The View from Our Place

As promised, a post about my latest watercolor painting, The View from Our Place. If you’re here for another fiber project roundup, you’ll have to wait for the next post. I decided there’s too much to talk about to cram it all into one update. 

This is my latest finished watercolor. The inspiration comes from my husband’s grandmother and our front yard. I’ve known Grandma Dollar now for over 24 years and since we’ve lived in Pagosa for nearly 20, she’s never had the opportunity to see our place. When we visit with her, we entertain her with stories about the wildlife that visits our yard, and she always asks about my garden. 

At 91, she’s had some health issues over the last year or two that have dampened her spirit. When I started painting, Chris suggested she might like one of my artworks. Much like, Favorite Things, I chose some of the things that make me the most happy: summertime when young fawns are found bouncing along the hillside, the hollyhocks in full bloom, and all year round we celebrate visits from the most entertaining birds, comical gangs of pygmy nuthatches who defy gravity. I call them my minions. 

According to the progress photos I like to take while I’m painting, I started this one on Oct 8th with the hollyhock and finished by Dec 5th. I saved the trees and background for last. Even though all the leaves were gone for the season, I spent an afternoon on the deck, painting en plein air to get the best interpretation of the hillsides. 

Oct 28 – What’s wrong with this picture? Painting from the dog bed in front of the fireplace so as not to disturb the slumbering dog under my desk.

When it was finally completed, I peeled it off the Arches block and pressed it flat for framing. I placed my first order ever with Blick Art Supplies, including a pre-cut matte and wooden frame. There were some reviews saying their frames or mattes had arrived damaged, but my order was packed as carefully as possible and arrived in great condition. After mounting and framing the painting, I carefully packed it back up and shipped it on to Chris’s parents. I think they must be waiting for Christmas to gift it to her as I haven’t heard that she’s seen it yet. 

Framed and ready to ship.

Since I recently opened a store @Society6, I’ve included this watercolor as a design available for purchase. You can order your own copy to hang on the wall, as an art print, framed or even as a printed canvas. Check it out @Society6.

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I did it! It’s been percolating for many years in my mind, about a decade. I finally decided on a platform to license our designs and jumped in. I’ve loaded in a half dozen photographs and watercolors and curated the best products according to the designs. I’ve got a million more ideas, and I already enjoy finding and being inspired by all the other talented artists.

There’s still time to shop for the holidays and with Society6’s Holiday Flash Deals, you can save up to 40% off everything.

Check out our shop. Expect more posts as new designs are released or follow @SubalpineDesign on Society6 to stay up to date.

Next post, I’ll catch you up on all the new textile projects and behind the scenes of my latest watercolor, The View from Our Place.

Humming Along

The last two months (August and September) have blown by, and here we are over a week into October. There’s been a lot going on. We took a week off to recharge in the mountains in August. I painted my first plein air watercolor there and finished the Lily of the West—more on those momentarily. 

There’s been event planning and a design of a field guide and flyer for the Four Mile Ranch program after one of my fellow volunteers did the leg work of taking photos and drafting the copy. This year looks a little different with families signing up to visit on Fridays for a self-guided hike.

Flyers and field guide pages, Audubon Rockies Four Mile Ranch Program

Finally finished formatting the Volunteer Manual for this program, too. It’s now a 180 page Word Doc for all of the activities we normally teach that’s given to new recruits, printed in a binder. There wasn’t any recruiting this year, but I was eager to complete this one so that the content can be reviewed and updated to meet new standards and expanding activities.

There are also all the regular work requests going on from designing new essential oil product packaging and advertising for the holidays to running updates and some minimal website maintenance.

Blog Post “Why Certified Organic?” for Red Silk Essentials

You better believe there is lots of crafting that has happened over the last few months, too.

Watercolor Updates

During our week long camping trip in the Southern San Juans, I continued my weekly practice of watercolor. This time was outdoors, en plein air. While the landscape wasn’t super inspiring, I was initially focused on the dark blue wildflowers and the jolly, fat spruce that sat near camp.

Back at home, I’d started the first in the Good Dogs Series. I’ve decided I wanted to create portraits of all of our dogs. All but one have passed away in the last eight years, and she’ll be 15 this year. I’ve read bios and advice from lots of artists and many talk about how much better their painting is when the artist loves the subject. This really seemed to be the case with my first dog portrait. I couldn’t get over the level of detail and realism, the love that I felt shine through when I started to paint.

