of the leaf (don't forget the stem!). I dipped my fingers in ink to gently fill in white spots in the print, where the brayer had missed, and to add the unexpected red of the stem.  

You can print on white copy paper, but I love the texture of the soft mulberry fibers in Japanese paper. The paper must be soft to the touch to make a good print.

The paper you see at right is soft as cotton cloth. It made beautiful prints because the paper absorbed the ink from all of the little crinkles of the leaf. Pick up your leaf and lay it inked side down on your paper of choice. Cover it with a clean sheet of newspaper and rub the leaf through the newspaper using your hands, the brayer, or the back of a wooden spoon. Remove the newspaper and lift off the leaf. You have a leaf print! (I added an oakleaf hydrangea in the center and a leaf from the round-lobed gum tree.)

If you enjoy leaf printing, you will like the ideas in two books that focus on printing from nature: Natural Impressions, by Carolyn Dahl, and Nature Printing, by Laura D. Bethmann.

-- Sue Fierston paints and teaches just outside of Washington, D.C. in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. As a painter, she works in acrylics and watercolor and is in the middle of a series called "100 Flowers." As a teaching artist, she works with teachers to bring art into their classrooms in grades 4-8. Her posts focus on her nature-themed art collaborations. For a look at her paintings or more about her teaching, check out her website at suzannefierston.com.

Hooked on Leaves

For most of us, a sugar maple, with its scarlet and orange leaves, is the symbol of autumn. It's one of the most colorful fall maples, and the tree in my front yard has just begun to turn. I'm lucky to have one nearby; here in Maryland, in USDA Zone 7, we don't have the long, cold winters and mild summers that it actually prefers. Somehow this particular tree doesn't mind.

I learned contour drawing by using leaves. Oak and birch leaves were the subjects of my first good painting. I loved blending one color into the next on the wet paper:



I started by drawing a leaf, from life, on Yupo, a plastic "paper" I'm using these days. With a regular #2 pencil, I used the technique of contour drawing--following the edge of a leaf with my eye and making a corresponding line on the paper. My eye moved back and forth between the leaf and my drawing, correcting any lines that went wild or wrong.

This sugar maple leaf fell off my tree this morning, and you can see by the wet paint that I started painting it right away:


I love to play with color, and  it's easy to do when you paint on Yupo. Watercolors sparkle on this surface because the paint is not absorbed; it dries randomly, one color flowing into another. And, if you make a mistake, all you have to do is wipe it away with clean water and a paper towel. It's a relaxing change from the rigors of watercolor paper, where you must get it right the first time!

Here's the final leaf painting on Yupo:


Go ahead--grab some autumn leaves and give it a try!

-- Sue Fierston paints and teaches just outside of Washington, D.C. in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. As a painter, she works in acrylics and watercolor and is in the middle of a series called "100 Flowers." As a teaching artist, she works with teachers to bring art into their classrooms in grades 4-8. Her posts focus on her nature-themed art collaborations. For a look at her paintings or more about her teaching, check out her website at suzannefierston.com.

Two Cities, One Blue Sage

We dropped our daughter at college in Chicago last week, which gave me a chance to visit the Lurie Garden at Millenium Park, right in the downtown area, east of the Loop. It's a striking oasis, full of flowering prairie plants and goldfinches pecking at the seedheads of coneflowers.

The garden's designer, Piet Oudolf, also designed the High Line garden on the west side of Manhattan--and a gorgeous blue sage is blooming in both places right now. The sky-blue blossoms of this plant are unmistakable and unusual; most perennials said to flower blue actually have a purple cast to their petals. I was so excited when I saw it in the Lurie Garden, I made a quick pencil sketch:

 

The High Line is a repurposed elevated railroad trestle that runs for 20 blocks along the Hudson River as a stroll garden. Oudolf retained many of the plants that had grown up on the abandoned railroad bed (the goldenrod, the sumac) and added native sages, asters, and vibrunums. Oudolf, from Holland, has introduced American gardeners to the idea of using native vegetation--planted in large groups, with dried stems on perennials--as food and shelter for wildlife. These low-water gardens work as natural habitats, even in the city. Oudolf has authored many books, but my favorite is his early "Designing with Plants" for its specific plant recommendations, accurate photos, and playful translation from the Dutch.

 

I've been painting with Yupo, the synthetic "paper," because I like the random flow of the pigments on its slick surface. I can't use pencil on Yupo because its surface is too slippery, so I lightly paint in the plants using cobalt blue and a fine brush. Then I go back in and add the colors I want. Here is Salvia azurea, Blue Sage:

 

-- Sue Fierston paints and teaches just outside of Washington, D.C. in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. As a painter, she works in acrylics and watercolor and is in the middle of a series called "100 Flowers." As a teaching artist, she works with teachers to bring art into their classrooms in grades 4-8. Her posts focus on her nature-themed art collaborations. For a look at her paintings or more about her teaching, check out her website at suzannefierston.com.

