Tag Archives: mixed media

A New Gig for the New Year

Posted 1/4/2022 by Kerry McFall

CoverPage

Cover art for the Casa de Manana newsletter by yours truly

I volunteered to do some art for the cover of our bi-monthly resident’s newsletter here at Casa de Manana, and that’s the result.  The back cover explains where residents can find the models posing for the “portraits”:

CASA Parrot Tiles

This fella resides just outside the southeast door from the patio to the upper lounge, a gorgeous example of the original Casa tile art from the 1920’s.

Hummingbird

We see these jet-propelled flyers as they zip from blossom to blossom, and occasionally engage in aerial battles with any other bird silly enough to fly past our balconies.  When a sunbeam strikes their feathers, irridescent colors take our breath away!

Gull Discouraging Device

Seagulls decorate the patio and rooftops with their own brand of graffiti… The latest discouraging devices seem to be working: wires strung across the patio at just the width of their wingspread!  Which of course Mic (a particularly loud and chatty gull that one resident named Mic) finds immensely annoying.

Pelican

These majesties soar above us and float in the cove below us, masters of aerial serenity and Olympic diving and fishing skills.

Pompeii

This pet cockatoo can be seen making the rounds of residential shoulders, pecking at earrings and hearing aids, and occasionally flying high in spite of the best efforts of the Wing Clippers!

Rooster

Occasionally seen strutting around on a walking device in the Casa Dining Facility. Move over, Foghorn Leghorn! (This is actually a metal sculpture, about 18” tall, that rides on the lady’s walker)

The folks here seem to enjoy my art, and I really had fun putting it all together.  For the next edition, I’m thinking about all the exotic flowers around here… or maybe the types of waves and tides and cliffs… or all the fish-related experiences… or, oh, dear, here go the fireworks in my head, too many ideas, too little time!

Queen Elizabeth Rose

Posted November8, 2021 by Kerry McFall

StillLifeRose

CASA Rose #1 -Queen Elizabeth

Casa de Manana has a rose bush planted on campus for each resident.  When your rose blooms, you can cut the blossoms – and in my case, paint them!  Ours is apparently known as Queen Elizabeth, creamy petals with deep red edges.  I’m thinking this might be the start of a series of rose paintings… but that being said, I have to add that rose portraits are really tricky…  It’s so easy to get sucked in to fussing over every little ruffle on every little curl of every little petal!

#rosesmixedmedia #roseportraite #QueenElizabethRose

Find the Good and Praise It

Posted October 1, 2021 by Kerry McFall

Painting of La Jolla Cove

Sea Lions at La Jolla Cove

 One of my new passions is watching the sea lions here in La Jolla.  According to the locals and some docents at La Jolla Cove, this particular bunch took up residence here sometime in about 2016.  The females come here to give birth, and then they spend several months teaching the pups to swim, fish, and generally be denizens of the deep.   A few males show up now and then to bark and complain and get on everyone’s nerves, occasionally staging sumo wrestling matches on the rocks with younger males.  Those guys are humongous, up to 800 pounds.

I can spend so long standing there watching that my feet go to sleep.  Sea lions make terrific “life drawing” artist’s models, posing in the sun like furry mermaids, the young ones turning somersaults and playing tag in the surf.  But we all know that no passion is without a dark side, and this is no exception – I hereby nominate the idiots (mostly tourists) who harass the sea lions for The Darwin Award.  And the Queen’s Dog Whisperer agrees, as quoted from  https://www.mcall.com/sd-cm-ljl-dog-whisperer-20180910-htmlstory.html:

“That’s stupid, that,” Mugford said, motioning toward a group of young people about five feet from a group of sea lions and inching closer with their cell phones out. “It endangers the mother-pup bond and it endangers those people.

“Sea lions are wildlife, just like grizzly bears or bison,” he continued. “Obviously, having those signs warning people not to get close does no good if people ignore them. What we need is a few well-documented cases of sea lions biting people and then perhaps people would keep their distance more.” 

To sum up, people who pester wildlife don’t have the sense that God gave a Goose.  For most of the summer, there were yellow tapes blocking the steps carved or worn into the rocks where the pups and their mothers were resting.  Most people stayed back, but every time I was on that Cove walkway, there were the selfie seekers, down there with the sea lions.  The tapes came down in mid-September, I guess because the local ordinance was only effective during “active pupping season”.  But damnation (as my sainted father would have said), those pups are now  teenagers in sea lion development terms.  Being the Momma of a teen makes ANY woman cranky!  If you mess with the rookery residents, you make ALL those Mommas mad… and 300 pounds of angry Momma coming at you on slippery wet rocks is a recipe for disaster.

