Molly Hashimoto

Upcoming Lecture: A Woman Lured West: Abby Hill's Legacy of Art & Conservation

Abby Williams Hill visited Horseshoe Basin in the North Cascades in 1903

after an arduous journey by steamer on Lake Chelan, on horseback and on foot.  Her commission from the Great Northern Railway was to create 22 oil canvases en plein air in 18 weeks, and much of that time was spent on trains, handcars, stages, steamboats and horses.  She endured the jeers of railroad workers and the discomfort of heat and cold, walking across snowfields, organizing baggage and caring for her children whom she often brought with her on her expeditions. Learn more about this remarkable woman from Andrea Moody, consulting curator at the University of Puget Sound at the Sourdough Speaker Series Lecture presented on April 25, 2009 at the North Cascades Institute Environmental Learning Center on Diablo Lake. In addition to Andrea's engaging presentation, you'll enjoy comfortable overnight accommodations, healthful gourmet food, naturalist-led outdoor activities and the incomparable scenery of the North Cascades--all for only $95 per person. I'll be assisting Andrea, showing slides of some of my favorite 19th century American landscape painters, who traveled to wilderness areas, and set the stage for the accomplishments of Abby Hill. It's going to be a great night talking about the connections between art and conservation in the mountains!

Photo courtesy of Christina and Charles Claassen of the North Cascades Institute

  Horshoe Basin Afternoon is one of her finer canvases from this expedition. It and others were exhibited at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis in 1904. Even the miners working in Horseshoe Basin admired her work. She recorded the comments of one:  "That's the real stuff, boys!"  At the time, miners had no name for Mt. Booker, and Abby Hill was given the privilege of naming it for the Geologic Survey--she chose Mt. Booker, in honor of Booker T. Washington.  She wrote that "his influence like the streams from the mountain, will go on through the ages to bless and help mankind."

Painting courtesy of the Abby Williams Hill Collection at the University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, Washington

  Abby Hill also painted at Yellowstone National Park.

She is pictured here standing on the rim of the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone.  One afternoon while painting on the edge of the canyon a huge windstorm blew up, and she watched a canvas on which she had lavished hours of work fly off the easel and down into the depths of the canyon.  Hear the end of this amazing tale at our lecture!

Photo courtesy of the University of Puget Sound, Tacoma, Washington

 

Water and Reflections

The National Academy Museum's current show American Waters: Celebrating the 400th Anniversary of Hudson, Fulton, and Champlain features work by many American artists. I was inspired by the work of contemporary oil painter Robert Berlind. I had been working with reflections on some of the bird sketching I've been doing, but I appreciated Berlind's abstract approach. It was fun leaving out the context--the world being reflected, and instead focusing entirely on the reflection.  I include the earlier step in this painting where the masking fluid is visible. I started out with a pale blue wash and then masked that before proceeding.

Sketching in the North Cascades

   The month of June is a beautiful time in the mountains. The deciduous trees are newly in leaf and the higher peaks are still bright with snow. I will be teaching a landscape watercolor workshop--Painters and Peaks--for the North Cascades Institute on Friday, June 12 through Sunday, June 14 at the Environmental Learning Center. We'll learn how to paint trees, water and the towering peaks of the North Cascades.  This sketch was done on location on Diablo Lake at the Learning Center. You can read more about the workshop and the Environmental Learning Center in the catalog online--print catalogs will be available soon!

More North Cascades Sketches

This was the view last April from the North Cascade Institute's  Environmental Learning Center classroom looking east to Sourdough Peak. Snow was falling and mists were draping the higher elevations. I spattered a little bit of masking fluid onto my sketchbook before beginning the painting to save the areas of snowflakes falling as white paper.

On another day last spring we hiked up to a view of the lake and the power line towers.  Fresh snow covered the higher peaks. On location I blocked in some loose colors, but sketched the towers in pencil, and then back in the classroom I used masking fluid so I could paint around it. 