Nature Art: Three Myths About Drawing

If you're intimidated by the idea of sketching and painting, you're not alone. Sometime around age 10 we get the idea that the only good drawing is a realistic one. But good art has little to do with exactness and a lot to do with the feelings an artist gets down on the paper. You don't need perfect drawing skills to observe and record your impressions of the world around you. Here's a drawing I did a few weeks ago; I was trying to capture the shapes of sails caught in the wind, but you can recognize the sailboats without the realistic rigging or masts:

Here are three myths about drawing:

1.  I must already be able to draw and, since I can't, it's too late.
The top fear of everyone. Drawing is a skill that can be learned anytime, just like reading. The reason you can't draw as well as you read is because you practiced reading during school, over and over again.  Chances are you didn't practice drawing more than a few times in art class...before you went on to try clay or painting. Give contour drawing a try: "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain," by Betty Edwards, still has the clearest instructions around.

2.  I need expensive or special tools.
I love the tools of art: delicious new colors, accurate mechanical pencils...but you don't need lots of tools. All you need is a number 2 pencil and blank paper. I bring along an eraser, just in case. If you're keeping a nature or travel journal, you could collect your drawings in a sketchbook so your observations will be kept in one place.  Sometimes, if I'm traveling with watercolors, I carry  a shaker of table salt with me to sprinkle in the wet paint. In the lobster, below, I used the salt to make the pattern in its shell:

3.  I don't have enough time.
Who hasn't spent five minutes waiting in a parking lot?  You can make a quick drawing of a car or a school bus in that time, putting your own spin on the scene. A camera would have captured all the cars I saw out my window in this parking lot. But I only wanted to emphasize the neat way the car windows aligned, and I tried to do that in this sketch:

Where do you spend time waiting?  What would you like to draw?  Give it a try, starting is the hardest part!

-- Sue Fierston paints and teaches just outside of Washington, D.C. in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. As a painter, she works in acrylics and watercolor and is in the middle of a series called "100 Flowers." As a teaching artist, she works with teachers to bring art into their classrooms in grades 4-8. Her posts focus on her nature-themed art collaborations. For a look at her paintings or more about her teaching, check out her website at suzannefierston.com.

Nature Art: August Around the World

It was an exciting August in Washington, D.C. We not only had a hurricane, but also a 5.8 magnitude earthquake! Our natural world is usually gentle, and hot, well in to October. In fact, kids rarely need to wear coats over their costumes when they trick-or-treat on Halloween.

My Japanese calendar shows the same lush, humid climate in August. The Japanese morning glories are blooming sky blue, the Japanese fireflies are still out, though fewer than in June, and the Japanese mosquitoes ... sadly, the Japanese have them, too. The Japanese send syo-chuu-mimai, or traditional summer postcards, with classic images from their own hot summers and, over at the blog Tokyobounce.com, I found these lovely graphics. The first image is of morning glories, the second of fireflies, and the third of, not a pig, but a pig-shaped incense burner with a mosquito repellant coil in its mouth:

The writers at tokyobounce go on to say: "Of course, there are plenty of symbols that don't quite make the postcard cut – handkerchiefs doused in sweat, Salarymen in cool biz-ware, cicadas ...."

So summer is lingering here at 39 degrees north, about the latitude of Washington and Tokyo. But I've saved a calendar from Aeroflot, the airline of the former Soviet Union, a relic from 1992. What's August like there?

At 55 degrees north, it's autumn...in fact, it's a scene from Washington's November, yellow maple leaves and all.

This year I could draw torrents of rain (from the hurricane) and cracking earth (from the earthquake) for Washington's August symbols. I'd draw an air conditioning symbol, too, another one that wouldn't make the postcard cut!

But what are your symbols? What's late summer like where you are?

-- Sue Fierston paints and teaches just outside of Washington, D.C. in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. As a painter, she works in acrylics and watercolor and is in the middle of a series called "100 Flowers." As a teaching artist, she works with teachers to bring art into their classrooms in grades 4-8. Her posts focus on her nature-themed art collaborations. For a look at her paintings or more about her teaching, check out her website at suzannefierston.com.

Nature Art: Islands

Why do we love islands? Do we think of them as sentinels, as guardians, like lighthouses? Or is it the magic, the promise of an island, something cut off from our mainland regular life?

I grew up on an island, Kwajalein, in the South Pacific, but I didn't realize the hold islands had on my imagination until I began to paint. In my first sketch, below, you can see Childrens' Island at the bottom of the image, and you may be able to read my notes about the incoming fog at the top:

During my time in Marblehead, I ended up sketching Childrens' Island almost every day. I was playing with my new sketchbook, trying to draw one full sheet of images each time I want out for a walk. Marblehead has lots to draw, the old town in particular with its pre-1700s houses, its harbor, its lighthouse...but I always came back to the island. When I draw it now, I know every little shape: the two shelters in the middle, the tiny water tower on a hill, the fan of trees near the end. In the image below, you can see I was drawing in a stiff northeast wind--the water is choppy and the sailboats are turned to catch the wind:

I'm painting in gouache, the opaque watercolors, these days, so I tried it next in a quick, color sketch of a sunrise:

Wherever you go in the last days of summer, I hope you bring your sketchbook with you!