Alex Haley said, “Find the good and praise it,” quoting his grandmother I believe.    I’ve always thought that was a good philosophy to guide our lives – otherwise we wind up like those noisy male sea lions, complaining and getting on everyone’s nerves.  And so I offer my drawing of a little boy, sitting on the wall to watch the sea lions in quiet fascination, wearing his bicycle helmet, his scooter pulled up politely alongside.  Occasionally he and his big sister, who stood beside him, giggled at the antics going on down by the surf line.  Their Momma and Daddy did a good job of helping them be caring humans in a changing climate – good job.  Maybe their examples will rub off on rowdy, thoughtless tourists.

Boy Watching Sea Lion

Find the Good and Praise It: Good Boy!

#LaJollaCove #SeaLions #SelfieSeekers #FindTheGoodAndPraiseIt  #ResponsibleCitizens

Hibiscus – Experiments in Tropical Color Schemes!

Posted June 2, 2021 by Kerry McFall

“Quilt”Montage of 4 hibiscus multi-media images

Since moving to San Diego, I find myself not only stopping to smell the proverbial roses but also stopping to admire the tropical wonders that thrive here, like hibiscus.  I’ve posted a few hibiscus sketches and paintings here before on this site (you can use the Search box up at top right of this page to see them).

My quilting background shows up regularly as I find myself turning many of my floral sketches into digital quilt blocks.  And once that happens, each hibiscus blossom seems to insist on flicking their pleated petals outside of the border, like flamenco dancers flirting with their skirts.

Here is the original pencil sketch and watercolor base of my most recent hibiscus, which I discovered last week growing at the San Diego Zoo.  I added leaves in each corner, and one ladybug to cover up a boo-boo.First Pass at Multi-color Hibiscus

Next, I added more watercolor, ink highlights (both white & black), some marker lines, and some colored pencil rubbings for texture.  Oh, and digitally, I added a pink “binding”.Somehow, I felt like I hadn’t captured the burst of flame that first attracted me.  So, another layer of dark blue-green watercolor was applied to make it “pop”… but lesson learned.  Don’t overdo!  I also used the Photoshop “poster edge” filter on some of it.hibiscus paintingMulticolor Hibiscus with darkened background,

And once I was that deep into Photoshop, I got wild and crazy!  I tried an inverted color scheme, and it all went  sort of ultraviolet… then started messing with the color balance and it burst into flame…  The only remaining task was to put the “quilt blocks” together in one image.  I’m not sure what my grandmothers the quilters would say, but it was fun!

Montage of 4 hibiscus multi-media images

Are We There Yet?

posted August 4, 2020 by Kerry McFall, who is very tired of this 2020 ride…

Remember when you were a kid in the back seat of the car and the trip was taking an eternity?  That’s what this year feels like, and this month (which is now known as Faugust because it’s weirdly foggy and gloomy here in San Diego), and this week, and this afternoon, and – yeah.  The answer to “Are we there yet?” from my Dad generally sounded a lot like this hawk looks:

Swainson's Hawk painting

Swainson’s Hawk, mixed media by Kerry McFall

The answer from my Mom, the first time one of us asked, was usually something like, “Almost…” or “Pretty soon…”  The second time we asked her, the answer was essentially the same as Dad’s.  Only with less profanity.

This beautiful feisty bird was photographed originally by Christine Paige, Idaho wildlife biologist, who says that it will soon be flying off to Argentina… I wish it well, and I hope there’s no kids in the backseat.  I am fascinated by that blue beak!

Meanwhile, something that helped take my mind off the news/journey/insanity last week was a video about Urban Sketching by Sketchbook Skool.  Since I didn’t much want to go out into the Urban insanity here (“Life’s  A Beach, Bro!  Grab a Brew!  Who needs a mask?!”), I just paused the video and sketched the instructor, Jason Das.  Best hat I’ve ever done!

sketch of man in hat

Jason Das Urban Sketcher, mixed media by Kerry McFall

So Hang in There, folks.  But no, I don’t think we’re there yet.

#SketchbookSkool  #JasonDas #ChristinePaige  #Swainson’sHawk #AreWeThereYet #UrbanSketching

 

 

 

Floofy Red Flowers Instead of Fireworks This Year?

