Off To The North

Our little cottage in the woods for the next six months-look: it’s even got a front porch.

It’s healthy to change the scenery from time to time; that’s what travel does so well for you. Travel is one thing and relocation is another. This isn’t quite a move, because it’s only for half a year. We’re leaving almost everything behind us and taking only what we need. Our place in the woods is furnished. We’ll bring whatever is important for creativity and exploration.

Tomorrow we are driving to Massachusetts, where Mike will spend his sabbatical and I’ll help him get settled in for a few days before returning to Oklahoma. For another month I’ll finish up my projects, close shop, ship a small part of my studio and hop a plane myself. The car is packed tight with mostly Mike’s stuff: a microscope, glass-topped wooden boxes filled with pinned ants, collecting gear, books, field guides, a big flat-screen computer monitor. The detritus of a scientific life.

What am I taking? The bare essentials of an artistic one: a sketchbook, a small watercolor kit and a few brushes, a tiny camera, binoculars, warm clothes in a little duffel, a laptop and a banjo. We’ll even have time to play music up there. I’ll take more with me when I go up again for the long haul, but for now, it’s all I need to keep me happy.

The Motmot will be on the road until next week.

I’m SO Loving My T-Shirt!

Remember this style-n-beauty blogpost?

Announcing the Grand Opening of the Motmot Mercantile! You may have noticed the little badge over to the right in the sidebar- it links to an all-new online shopping experience in my Cafe Press-hosted store. All the designs are made from original artwork, on products you just know you’re gonna want, and all just a click away.

Drew these tanagers from a hammock in Panama; who’d of thought I was working at the time?

The swell thing about having a shop with Cafe Press is that they do all the manufacturing, packing, shipping, and customer services, including the financial end of things. All I have to do is make up cool designs for the tote bags, mugs, refrigerator magnets and other essentials of a quality lifestyle. I invite you to browse. And one other nice thing- it’s easy to add products and designs, so if there’s something you would like to have, just let me know! Thanks for looking!

Birding: a real team sport. Design inspired by this.

Black Swans and The Impact of the Unexpected

This little painting is my way of working out the kinks, technically and otherwise, in a larger painting that’s going to a paying customer (the commissioner). It’s where I can relax and have fun and make mistakes with reckless abandon. And sometimes the mistakes turn out to be in the right direction. Sometimes it’s a good idea not to overthink it too much. I repeat again what Gustave Moreau said, Art does not live by will alone; everything depends on docile submission to the inrush of the unconcious. I’m not sure how much absinthe he’d had by then, but I believe he’s right, up to a point. At some point the conscious mind should intervene and give a bit of direction. Or should it? Discuss among yourselves. See here for further enlightening instruction, but come right back.

So there I was, fussing and tightening up all those gray-edged black feathers (it’s really a beautiful pattern, but after awhile it was all you saw). My forest was vanishing under all the trees, the overall form (and that nice negative shape) was getting buried in detail. I suddenly saw this, grabbed a fat flat and started scooping darks at random off the palette. Big blobs of raw umber, ultramarine blue, burnt sienna, and small swipes of light gray mixes that got in the way of the brush ended up on the swan. My purpose was to go back to the negative shape and try again, but something unexpected happened. The paint landed in a flurry of brushwork, unintended and unconscious, but when I stepped back the swan form had blossomed into positive shape. Nice edges, interesting sweeps of shape, interplays of warm and cool. I couldn’t have planned it better. And so I washed out the brushes, turned off the light, and went to make dinner. I know when one shouldn’t intervene with a good session of submission to the inrush of the unconscious.

The Black Swan Theory strikes again!

Speaking of highly conscious minds, Bill of the Birds has given me a mention on his very excellent blog. As Editor of Bird Watcher’s Digest, he’s been an enthusiastic supporter and celebrator (is someone who celebrates called a celebrity?) of everything-bird-and-bird-art-related, including bird artists. BWD is one of the very few magazines today using commissioned illustrations. They use plenty of great photos, but every cover is a work of art, and there’s plenty of fine art between the covers. Oh, and Bill’s got a podcast now, filled with entertaining interviews and discussions with top birders. Yay, Bill and Bird Watcher’s Digest!