Shifting Consciousness

December 15, 2015 / skyevans / 7 Comments

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I used to be a teacher. I used to be a painting contractor. I used to be a glorified factory worker for a large technology company. I used to be a lot of things. Lately I’m wondering what I am now. Things that seemed to be clear cut are no longer clear anymore. It’s as if I’ve awoken from a long sleep and someone rearranged the furniture while I was unconscious. Everything looks the same but it’s all in the wrong place.

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Now I usually love rearranging the furniture. There is something very satisfying about opening up my space and redirecting the traffic patterns throughout my house so that I use my home in a new way. There’s an energy shift in moving furniture, I love the feng shui-ness of it all. So the metaphoric rearranging of my brain, my thoughts, my goals and who exactly I might be is giving me the same boost I get from actually moving a couch across the living room.

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Only this time, I’m having a harder time deciding the final pattern… it all seems in flux. But in the spirit of going with the flow, while still maintaining a concrete grasp on reality, I’m drawing and journaling my thoughts. I’ve just completed my second on-line Mandala workshop (check out Julie Gibbons if you’d like to know more… she’s a darling Scottish teacher making magic on the internet) . It’s been inspiring and very satisfying to draw mandalas but I can’t say I’ve reached any clarity of thought. Maybe it’s the circular nature of the mandala… or the zen like meditative state I find myself in while coloring tiny intricate patterns. Maybe it’s digging down into my subconscious and stirring up the silt that’s muddying up the waters of my present. Maybe it’s mind blowing thought porn that has me watching YouTube videos on math and science, spiritual growth and psychology that’s got me lost in the swirling tornado of ideas.

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Regardless of what it is… my blog is for sharing art. And yes, ideas too. But until I can focus on those ideas, get a handle on what exactly they are, the art will have to do. Some of my thoughts are too personal to share on a blog… there’s a vulnerable quotient to being so transparent, especially since clarity right now is exactly the issue at hand. Until the dust settles and I can see what the hell is going on, these mandalas seem to be serving as my touchstone. Because right now, it’s as if everytime I look away, someone keeps moving the furniture and my only safe zone is drawing.

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Is it possible to be drawing for your life?

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Orientation and Wine Labels

November 11, 2015 / skyevans / 2 Comments

A month ago, I got a call from a friend to create an image for her wine label, Bluebird Hill. Neil and Sue Shay have a local vineyard/winery and needed some art to grace their new label. Bluebird Hill Farm hosts a small craft wine enterprise and along with the vineyard and wine, they are running a bed and breakfast in their private hilltop retreat. You can learn more about them here: Bluebird Hill Farm and on their Facebook page : Bluebird Hill .

This morning, Sue and I photographed the bluebird painting and discussed whether it was flying north across a sunset as the view looked west (as I thought), or was it flying south across the sunrise to the east? Since Sue provided the photo of the view (and I inserted a bird into the final painting) I figured she knew the image better than me! But I can be stubborn… having lived out here for going on 30 years, and having seen these mountains for that long and having spent last month rendering the view, surely we were looking west. Right?

Well, I just looked at their web page again, and Sue’s landscape photo is the star of the home page. The whole time I was painting it, I thought I was painting the coast range behind our homes (I live south of Bluebird Hill Farm). It took me a moment to place where I was in Sue’s photo, but I see now the actual image does look to the south/southeast with the sunrise coming up exactly where it should be!

For someone who prides herself on maintaining her orientation, this took me by surprise. I had spent all this time thinking I was facing one way, when I was really facing another. There’s a lesson here somewhere, probably something about not making assumptions, or maybe even being more careful when cropping images for reference material. All I can say is, I’m glad I wasn’t actually out in the woods trying to make my way to the trail head or back to the car after tromping around off trail (as I frequently do). Lesson actually learned? Don’t get too cocky thinking you know where you are!

Also, laughing at yourself is a good thing. I’ll post the actual label once Sue gets the image to her graphic designer and they work out how the design nests together with the painting. Until then, it will grace the walls of her home and eventually, the tasting room. Cheers everyone!

The Bluebird of Happiness

October 2, 2015October 5, 2015 / skyevans / 2 Comments

My husband is kinda cute. Years ago, there was a family of bluebirds that would periodically try to use our seasonally dormant chimney as a high rise condo for a nest. This “try” never got farther than the “Oh shit, what have I done?” stage when the lesser brained bird would flutter all the way down the chimney pipe and into the actual dormant wood stove where he (?) would summarily get stuck.