-- Sue Fierston paints and teaches just outside of Washington, D.C. in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. As a painter, she works in acrylics and watercolor and is in the middle of a series called "100 Flowers." As a teaching artist, she works with teachers to bring art into their classrooms in grades 4-8. Her posts focus on her nature-themed art collaborations. For a look at her paintings or more about her teaching, check out her website at suzannefierston.com.

Nature Art: The Lighthouse

In Honolulu, it was Diamond Head that followed me everywhere--on the beach, through the city streets...  Here in Marblehead, Massachusetts, about 20 miles north of Boston, it's the lighthouse.

Marblehead Harbor is famous for its summer sailing and its lobsters. Some even call it the birthplace of the American Navy and, from anywhere in the old town, you can see the lighthouse that marks the harbor mouth. Here's a sketch with the lighthouse at the top and a tiny fleet of sailboats below:


All the artists in town paint the lighthouse. If you're a realistic marine painter, it's important to include all the bracing on each of its four legs, just as you would include accurate drawings of the rigging of a boat you were painting. It took me years to realize that I could let the legs go, that I could just hint at them and trust you, the viewer, to understand what I meant. I painted the view below on a 90-degree day, and I chose unrealistic colors to emphasize how hot I felt. No sea breeze ever came up:


I'm painting with opaque watercolors, called gouache. They have a velvety finish when dry and clean up with water. They come in small tubes, and I simply squirt color (about the size of a dime for a sketch) onto a coated white paper plate when I'm setting up my palette. I throw the plate away when I'm done painting. You could also use a white glass plate or metal butcher tray as your palette, but I like to travel very light when I'm painting outdoors. I paint on regular watercolor paper with the usual brushes. Because gouache is opaque, I can paint over an area that didn't work and try again, which makes it a relaxing, vacation-like medium to use. You can find tubes of gouache at your local art supply store or at most online art supply stores. Here's my finished painting of the lighthouse:


Gouache is easy to travel with and, if you're traveling by air, the tiny tubes will fit in the zip-lock bag required by the TSA. I hope you give it a try wherever you may be in August!

-- Sue Fierston paints and teaches just outside of Washington, D.C. in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. As a painter, she works in acrylics and watercolor and is in the middle of a series called "100 Flowers." As a teaching artist, she works with teachers to bring art into their classrooms in grades 4-8. Her posts focus on her nature-themed art collaborations. For a look at her paintings or more about her teaching, check out her website at suzannefierston.com.

Nature Art: Painting Diamond Head

What do you bring home from your travels?  Seashells?  Photos? T-shirts?  Me too.  And I often bring home another thing: drawings of a natural symbol, or something I've drawn repeatedly, or a new shape that caught my eye.  I can never predict what it will be. One year it was crab claws.  I drew them open, folded, on top of seaweed, in the sand. I didn't realize myself how often I'd drawn them until I looked back at my sketches. 

Last month, I drew Diamond Head, the volcano at the east end of Waikiki Beach in Honolulu. Its iconic silhouette is a background for the city; if you forget for a minute that you are in that Hawaiian city, you have only to look to the East to remember.  Diamond Head's Hawaiian name, Le'ahi, means "ridge "and "tuna," perhaps referring to the dorsal-fin like shape of the volcanic cone itself.

Here are two sketches of the very top ridge I made looking back at the volcano from the beach. It was hard to capture the exact angles at the top ridgeline.

 
Below, I used a wax-resist paper called Bateeko to make the white lines in the painting I'm working on. This wax creates lines on the watercolor paper that resist paint, and they show up as white lines. You can draw right on the Bateeko, so I placed it on top of my watercolor paper and drew, pressing hard to transfer the Bateeko wax onto the watercolor paper. When my drawing was finished, I lifted the wax sheet and began to paint with watercolors on the paper. As I painted, the white lines stood out against against the colors, as if by magic. I have also drawn directly on watercolor paper with a wax candle (unlit!) or a white crayon to create a resist. You can order a pack of 25 sheets of Bateeko from enasco.com

 
Wax and water can mix! I hope you'll give this playful technique a try over the summer.

-- Sue Fierston paints and teaches just outside of Washington, D.C. in the Chesapeake Bay watershed. As a painter, she works in acrylics and watercolor and is in the middle of a series called "100 Flowers." As a teaching artist, she works with teachers to bring art into their classrooms in grades 4-8. Her posts focus on her nature-themed art collaborations. For a look at her paintings or more about her teaching, check out her website at suzannefierston.com.