“Pie Social”, mixed media by Kerry McFall
I just finished this a few weeks ago, painted from a photo by Charlyn Ellis of her Pie Social last November (2014). You’d have to live under a rock to not know that today is “3/14/15”, (the beginning of the number PI), and after seeing all the bad pie/pi puns on social media, I just couldn’t resist posting a painting of PIES on PI DAY! The big one up front must be Boston Cream Pie… looks tempting.
“Apple Blossoms,” mixed media by Kerry McFall, 12 x 12 framed, $200
This is another piece from the Call and Response show, perhaps my favorite this year, painted last spring (2014). I saw this broken but still beautiful branch on an ancient tree behind the homestead at Finley Wildlife Refuge, hanging on by a thread of bark and a bit of wood. The blossoms and bee are cutouts, made from watercolor, ink, and gel pen. The background is a collage of various papers and paints. The “float” frame makes it possible to position the cutouts into a 3-D setting.
I am amazed at how quickly spring is barreling in to the Willamette Valley right now… the honeybees seem to be having a hard time keeping up. So many flowers, so few bees. I noticed this morning that strawberries, blueberries, and pears are blooming in my front garden – WAY early!
“Ouch!” Mixed media copyright Kerry McFall
The little Fuji apple tree is a bit behind because some butthead college kid tore off the best fruiting branch one night in the wee hours in January … grrr… I scrounged around in the garage and found an old can of pruning tar to seal the wound. (Tip: wet coffee grounds are very useful for scrubbing pruning tar off your hands and arms. Also nail polish remover.) Apparently they had a go at uprooting it as well, but with a little luck and a few bungee cords… I hope the tree lives. And, I hope he/they (yep, pretty sure it was males) woke up with MAJOR headaches.
My newly-wed daughter is home for a week. The To Do list includes: apply for Creditcard at friendly local bank, find your sewing machine (garage? attic?), clean your junk out of the attic (especially shoes, art supplies, theater props, and prom dresses).
Being happily married means you can chuck the extreme shoes and get comfortable, at least chuck the ones that scream, “I’m in the mood to lacerate your insteps!” And so we say goodbye to these Cruel Shoes, black suede, metal stilettos, with little rhinestones at the edges, and silvery flaps of satin at the heel and toe, kind of like wings… anybody interested? Size 7 and a half… The rest have gone to GoodWill, but I just had to draw these before she parts with them!
“Farewell, Cruel Shoes”, mixed media by Kerry McFall, copyright 2015
The Call and Response show is over, and several paintings from the exhibit are now available for purchase. I know plenty of folks around the country who have Cabin Fever and could use some blue sky, so here’s your chance! The first two above are actually one piece: the square is a closeup of the center canvas. The sassy parakeet is strictly for fun, and would make a cheery addition to a child’s room.
Free Shipping and Handling! Available through PayPal payments only – or personal check if I know who you are. Email kmcfall@gallerynouveau.biz
“Unimproved Road”, mixed media by Kerry McFall
Ever heard the expression, “She looked like 10 miles of bad road”? If there was ever any doubt in my mind about what that might look like, it was swept away last week when I looked at myself in the rear view mirror of our little Fiat. Only it was 12 miles of bad road, to be exact.
If you go to Cade’s Cove, Tennessee, in the Smoky Mountains during the riot of autumnal glory known as “The Colors”, you will find a lovely valley, equipped with a one-way loop of perfectly good paved road, featuring fabulous landscapes and a few historic primitive buildings. If you go with my husband, you will then find yourself taking the “Cherokee Graves Trail” shortcut, also known as Rich Mountain Road, out of the valley for the allegedly even-more-fabulous view from the top of the ridge. The entrance to the road is clearly marked with a sign reading “unimproved road“. If you catch “The Colors” toward the end of autumn, the “road” itself will be all but invisible beneath a thick, lovely blanket of colorful leaves.
In Tennessee, apparently “unimproved road” is shorthand for a series of stone formations eroded into 12 miles of washboard switchbacks, pocked by deep pools of runoff, with steep dropoffs down one side and tangled tree trunks up the other. Don’t even think of turning around, not even to save your marriage. Until you hit the first rock formation at 30 mph, you might be convinced that it could at one time have been called a “road”. However, it was clearly intended to be used as a footpath for bears and wild pigs. The nickname about the graves begins to make sense about 6 miles in — we didn’t see any actual graves, but those guys were obviously murdered by their wives once they finally got to the top, because they still had to get the rest of the way down in the dark.