My only criticism of this painting was in my choice of paint. I decided to try using my Crayola palette for its black paint and used that on the frame. For the rest of the blacks in the painting, I mixed them myself. The Crayola paint didn’t react the same way as my other paints. It seems to stay on top of the paper and re-wet and bleed much more easily. For a crisper detail, I should have gone with pen and ink. Oh well, I don’t think it ruins it. Maybe I’ll repaint it one day.

In the meantime there are six more dog portraits ahead, and they are being delayed as I have two other ideas in mind for paintings that I want to gift to people. I’ll come back and share more details once those are completed and gifted.

Detail of a hollyhock work in progress…

I also spent quite a bit of brainpower researching framing and portfolio ideas for protecting my finished artwork. Overall I’ve decided I don’t have the space to get the framing supplies and tools I’d like, so going forward I’ll plan paintings to fit pre-cut matts and standard frames. Eventually I’ll purchase some portfolios, but for now my art is sitting out on my desk. It’s not the best for its lifespan, but it brings me so much more joy seeing it every day—as art should—rather than hiding it away in a book.

Fiber Updates

This Percolator Koozy was first designed in 2016. I wrote about it back in February this year, and by our camping trip in August, I’d ended up crocheting a whole new one because I’m back on the tea drinking vibe. This one will match the color of our bus when we get it back on the road, or should I say back in the woods.

Percolator Koozy and wander mug from our friend Kim

I finished two different sweater patterns from Knitting for BreakfastFairy Tale (pictured at the beginning of this post) & Fiori di Loto or Lily of the West, documented them on Ravelry and had a few of my photos picked to be featured on the pattern designers’ pages!

Lily of the West

I’m now on a sock kick. I pulled out the Joy of Sox book and combed through the stash during a Virgo Sun transit and voila!

Virgo Sun Socks

I’m on to another design from the same book, but these are a gift so no photos till they’ve been gifted. Also on the upcoming list I want to make these gauntlets, and I have two more pairs of socks in mind to expand my hand knit sock collection:  another pair of the leaf socks pictured below in red and a blue pair of these Lotus socks.

Lily Pads

Dissent

This spring as the pandemic hit, I was inspired to knit Andrea Rangel’s Dissent Pullover. At the time, I didn’t blog much about the project or the thoughts on naming my version Frozen Tears.

‘Frozen’ because the color-way reminds me of Elsa. The ‘tears’ came from many passing thoughts from the color turquoise making me think of the plight of indigenous people, especially women; and thinking of tears of sorrow and joy shed as the Notorious RBG fought for civil liberties and gender equality.

How often have we been convinced to hide or hold back our tears?
Or how many of you feel like you’ve cried all the tears you have left?

As we descended into the unknown, I thought of all of the life events that people were missing or hardships they were encountering. …of how our lives were put on hold and how there wasn’t any time to mourn its loss. Frozen tears. Never did I think a few months later those tears would be welling in memory of the person who inspired the pattern’s design. 

Dissent Pullover, Frozen Tears

Society is like a stew. If you don’t stir it up every once in a while then a layer of scum floats to the top.

Edward Abbey

These are a few of my favorite things.

That’s the title of my latest completed watercolor, Favorite Things. I’m very pleased with how it turned out. I’ve been having fun using my masking fluid and entering an Alphonse Mucha inspired phase that started with revisiting Wolf Rules.

Wolf Rules

My first sketched idea for this was also the first sketch/illustration I shared on this blog back in January 2019. It’s a subject I think I might re-compose and paint a few times.

Finished Object: Starbird Shawl

I’ve been hitting my first creative blocks with creating textiles. They pass with a flash of inspiration. I have to learn how to rest through these cycles because the ideas will come again. Usually I would have a stack of ideas brewing for the next thing, but this time I was clueless, going a week or two at a time sifting through patterns and trying to match it up to my stash of yarn. Something new to try, something I knew I could use.

My first breakthrough was pairing up this lacy Gamayun Bird shawl with the precious cobalt blue yak down fiber I picked up in Crested Butte during my travels. I called it Chasing the Stellar Jade Buffalo. The pattern required quite a bit of concentration. Instead I chose to name it after my great-grandparents. More photos and details can be found on Ravelry.

WIP: Lily of the West

I then searched for a loooooong time for the next project. M.A.N.Y. P.A.T..T.E.R.N.S! and many designers. Tops and skirts and dresses. I was originally drawn to Knitting for Breakfast’s Dune pattern, but learned I didn’t have quite enough yardage to make it with what I have on hand—starting a shopping list for next time.