Thus necessitating a daring rescue from the occupants of the actual home these feathered invaders were trying to “squat” on. Or in. Whatever.

The cute part is coming up. I came home from work one day to hear a tale from previously introduced husband. How he heard a sound. He ignored it, then heard it again. Frantic, fluttering. Fluttering? He got up from his relaxed state of couch surfing and tracked down the odd noise.

The house terrier was jumping excitedly at the glass panes of the wood stove when the hubby saw a brief movement within. Then the flutter sound. He quickly sussed it out…. a bird! In the stove!

Upon opening the door, he saw, there, in the ashes of winter passed, a small bluebird. It peered up at him with eyes of beady black, then, in a flash, it leaped up and flew OUT! Out, but INTO the house! There was a bird, at large, in the house.

The terrier leaped, to no avail. The bird, he was quicker! The husband yelled and fell back. There was a bird in the house. A WILD bird!

The little bluebird flew to the window and discovered the force field we use to protect our nest… we like to call it glass. The bird made a slight thump and bounced off and into my fast recovering husband’s outstretched hands. Touchdown!

He held the small bird and did the thing we all do when fortunate enough to hold a wild bird in ones hand… he looked it over very carefully. It’s blue feathers, its small beak, those round eyes rimmed with a band of gray. There are delicate intricacies of patterns, color, fletching, these things you don’t see when a bird is on the wing. To see it up close, without your own eye pressed to a binocular lense, is to see it in the real. To feel the warmth and the tiny heart beat in your hand is to feel the spirit of nature herself.

The hub and the bird regarded one another. Eye to eye, for a moment. And in that moment they were awed and touched. Knowing time was important, to hold the bird longer than necessary was to trap him and harm him with fear, my husband opened the door to the outside world. He stepped beyond the porch and held the bird to the open sky. In a blink, the bird leapt and was gone, swooping off in long arcs across our meadow of spring grass.

In that moment, my husband was happy. He felt blessed by the bluebird of happiness.

And that, was the story he shared with me. It was the story I remembered when a week later, that bird forgot his error in judgement and found its way into my living room again. This time, I got to hold the bluebird of happiness in my hands. And you know what? Happiness is a fragile thing. It has to be set free in order for it to fly and be and create more happiness. It’s a rare thing to hold it in your hands.

We both were blessed with that story. As for the bluebird? He found a better home and didn’t make that mistake a third time. If I want to look closely at them, I have to dial in the focus on our Bushnells… and then close one eye because they never seem to work right for me. They are lovely to admire from a distance and I’m glad they are taking a pass on the chimney pipe these days. But that brief encounter was a small blue miracle, one of the many magical moments that make up a life and make one happy to be alive.

The bluebird of happiness:

Wait! It’s summer already?!

June 30, 2015 / skyevans / 2 Comments

Dear lovely readers,

Summer came in and hit the PNW with a bang. We had some record heat early on and before I knew it, I was gardening, mowing, riding horses, camping and doing everything BUT getting into the studio. Just wanted to let you know I was still around, but not painting. I have been working on a piece, (another in the Wilderness of Women series) but with so much to do (and a short window of summertime opportunity to do it in) it’s going to be awhile before I post new art. In the meantime…. I want to share the summer studio with you all and beg a bit of forgiveness while I get out there, live life and make some memories. Blogging all my new work will have to wait until the weather turns rainy and cold, and I actually make some new art. Funny how I never paid attention before to my creative processes before starting this blog. Now I see, how clearly seasonal my muse seems to be! Apparently she’s on vacation, because even the days I get into the studio, she doesn’t seem interested in showing up and helping a girl out.

Well, she’ll turn up eventually. And as soon as she does, I’ll post again! Till then, the garden will have to suffice.

Painting Mt. Hood

April 29, 2015 / skyevans / 7 Comments

As part of my Wilderness of Women series, I decided to paint the iconic Mt. Hood. Judy Flexer sent me a fabulous photo of Mt. Hood from the PCT, and while I liked it, somehow living in Oregon and actually painting the one big iconic volcano in our state was… well, maybe too big of a project. I was so reluctant about the subject matter that I pretty much filed the image under “do not paint… like, ever!” in my mind and that was that. Until I was searching for my next project. And I kept coming back to that image, it was big, and bold and compelling as all hell.