After this adventure, my husband is no longer allowed to call himself, “a Tennessee Boy” (or ‘Boah’ as the locals pronounce it). For Christmas he will receive a custom-made T-shirt proclaiming him to be what his mother used to condemn, the dreaded and despised “Flatland Tourister”.
And in point of fact, gorgeous colors in the dark are simply… dark.
“Celebrate the Arts!”, mixed media by Kerry McFall
This is the third in my Old City Knoxville series. Last week at sunset I was looking up at the Commerce Building on Gay Street, wishing that modern architects understood the appeal of arched windows, and loving the way brick ages. I had hardly even noticed what the text on the banner said — I was thinking that between the brick and the banner I could get a very “University of Tennessee Orange” color scheme. Serendipity – it was about celebrating art!
This series has become an adventure in painting with the color palettes of old brick. I am becoming more and more enamored of the brick “pentimento,” those vintage painted signs that can still be seen on many buildings, advertising “shoes and rubbers” or “the best part of the meal”, some in layers over each other. Here in the Old City, it’s like searching for ghosts from Knoxville’s Industrial past, peeking between old factories and new skyscrapers to find clues of who used to work and live here.
Knoxville local developers have made a good faith effort to revitalize the neighborhoods yet keep the architectural “old city” feel. We have been staying here downtown now for going on three months, and loving that art is indeed celebrated, and so is fine dining, not to mention we can walk everywhere, or take a free trolley. That being said, I can also see the unintended consequences: every time one of these grand old buildings gets renovated into condos or upscale retail or office space, another artist has to find a different and affordable studio or gallery space, because yeah, most artists can’t afford the upscaled rent. That means moving ever further into the abandoned industrial (and sketchy, in the personal safety meaning of the term) areas, or out into the vast strip mall wastelands of Kingston Pike. Ouch.
Here’s a glance at all three in the Old City series together – please remember that you can click Buy Now to get your own prints for just $18 each!
“RAF Magenta Lily”, mixed media by Kerry McFall
“Stripes” mixed media by Kerry McFall
“Double Fun”, mixed media by Kerry McFall
I’m still working on Random Acts of Flowers paintings and sketches – there’s a steady stream of lovely bouquets to work with, and I’d love to be able to do them all! Some recipient locations call for small bouquets (not a lot of room on a bedside table), and some days call for being able to stretch the limited number of donated flowers to reach all of the potential recipients. (Interesting to note that brides try not to schedule weddings in Knoxville on football game weekends, so after a game, there aren’t as many flowers!) Those are the days when volunteers rise to the occasion and come up with extra-creativity to use simple things like baby’s breath and a bit of ribbon, or maybe just two roses, to make delightful little “tussie mussies” or “nosegays”.
“Double Fun” above is an experiment in “loosening up”, not doing the usual detail I do over the watercolor base. I kinda like it! (I was tempted to paint in a couple of goldfish in the vases!)
“A Breath of Fresh Air” below, shows again how a vase can totally make the bouquet; this one looks like a tiny 1940’s vintage pitcher (maybe 4″ high?), possibly hand thrown but I didn’t get to check the bottom of it for details before it disappeared into the delivery van. A few branches of some kind of shrubbery, a couple stems of baby’s breath, and voila – instant bouquet!
“A Breath of Fresh Air”, mixed media by Kerry McFall
It looks like it’s a “GO!” to put together a series of Random Acts of Flowers Bouquet Paintings for greeting cards! With that in mind, here are a couple of insights into the current process for creating the paintings.
The bouquet-creation process is described in detail in my previous post at https://www.gallerynouveau.biz/index.php/2014/09/arranging-flowers-not-so-random-acts-of-volunteers/. That is the social part of the process for me, and being there as the bouquets are created gives me a powerful motivation for painting. I don’t just get to play with flowers and chat with the other volunteers as they work their magic. I witness the inspiration and inner workings of the organization, like I did this morning: the door opened and a dripping woman appeared out of the driving rain, pushing one box through the door and going back for another. “These are from my daughter’s wedding this weekend,” she said, “and since your kindness touched me so deeply two years ago when I was ill, we wanted to be sure these came to you.” She had already made most of the flowers into small arrangements, the ideal size for an RAF delivery. The few loose ones were scooped up almost immediately by delighted volunteers who needed just those two daisies or that one piece of greenery to finish off their bouquet. Recycling flowers and smiles at its best!