Posted June 25, 2020 by Kerry McFall

Red Gum Tree aka Beaker, mixed media by Kerry McFall

San Diego’s climate is often described as Mediterranean… but I’ve been to the Mediterranean, and this ain’t it.  Basil is Mediterranean.  Grapes are Mediterranean.  June Gloom (and May Gray) are not – I mean, for crying out loud, has it been this gray all month in Italy?!  I think not.

I’ve been trying not to whine about this for 8 weeks, but I’m an Oregonian, born and bred.  Sunshine is a major reason why I’m down here, but right now the surf and the sky are just all one big expanse of No Color, enough to make me think I’m back in Newport, Oregon, only not as wet.  Or cold.  Sigh.  Even so, San Diego does have saving graces: Red Flowering Gum Trees (a type of Eucalyptus) provide the earthbound equivalent of fireworks!  And that may be as close as we come in these Pandemic times to the old “bombs bursting in air” July traditions.  Bees and hummingbirds seem to drown happily in their fluffy blossoms, and I’m pretty sure that Jim Henson drew the Muppet character of Beaker based on the shape and coloration of red gum blossoms – see his head up there, second flower from left?  Just add googly eyes!

Once the blossoms are done, they transform into little goblet-shaped woody seed pods, shown below the vase.  I’m convinced that those goblets are used by the local Faerie folk, who carefully empty the last drops from all the beer cans and whiskey bottles left on the beach into their goblets, and then they enjoy some quite rowdy post-party parties!

Powder Puff Tree, mixed media by Kerry McFall

There are also Powder Puff bushes here, with even fuzzier round blossoms.  The seeds of the powder puff flowers are more like little hard holly berries that cluster into a raspberry shape, leaving berry decor on the plant for a long time past the blooming season, which was last March.  The Gum trees apparently never stop blooming – now is prime blossom time evidently, but there always seem to be a few branches on each tree heavy with red blooms, and seed pods in various stages of party-readiness.  Pretty magical all in all, even if the sky doesn’t cooperate!

Let the Cherries Take You Away

Posted June 11, 2020 by Kerry McFall

Dark Cherries, mixed media by Kerry McFall

I recently saw a post (from Michelle Collier on Facebook’s Sketchbook Skool group) about “negative painting techniques”.  I was fascinated, so down the Google rabbit hole I dove, and began experimenting with what I have now come to think of as painting inside out.  It makes perfect sense currently, where everyone on the planet is at Sixes and Sevens (a British idiom for a state of total confusion).  We are re-thinking everything on every level: breathing, touching, going to work, cultural norms, racial stereotypes, rules of encounter, all of it.  We are re-learning lessons from the past, trying to understand how we got to this, hoping to re-build and build it better.  And yes, it is overwhelming.

So, be good to yourself every chance you get.  Case in point: I saw a big bag of fresh cherries at the Farmer’s Market down the street – it’s been re-worked for Pandemic Suitability, of course, but the cherries are still cherries, plump, colorful, enticing.  I ignored the sky high price, and bought the whole bag, knowing that although the cherries themselves would be gone very soon, I could paint them, and come winter I’ll be able to go back through the pages of my sketchbook and enjoy them over and over!

New (for me) Technique : Negative Painting

I usually start a painting with a sketch that roughs in all of the details, then I paint the focal points, and finish with the background.  Negative painting technique says ‘no’, do it inside out…  Start with the colors of what you want to paint, like cherries or leaves, just the colors, not the shapes, not the shadows.  Leave that pencil alone, pick up a big fat brush and get it juicy with color.  Slap it down, let it do its thing, trickle and run and meld.  Now go do the dishes (you know you need to anyway).

Work in Progress, Cherries Layer 1

(The small dark cherry up at the beginning of this post is what developed from the middle blob on the right side of this first layer.)  Once you’ve finished the dishes and your paint is now dry, maybe pour a glass of wine, and begin to pick out the edges of where your main shapes aren’t, aka ‘negative space’.  Go loosely, lightly, with a colored pencil maybe, drawing the shapes between the cherries or the leaves or whatever.  Soon the positive shapes come together from the outline of the negative shapes… then dip your brush in a darker color for the background, or dig out a big fat marker, or use the side of a colored pencil, and fill in that negative space.  Magic happens, and your cherries pop off the page!

Cherries Take Me Away, mixed media by Kerry McFall

This is when I struggle with knowing when to stop… I tend to overwork things, adding a shadow here and a highlight there, and fuss and bother about this and that, but it’s all part of the process, the process of learning, the art of relaxing and letting the cherries take you away from the 6’s and 7’s… Hmm, I just had a mental flash from an old Calgon bubblebath ad, “Calgon, take me away!”

