Molly Hashimoto

The Ramble, Central Park

Staying on the Upper West Side in Manhattan gives easy access to the Ramble--a short walk and your're in at West 77th Street.  Winter colors predominate-- I saw a crested titmouse, a nuthatch and heard the beautiful twirring song of a cardinal.  I also viewed the Bonnard exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.   His small journals and watercolors were on display within the larger exhibit of oil paintings. He wrote, "I always make a quick directly observed watercolor that helps me enormously and without which any subsequent work would be impossible.  I set down my impressions of the colors. I refer to this sketch constantly to avoid going off track when executing the work itself."

"Purple in the grays, vermillion in the shadows, on a cold, fine day."  --Pierre Bonnard

The arches and bridges of Central Park give structure to the winter landscape.  I appreciate the long shadows cast by the stately hardwoods--it's a view we rarely see in the northwest.

The view of the Beresford Apartments across the Lake through the haze of winter berries on the island was the story of the Park in winter for me.  Just blocks away, millions of people, but no sense of that in the quiet of the Ramble on a cold winter's day. Wilderness is found in many places, some very unexpected.

North Cascades Alder Demonstration

Step 1. I glazed the entire painting with a pale green wash, using hansa yellow medium and a small amount of phthalo blue red shade. After allowing that to dry, I used masking fluid on the alder trunk to save the lichen areas.  I also used it for the tree branches and then rewet the background and added the pale crimson trunks of the trees seen in the distance.  I darkened the wash on the left side of the alder, and used negative painting to reveal the bright leaf shapes on the upper left corner.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Step 2. Next I painted the alder trunk, using a pale permanent alizarin crimson mixed with quinacridone burnt orange.  I dropped in phthalo green to create the tinted cast shadows.  Next I painted in some loose fern shapes in the foreground. I added the trunk in the middle distance, leaving some areas unpainted to indicate the patches of lichen.             

Step 3. I painted some cooler green leaves in the upper right foreground, using a  little bit of phthalo green with hansa yellow medium.  Next I began to indicate more leaves in the right foreground, and developed additional leaf shapes in the middle section of the painting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Step 4. I worked in the middle distance, creating more dappled leaf shapes, and also developed the left side of the painting by galzing with a yellow/green and dropping in some darker greens wet into wet.  After the paint dried, I removed the masking fluid on the left side of the painting.

 

 

 

 

Step 5. At this point, I decided to glaze most of the painting with a thin wash of hansa yellow, as I felt it didn't have the glow that I wanted to portray.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Step 6. I painted some loose leafy shaps in the right foreground, trying not to define them too specifically.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Step 7. I noticed that the dark forest on the left side of the painting wa a bit gloomy and I decided to try to break up the darkness a litte bit.  I used a Fritch scrub to remove four smal oval leaf shapes. Next I did some negative painting int he right foreground to further define the leafy shapes.  I added a thin glaze to the right side of the large alder to pop it out a bit more.

 

Step 8. I painted over the scrubbed leaf shapes iwth a mixture of hansa yellow and a small amount of phthalo blue red shade and dabbed in just a few more leaf shapes in the lower right corner, trying again to keep them more suggestive of leaves than a  more specific and illustrative style of painting them.  I also decided to darken the wash on the right side of the trunk just a bit more to pop out the pale trunk further.

Sketching with a Water-Soluble Pen

  The Stylist Pen package declares that it is water resistant.  I don't think there's much evidence of that in this sketch of the Northern Shoveler I photographed a couple of days ago. The pen is a very inexpensive felt tip which I purchased at the University Book Store. I drew first with the pen, which creates a lovely elegant thin black line, and then added water to it to dissolve some of the lines.  I especially enjoy the blue green color that is the result of dissolving the black line. 

I love the Stylist for quick outdoor sketches-- you can add water to it on the spot or later when you get back to your camp, hotel room or studio. It's a very lightweight way to go!

Union Bay Birds

     I was surprised to see the Great Blue Heron and Double Crested Cormorants sitting together in such a friendly fashion

--It's easy to learn just by visiting Union Bay so regularly.  I am planning to use these photos for my upcoming library programs at Stanwood, Arlington and Darrington.  I am wondering if this photo could make a good painting.

Later I saw a Northern Shoveler drinking and preening.  Quite amusing!

 

Bird Sketches

      USING MY OWN PHOTOGRAPHS to paint from is an advantage in several ways.  Most importantly, I have caught just what I wanted in the subject.  This weekend I studied the uncial letterform with Martin Jackson, a well-known Vancouver, British Columbia scribe.  He was a wonderful teacher. I decided to label my bird subjects using the uncial form, which has existed since the 4th century.  

As I practiced the letterform on the first day of the workshop, I kept using bird names.  Not only because of all my recent photos and visits to the Union Bay Natural Area, but also because the shapes of the letters are so beautifully rounded-- just like birds. The Irish monks who used uncial often doodled in the margins of the manuscripts they toiled over, and sometimes they wrote about birds and the things they could see outside of their scriptoria. Birds and animals are such an important part of our human psyche.  Edward O. Wilson calls it "biophilia."

Waterfowl at Union Bay

 Hooded Mergansers & a Wood Duck made beautiful subjects for watercolor sketches.  They are all in their mating plumage now and the colors were such fun to work with.  I started with the brightest golds and reds and moved to greens and blacks, whenever possible allowing the colors to flow together wet into wet.  After the ducks were dry, I painted the water with a flat brush on its edge to create the zig zag water patterns.

 Trumpeter Swans were a study in negative painting. I used some pale yellow and gray violet on their forms, but they are mainly revealed by the dark water around them.

For both sketches, I began by drawing loosely with a 5B pencil, trying not to be too rigid with lines. I decided that the color would be my focus and not to worry too much about getting every line and body part absolutely anatomically correct.

More Wildlife at Union Bay

Swimming Raccoons are a new sight for me!  Yesterday we saw two long shapes swimming across the channel near the Husky Boat Launch area--two raccoons, their tails making them look like larger mammals than they are.  This one was at the foot of the launch, and seemed quite unafraid (always of concern with raccoons, ever since my dog had a run-in with them on our deck early one morning!)   

Nearby a cormorant was stretching its wings in the sunlight.

More Wildlife at Union Bay

Trumpeter Swans were a big surprise yesterday afternoon at Union Bay. The late afternoon light illuminated their gathering on the east side of the Bay.

     I envision using these photos for a series of monochromatic studies. White subject (positive space) defined by dark background (negative space).