North Cascades Sketches

 In April of 2008, I taught a workshop at the Environmental Learning Center on Diablo Lake for the North Cascades Institute.   We drove up expecting new leaves and woodland wildflowers, but winter had not given up its last yet.  At first we felt some disappointment, but then--in the words of one of my favorite poets, G.M. Hopkins-- "nature is never spent."  It doesn't matter what the weather, there is always something to see, learn and paint.  This first sketch was done outdoors in the Lily Shelter where we were struck by the lichens on the alder (which we created by sprinkling a little table salt on the wet gray trunk). Also remarkable were the huge mossy patches.  I used sap green with a little bit of hansa yellow to paint the mosses.

 For the next sketch I started with a reed pen (carved from a reed collected on the side of a highway). Rembrandt and Van Gogh did some work with reed pens and the character of the line is very fluid and naturally broken and of varying widths.  It gives a fresh and spontaneous feel to a drawing.  I used acrylic ink so that I would be able to work with watercolor over it without disturbing the line.

An Artist's Progress

  This is the work of my student, Claire Russell, who embarked upon a cross-country bicycle journey last summer with her husband. They traveled across the northern Great Plains to her childhood home in Bessemer, Michigan.  Anyone who has lived or traveled along the northern Great Lakes recognizes the beautiful spruce and birch boreal forests--the taiga.  As a child, Claire must have had those birches imprinted in her mind and heart and as she cycled through the forests, she was newly struck by their beauty. So here you will see a sequence of paintings, approached over many months, using different styles.   

If you care to comment, it will be interesting to see which you like the best. 

Spring at Union Bay

Last week at Union Bay, the turtles were back, sunning themselves on a log.  The one I sketched above still had cottonwood leaves and detritus stuck to the top of its shell from its hibernation at the bottom of Lake Washington!  On Wednesday the swallows had returned to Union Bay.  What a happy sign of spring--now snow is forecast for the weekend!

More Sketches from The Ramble, Central Park

   Rock and Trees in The Ramble, Central Park was another sketch done with walnut ink. On this one, I used no gouache but just left the white of the paper for the highlights.  I used the walnut ink straight for the darkest lines, and diluted it for the less distinct trees in the background.  Central Park is full of magnificent rocks, left over from the last Ice Age. 

  Ramble Arch is one of the more striking structures in the Park. I began this sketch by drawing the blocks of the arch in FW Acrylic Ink Antelope Brown.  I didn't want to struggle with the dissovling lines of walnut ink.  I also drew the lampposts with the acrylic ink.  The rest is done with various dilutions of walnut ink.

The Ramble, Central Park in Walnut Ink

Visiting the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York, I saw the Thaw Collection of Drawings: 2002 to the present.  It's rare to see so many fine drawings on exhibit anywhere, as the watercolors and drawings are usually stored away, protected from light.  This collection featured work from the 18th century through the present.  Some of my favorites were German Romantics, and they gave me an idea for sketches of the Ramble.                                                                                                  Step 1. I laid a thin wash of walnut ink over the entire surface of the paper, to mimic the  effects of working on a brown tinted paper. Next I used a drawing nib to sketch the trees and contours.  I dissolved some of those lines with water.

  Step 2. I diluted some ink and washed in darker strokes on the surface of the Lake.  I experimented with a bit of white gouache also. 

   Step 3. I further darkened the pond in a few areas, as well as re-drawing some of the middle ground trees.  I added just a few more strokes of white gouache. 

Walnut ink gives excellent fine lines, and draws out precisely.  I prefer to use the crystals and dissolve them to my liking.  I have found the bottles of ink are a little too diluted--it's hard to get as dark as you need to in a drawing where value is everything. I found the walnut ink very expressive for this wintry scene.

Four Springs House on Camano Island

Sketching and painting birds on Saturday at Four Springs House on Camano Island with a wonderful group of enthusiastic participants was a joy.  Leslie Moore, Managing Librarian at Stanwood Library (pictured on the lower right in this photo to the left) arranged with Stanwood and Camano Island Libraries Friends for me to come and work with patrons at the Four Springs House in conjunction with the 4th Annual Snow Goose Festival.  Four Springs Nature Preserve is beautifully situated in a meadow and forest--I can't think of a more fitting place to paint the natural world.  Enjoy the work of these artists of all ages!