So I wondered… why not? I proved to myself I had the ability, so what was stopping me? I couldn’t think of anything other than my own little fragile ego. If I compared my work to the quintessential hero of the landscape, Albert Bierstadt, I felt I was falling short of greatness. But why compare? He was a great painter, yes, and while it is true that he has a particularly nice rendering of Mt. Hood that happens to hang in the Portland Art Museum, surely that’s no reason. Intimidating, yes, but really, that’s a silly reason to not paint something. It’s not like the PAM is calling me anytime soon to ask what was I thinking?! Damn it, I wanted to do it just because at first, I didn’t. It may be a perverse kind of determination, but it’s how I spurred myself to get over myself and just do it already!

In Judy’s photo, Mt. Hood is bathed in sunset colors, the viewer stands between the sunset to the west and looks east at the mountain. The eastern sky is a deepening blue, as opposing sky lines often are; the foreground is shadowed, you only know it’s sunset because of the spectacular glow of Hood. The Multnomah Indians called it, Wy’east, and he was one of the sons of the great spirit. Wy’east is a big beefy volcanic guy and without his deep mantle of snow, we see all his orange, golden, tan and ochre tones. You can tell it’s late in the summer and the white cape he usually sports has mostly disappeared. Hood is pretty much naked in this picture… and something about that really appealed to me.

And now, for some other perverse reason, I decided to not only paint him, but document myself in a whole new medium to me, film. Well, digital anyway. Last time I made a film was in a class where we actually spliced real film! So, not only did I have to learn the software, I had to hang up my phone on a tripod and upload, upload, upload. Argh!! It tested my patience and because it was a distraction, I skipped filming portions of the painting. So, it’s not a great piece of movie making, but it is kinda fun and explains my delay at posting to my blog!

Without further ado, Painting Mt. Hood. A digital short by Sky Evans… enjoy!

Mt Hood

If you’d like to learn more about Albert Bierstadt and his amazing talent, here’s a quick link to his version of Mt. Hood: http://www.wikiart.org/en/albert-bierstadt/mount-hood-oregon-1865

Sold!!

April 11, 2015 / skyevans / 6 Comments

Endurance Night Ride

http://fineartamerica.com/saleannouncement.html?id=262ae1a0edca2f625a1f51fcbd8b5b5c

This is my first print sold on FAA. Very excited! My first sale ever (on FAA) was a phone case and then a couple of cards, but selling the print feels like such a bigger deal for some reason. Thank you all for supporting my efforts to support myself as an artist. I’ve finally reached the place in my life where I acknowledge and am comfortable with the concept that this is who and what I am. An ARTIST!

And that’s a very good thing.

Hamsa for peace of mind

April 6, 2015 / skyevans / 4 Comments

Seems like life had other plans for me lately. The garden called, so did the lawn, the animals needed some attention, then there was the brush pile to burn, the floor to sweep, the kitchen to clean. On and on and on it goes… it’s always something. Even the atmosphere was colluding to keep me outside doing all those spring time tasks that needed good weather. Until I was ready to pull out my hair and became completely overwhelmed with chores and my ever growing list of tasks. Just when I was really getting sick of it all, a cold rain swept in and I finally headed into the studio. I really needed to get something out of me and preferably onto a canvas. But my next painting had yet to be decided. What to do, what to do? I put on my favorite album and got lost in a meditative Hamsa.

The Hamsa is a symbol of protection. It’s an old image, used throughout history to ward off the “evil eye”. Drawing one sends out good vibes and puts those inner demons to rest. Supposedly. I know I felt better just working on it. Maybe one way to look at the “evil eye” is the “I” inside. Meaning the ego. The ego gets wrapped up in feeling important, in feeling good about oneself. And for me, getting all those chores done does feel good. Checking things off my list feels like I’ve been productive. But I need to balance that mad dash at productivity with a creative flow that replenishes my sense of self.

You’d think by now in my life I’d have figured out how to stay balanced. But what I have learned is the scales are always tipping one way or the other and one has to adapt and change and constantly seek balance. That’s just the nature of life. Having the tools to help you find that balance point again, whatever the tool may be, is a good thing. Keeping the balance is important. Maybe even more important than mowing the lawn.

Here’s my Hamsa… colored pencil, sharpie and alcohol markers.

Be gone evil thoughts!!