I definitely saw the potential in Fiori di Loto to use my big purchase from the shut down in March. I was designing my Frozen Tears sweater back then and was looking for more Wooly Wonka yarn. Mooncat Fiber in Taos didn’t have any of the weight I needed, but they had these luscious dk weight 50/50 wool/silk kits, and they were on sale! I bought all she had left. I believe the colorways were Talisman and Desert Sunset. I also got Chaco Love (if I heard right—not pictured), that’s what wasn’t quite enough for the Dune pattern.

I’ll post more of these works in progress eventually on Ravelry. I’ve added some mods including making the front longer and a colorwork pattern from Alterknit.

WIP: Fairy Tale Short Sleeved Sweater

Fairy Tale was the icing on the cake. I wanted to pair it with a color scheme of kid gloss mohair that I’d bought way back from YadaYada Yarn in Silver City: ecru — peach sherbet? — amethyst. I didn’t want to just use the mohair, I wanted a little more substantial top in this round. So I paired it with the leftover Unicorn I was afraid of running out of with Frozen Tears and leftover Blackberry from the same sweater and this Urth Oleaster that I had bought in Durango with socks in mind. I could have made two sweaters outta all that fiber! Thinking about looking for a bamboo or something lightweight and doing a more summery version with more positive ease since we have been in the 90s the last two days.

When I’m feeling sad,
I simply remember my favorite things,
And then I don’t feel so bad.
—Rodgers & Hammerstein

Practice Making Progress

Continuing to share my journey of discovery with watercolor, today’s post is meant to encourage you to find ways to advance your creative practice and for me to appreciate what I’ve accomplished.

As a creative, I know about the traps, obstacles or blocks from both inside and out that can make it challenging to follow through. They still litter my path. I’ve talked before about how it’s been difficult to get motivated and stick with finishing a piece of art. I haven’t encountered that often with my textile creations or when under contract to get a job done; but when it comes to putting something to paper via drawing or painting to feed my soul, everything else seems to take priority. The first thing I needed to do was to dedicate time to allow myself to paint.

As dr. e says,Protect your time; . . . I know a fierce painter here in the Rockies who hangs this sign on the chain that closes off the road to her house when she is in a painting or thinking mode: ‘I am working today and am not receiving visitors. I know you think this doesn’t mean you because you are my banker, agent or best friend. But it does.’

“Another sculptor I know hangs this sign on her gate: ‘Do not disturb unless I’ve won the lottery or Jesus has been sighted on the Old Taos Highway.'”

Since I’ve worked from home for over a decade, the distractions here aren’t as hard to ignore as the obligation I feel towards my clients to make myself available. This required establishing a mental boundary. A few years ago, I turned off the alerts on my phone and continue to generously use the do not disturb feature. The true test is not checking it during or before painting, remaining present to the process.

When the pandemic cancelled the class I intended to take this month, I set aside the time that would have been spent there. During the first session, I nearly completed the Flagstaff Beetle. After the initial sequestered 3 hours, I checked the phone and learned no one had any urgent requests for my time, gifting me with the luxury of painting the rest of the day.

Finishing that painting over the following weekend, I added a quickie California poppy on a Zentangle® tile. And then I was stuck. What to paint next? Should I move onto the larger sized paper? I’d been working on 5″ x 7″ canvases and the 12″ x 17″ block of Arches paper bought for the class was intimidating. Gently pushing myself through the block by doing google image searches, I ended up with more ideas than hours in the day. With more demands on my time, most of the second class session was spent sketching and setting up for painting the next week.

Spending a little time one afternoon with my camera, trying to capture a suitable image of one of the hummingbirds that frequent our feeder this time of year, rewarded me with my next muse.

Until recently, I didn’t understand the desire to record a time lapse of one’s drawing as can be done in Adobe Sketch unless you were trying to create a tutorial. I’ve taken several pictures of this one in progress and there are a number of things I love about it. Obviously, I can turn those images into these fun animated gifs, but it also helps me see values or other details from a different perspective. Like recording myself playing the mandolin, I like to look back and see how I decided to approach a section of the canvas.

WIP: Large and In Charge

The last observation I’d like to share is that despite having limited workspace, I’ve been able to keep my painting supplies set up as I’ve worked on Large and In Charge and that has helped to motivate. This reminds me of another parallel to playing the mandolin. My good friend and musician, Mark Dudrow suggested if I wanted to get serious about practicing, I needed to keep my mandolin out of the case. “Put it in your way, where you’ll see it every day,” he said. Make it easy to pick up.

That’s the real beauty with watercolor. The paints can dry out, and be reconstituted with just a drop or spray of water. I find myself eyeing the composition throughout the day; or even picking up the brush for a quick stroke, while I wait for something to heat up in the kitchen. It also reminds me of something I learned from Zentangle’s creators, “Anything is possible, one stroke at a time.”