So here are the steps to a painting:
Step 1. Show up. (Woody Allen maintains that this is the key to success no matter what you’re doing.)
Step 2. Photograph some of the Fabulous RAF Bouquets – not fancy photos, I’d say they are more like utility photos to use as memory aids. There are WAY too many bouquets to choose from and they show up on the back shelves at a fast and furious pace, so this requires mostly good timing to snap the shot before they get loaded into the delivery van.
Step 3. Go home, and start with a quick and loose “underpainting” in watercolor, based on memory and the photograph. A glass or two of chardonnay is useful for encouraging what we artists like to call “spontaneity” at this stage.
Step 4. Draw in some detail, usually in waterproof ink.
Step 5. Optional: Add more detail with whatever media works. For a spattered, textured look, start flinging paint, or soak an old toothbrush in juicy paint and pull your thumb down over the bristles. Or, grab the nearest three-year-old, take cover, and let him do it!
Step 6. Scan or photograph the painting, process it in PhotoShop as needed. I’ve begun adding a green border to the paintings to add some consistency to the format.
Et Voila! The two bouquets in this post were created at RAF on Tuesday, September 29, 2014.
“RAF Coral Roses”, mixed media by Kerry McFall
Tuesday morning the Random Acts of Flowers office was a sea of roses and leafy branches, bordered by dozens of vases and rolls of ribbons – a flower lover’s Disneyland! After my flower arranging class a couple of weeks ago, I had worked up the nerve to volunteer. The other volunteers were cinching up aprons and diving in to the blooms as my new friend Lorraine showed me the ropes (and scissors, and wires, and even how to de-thorn roses using a little flexible plastic soap dish!) Many of the volunteers were seasoned regulars, and by working with them, I learned all kinds of interesting tips and tricks. The most important thing: shop the entire room, plus the cold room, plus the vase warehouse, because you just never know what treasures lurk beneath the tubs of blossoms. Treasures like dried cattails, bunches of those little red or pink berry thingies, a clear coral-colored lucite vase, probably vintage 50’s ( I managed to snag that one!) Or three velvety deep burgundy callas, ever so gorgeous and elegant, plus a metallic 80’s-style vase which coordinated perfectly with them, which became the inspiration for this arrangement by another volunteer:
“RAF Gorgeous”, mixed media with digital manipulation by Kerry McFall
Time flew past as we all chatted and clipped and consulted. I was in my “arting happy place,” that same place I find myself when I draw or paint: completely oblivious to anything but what is before my eyes and in my hands. Noon already! And I was thrilled to look up and now see wave after wave of carefully arranged flowers, each one unique to the arranger’s designs and whims, each one including a Random Acts of Flowers card with the name of a sponsor or donor. The flowers had come from weddings, events, florists, families; some arrived in perfect conditions, others needed serious de-constructing and trimming and rehabilitation in a fresh water bath. Another set of volunteers had accomplished all that earlier on Monday. Still other sets of volunteers spent hours washing and counting vases (recycled or donated), cleaning up after everyone else, and finally delivering the arrangements, delivering the smiles.
It occurred to me only as I was too tired to really do anything about it, that I should photograph some of the arrangements and paint them. Another volunteer was talking about making prints of photos or paintings and doing cards or a calendar, thus giving the arrangements an even fuller life. Hmmm… great idea! So as a possible proof of concept, here are two paintings, the first one based on my favorite arrangement that I put together, the second one based on one of the volunteers’ favorites that hadn’t already been put on the delivery van by the time this inspiration struck.
What could be better inspiration? All the flowers and arrangements and creative arrangers that I could possibly imagine, a fun group of volunteers to work with, and smiles all around. I’m liking Knoxville!
Technique Notes: I photographed the arrangements in the workshop – not the best lighting, but a good tool for remembering details.
Back in my “studio” (aka the dining room table,) the first painting was lightly outlined with transparent watercolor, spattered with a toothbrush all over, then lines were drawn with ink. Several more layers were then painted using both opaque and transparent watercolor, and highlights were emphasized with wax pencil and white Sharpie marker.
The second painting was done using the same sequence, only more wax pencil to make the batik-type white edges. BUT after all that fuss and bother, it wasn’t as colorful as the original, and I didn’t like the proportions – wonky vase, flowers not big enough, etc…. So I fired up my Photoshop and messed around until I had it closer to what I originally intended – ain’t technology grand?