My Father’s Shirt

February 25, 2015 / skyevans / 1 Comment

I was sorting through some items stored in a little used corner of the studio when I came across a bundle of paint rags. I usually air out rags after a few paintings, letting them dry outdoors so the turpentine and oil fumes don’t create a fun little science experiment called spontaneous combustion. All the rags were dry and stiff and pretty useless. I wondered why I was even keeping them when out of the pile this little beauty rolled out.

Believe it or not, this old shirt belonged to my dad, circa 1972. He probably doesn’t even know I have it or that I kept it all this time. It predates every brush I have. (The ones I started with were worn out ages ago.) Somehow I got a hold of my dad’s old shirt and used it to clean my brushes and went on to clean every brush I used for the next few decades. This shirt has a dollop of paint on it from every painting I made during that time. I guess I kept it as a good luck charm or something. After awhile, I made sure I swiped a brush across it even if I had another rag by my easel, you know, for luck.

One day, I aired it out and never put it back where I could use it. And then I forgot all about it. Until it was unearthed in an archeological dig of sorts. I smoothed it out and thought about all the projects we had worked on together. The trip down memory lane made me smile. There are a lot of crappy paintings wiped on that shirt, and some that are still pretty good. Here’s one from the pretty good list:

Full Moon Song
Oil on canvas board
18″x24″

I have a bit of a rocky history with my dad. However, through all the years of ups and downs, I still had his shirt to help me clean up my creative mess. Eventually, we managed to persevere and develop a better “grown up” relationship. So I guess it really was a lucky shirt after all.

The Inspirational Stretch

January 27, 2015 / skyevans / 2 Comments

Where does inspiration come from? One can never tell, really. I like to think of it as weather… a storm that blows in strong and unexpected or a misty rain that slowly seeps into everything. Sometimes you see it coming and can shape it to bond and meld with your own will. Sometimes however, there are bolts of lightning that make the hair stand up on your head and scare the bejeezus out of you. I like those moments of inspiration, they are electrifying, thrilling and exciting. But I also love the slow seep, where an idea builds and builds and before you know it, you’ve created something magical out of nothing.

$Inspiration is where you find it. this frozen puddle makes a cool fractal!$

Inspiration is where you find it. This frozen puddle makes a cool fractal!

But lately, I’ve been all over the weather map. It’s been raining, sunny, stormy, foggy. And since our Western Oregon weather pattern has been matching my inspirational mood, I’ve been spending a great deal of time outside. I’ve been hiking and testing equipment and getting ready for a return to backpacking.

That’s me in the corner… getting in touch with my hiker self.

Maybe it’s all the hiking… or all the thinking and research I’ve been doing, but my muse has kinda skipped out on me. It seems as if I didn’t have a single idea. Well, that’s not exactly right… I have ideas but what I want is lightning bolts.

So, when in doubt, clean. I straightened the studio, scraped off the old paint on my palette and checked my inventory. That’s when it hit me… I was out of canvas! How did that happen?!

Ok, so I know how it happened. I’ve been painting. Duh. I thought about getting on line and ordering a new batch but I came across some stretcher bars I bought on sale and decided to do something I hadn’t done in quite some time. Stretch my own canvas.

What’s that you say? Stretch… canvas?? Well, well, children, gather round. Way back when granny was poor as… well, a starving artist, she learned how to stretch her own canvas so she could paint. Nowadays, she usually buys pre-stretched but she still knows how! All you need is canvas, a wood frame and a staple gun. I used to grip my canvas like a mad demon, but then I discovered canvas pliers which made all the difference in the world.

Tools of the trade… so to speak.

You can use regular duck canvas you buy at a fabric store (if you can find a heavy enough weight for the job) or you can order specialty artists canvas. They even make pre-gessoed canvas. Gesso is the sizing that is painted on a raw canvas to prime the surface for paint. More about that later.

First things first, the frame. You can build your own, or buy the premade and ready to put together “in whatever size configuration you like” kind. These slip together at the ends with some clever tongue in groove joints… a couple of taps with the hammer and you are good to go. Cut the canvas to size, (larger than you need, obviously) then, starting in the middle, staple to the frame.

Canvas pliers doing their job.

Canvas pliers have a nice wide mouth and a foot to pry along the edge of a frame or stretcher bar. They grip the canvas, you roll them over the edge of the bar and pulling tight, staple the snot out of it! I couldn’t hold the camera, the canvas and the staple gun all at the same time, so you’ll have to use your imagination. I staple each middle section, turning the canvas as I go, then work the corners in turn. To get an even stretch, you need to put in a few staples, turn the canvas, do a few more and so on. Rotation is the key to an even stretch.