 

Purple Rain

Posted June 4, 2020 in San Diego, CA

Mixed Media by Kerry McFall

Jacaranda – Purple Rain

I’m accustomed to Oregon’s “pink snow” week, when ornamental cherry trees drop pale pink petals by the thousands onto the streets and sidewalks.  It usually happened in May.  This in no way prepared me for the absolute saturation of deep purple blossoms of San Diego’s many Jacaranda trees.  These trees start out slowly in mid-May, with a few blooms tantalizing passersby from way up in the bare branches.  But now, early June, it is breathtaking to see the trees in rows, draped in the deepest of royal velvet cloaks, blue from one angle, purple from another, but never ever pale, no subtle lavenders or lilacs.  Just PURPLE!!  And once in full bloom, it rains purple for days!

The trees, according to my Google sources, are a type of Mimosa, Jacaranda mimosifoila, with tiny rows of leaves similar to the Mimosas I have seen in other places in the world.  But instead of the Seuss-like fuzzy pinkish blooms of those mimosas, these have big bell-like blossoms that could swallow a hummingbird alive!

I think I saw my first Jacaranda in Botswana, but there were so many other amazing new things for me to absorb that they took a back seat.  The Shelter In Place happening now in Southern California has given me many opportunities to walk through the neighborhoods, so now I know where to find the prime Purple Rain.  In the painting above, I tried to capture the special leaning-toward-indigo color of the shadows, and the sheer volume of petals, with limited success.  I think this may be another example of me being overwhelmed by color…  But I may take another stab at it using a more botanical style.  Unless I get distracted by some other Seussical wonder… or a hummingbird…

 

Back in the Saddle Again (figuratively speaking)

It’s been a little over a year since I posted here.  I’ve been painting and drawing this whole time, but life got complicated.  After the end of cancer treatments, a major relocation to California, and a couple of surprises including pandemic pandemonium, I’m going to try to pick back up here with my art and stories.

Photo of neighborhood fence   

  1.  Photo of fence                        2. First watercolor pass

3.  Mixed media final version – “Morning Plunge”

Down the street a ways, there is a tall fence where the morning glory pours over the top like a waterfall.  I love the riot of color, and I recently noticed (because what else is there to do when your favorite beach boardwalk is closed?) that the vine has two completely different types of leaf.  Pretty sure that’s not possible I told myself, so off I went down Uncle Google’s Rabbit Hole and sure enough, there is such a thing and it’s called Ivy Leaf Morning Glory.  It has the expected valentine-shaped leaves, plus 3-pronged ivy-ish leaves.

Techniques

I enjoy reading how other artists achieve their special effects with different media, so I’ll try to remember to include these notes.  For this painting I used some of the leftovers from our move: two types of plastic shelf liners, one with parallel grooves and one with a lot of little holes in a pretty random pattern.  I painted the areas where I wanted the texture, placed the plastic over it, covered it with a book to weight it down, and left it to dry.  Once it’s dry, I sometimes paint over it, draw over it with ink, or shade it with the side of a colored pencil.  The pencil technique seems to bring out the edges of the textures.

Turns out the holey one wasn’t the best choice for a sky area, but I think it could be nice for shady forest backgrounds, and I like the parallel effect for wood grain.

 

Effervescence & Jubilation

Posted April 26, 2019 by Kerry McFall

painting of lilacs

“Jubilation”, mixed media by Kerry McFall

I borrowed a stem of lilacs this morning from my neighbor to the south.  Much like daphne, lilacs beg to be picked and brought indoors, inhaled and celebrated, and I am not one to deny them.

I also snapped off a few stems of salal from my neighbor to the north.  They won’t mind.  They probably won’t notice.  The ajuga is my own, a hardy little vine that refuses to succumb to being trampled by our front entry.  Into my favorite simple round vase they all went, plunked on the dining table to be properly adored.  And painted and petted and stared at and re-arranged.

I used the term Jubilation when I titled my painting.  Because that’s what lilacs smell like – unabashed joy at being in bloom.  Joy at being lavender with rosy edges and tiny golden middles.  Joy at dripping big fluffy blossoms over the sidewalks and lawns of the latitudes lucky enough to host their beauty.

Then I thought better of that title as I added the final touch:  a few spatters of paint, just because!  Because it’s spring!  Because the sun is shining!  Because I have paint and I have an old toothbrush and I can see bubbles in the vase water as if it were champagne!!  Effervescence would have been a better choice, but too late…

Jubilation will do in a pinch, however.  May Day is only a few days away – go forth and jubilate!