All finished stapling and trimming the excess canvas. I like to wrap my canvas around the edge of the frame and then paint the edges of my work. Eliminates the need for frames.

Probably the trickiest part besides the stretch is how to fold the corners. How? Trial and error, my friend, trial and error. Just do the same thing on each corner, and make your folds as even as possible. If you are not handy enough to make a neat corner fold, then canvas stretching may not be for you. No worries though… it is kinda a pain in the ass to stretch canvas. There is a reason why I don’t usually do this anymore!

Next step, Gesso!

Gesso… two types. Cheap and the not so cheap.

Gesso is just fancy primer. You can use regular wall primer but it is usually very thin unless you buy a top of the line product like Benjamin Moore which has some nice primers. Artist quality gesso is made with high quality materials such as titanium, plaster, clay, gypsum and marble dust suspended in an acrylic polymer emulsion. They will be thicker, cover better, and have the ability to be tinted. But several coats of the cheaper stuff will most likely do the job.

I use a wide brush that is dedicated to primers as the thick material is hard to wash out and will ruin my finer brushes.

If I had ironed the canvas before stretching I probably wouldn’t have this fold shadow in my fabric. I thought I could stretch it out, but alas, it is still there. The Gesso process will eliminate it, since as it dries, the sizing (glues and acrylic polymers) will shrink, further tightening the canvas.

I paint several coats in perpendicular strokes. Even though this image shows a diagonal stroke, it was just to lay down the Gesso before smoothing it left to right. You can see how thick it is.

As I was writing this post, I stopped to do a little online research on Gesso and was surprised to find a number of YouTube sites that showed how to make homemade gesso with white glue, titanium paint, plaster and of all things, baby powder. You can save $$ by making your own gesso, but I wouldn’t suggest following unreputable sources. Some of the videographers couldn’t even read the label on the Plaster of Paris box, which threw all credibility out the window for me. However, they are on the right track. Gesso in it’s most simple terms is white stuff and glue… painted on a surface so you can then paint on something white. Done poorly, it will flake off and ruin your work. Done well and it will last hundreds of years. Keep in mind those old masters of yesteryear didn’t have access to the wealth of materials we can find in our local home improvement store. So, really, in all probability you are going to be ok no matter what you use!

Finished canvas ready to rock and roll!

Best part of stretching my own canvas… I can make a non standard shape (this one is about 16″ by 34″ something you cannot find anywhere) as well as the satisfaction of DIY. And I saved about $35. Ten paintings later, that’s $350 so not too bad in the savings department. Oh yeah, and I also found my inspiration for my next piece! That lightning bolt was lurking about waiting for me to stroll by. So stay tuned!

Alone in a field of poppies

January 10, 2015 / skyevans / 5 Comments

Seems like the holidays always throw me for a loop. It’s such a social time of the year and I get wiped out by all the parties and visits and, well, people. I like people, just spaced out and in smaller doses. I’m pretty good at the small talk, it’s not like I’m in the corner with a wild eyed stare, but after a few months of seemingly endless events, I need a break. The American holiday season seems like full bore, pedal to the metal intensity. I like to move at a much slower pace and sometimes find myself white knuckling this time of year. Classic introvert, that’s me.

I finally got a chance to get into the studio and took the opportunity to take a trip down memory lane. I was hunting through my snapshots for something to paint and came across a wonderful photo. I took it last year on the fourth of July.

Since my son was small, on every Independance Day, we would drive to a local field to watch the annual fireworks display. In the beginning, it was just the 3 of us, in the bed of our pick up truck. We’d arrive early and eat a picnic dinner while waiting for the summer sun to set and the show to begin.

A few years back, we invited some friends to join us and it turned into an event. We all park in a row, set out a pot -luck picnic, lawn chairs, a cooler or two of beer and it’s an instant party. The kids set off store bought fireworks on the road while we laugh, eat and have small town good time on the edge of the farmer’s field.

The field in question has been, in turns, planted with mint, grass and last year, of all things, poppies. It was stunningly beautiful and really added a new dimension to our annual 4th of July lawn party. I took this picture of my friend’s daughter, just before the sun began to set. It’s been a favorite of mine ever since.

Here’s the sketch: