Molly Hashimoto

Union Bay Natural Area

I am working on a series of small acrylic paintings on subjects that I have observed and photographed at the Union Bay Natural Area in Seattle, adjacent to the Center for Urban Horticulture. I'm preparing for an upcoming exhibit, and plan to share watercolors, egg tempera, woodblock prints and acrylic paintings. Last January I photographed a coyote at around 9am one Saturday morning. 
 For this painting I used an Amerpsand gesso panel, size 5" X 7". The gesso was white, and I wanted a dark ground for my painting,  so I first glazed the panel with a mixture of brown and black acrylic thinned out with Daniel Smith Acrylic Flow Releaser.  It aids in creating glazes with minimal brush marks.

Next I sketched on the coyote, using white Saral transfer paper, and began with broad brush strokes to indicate the fur, using various colors-- white, burnt umber, yellow ochre and Mars black.   I decided to keep this portrait loose, without rendering every last hair perfectly. It's always difficult for me to hold back from getting overly tight, but perhaps this looser expression gives a better sense of that quiet moment when coyote and human crossed paths.
 
  

In Celebration of Spring: Hellebore

 I am preparing for my upcoming quarter and am excited to be teaching Watercolor Flowers once again.  My spring garden always fills me with new ideas. I have several different varieties of hellebores planted beneath an old apple tree in my back yard and they suffer neglect and lack of water all summer without complaint. Sometimes I trample their leaves when I prune the apple, and they simply grow new ones.  I got my first hellebore from a friend and it is now about 3 feet by 3 feet.  Wonderful weed-stopper!  I got the idea for the technique I used in this botanical sketch from the early 20th century architect and watercolor artist, Charles Rennie Mackintosh. I love his strong yet quirky drawing and the fact that he has left several unpainted sections in his work. 

Student Art from Watercolor Portraits Class

Susan Jones painted this portrait of Carl Sandburg in the Watercolor Portraits class that I recently taught. I suggested to students that they choose a literary figure, or someone that they didn't actually know personally.  Susan found a fine black and white photo of Sandburg. Our method involved no preliminary pencil drawing.  We drew with the brush, using a much diluted flesh tone, and it gave alot of leeway in establishing features and moving them to get the proportions correct. Though she felt that her painting didn't align exactly with the photo, it turned to be something that both the "eye and the brain could accept."  I have found this to be the case over and over again when I have done a portrait this way.  It was fun for Susan to imagine the colors of his suit, tie and background, and I think she chose very well, creating an image that conveys some of the workingman strength of this poet of the City of Big Shoulders, Chicago.

Susan has kept journals in several of the classes I have taught and she recently finished one she had begun on the human face, complete with studies of different features.

North Cascades Institute Student Art

 Barbie Metcalf is a student who has diligently applied herself to many different subjects that I have taught in my Seattle watercolor classes.  She has also attended workshops at the North Cascades Institute. This is a painting she completed this winter in my Landscape Watercolors of the American West class, a marvelous view of Diablo Lake from the North Cascades Institute's Environmental Learning Center.  She worked from photos both of us had taken at different times at the Lake.  Students in my upcoming North Cascades Institute June class Glaze, Wash and Brushstroke: Landscape Watercolor in the North Cascades will work en plein air at this location.

Student's Work from Watercolor Portraits Class

Claire Russell, a student in my Watercolor Portraits class which recently ended this winter, created a beautiful watercolor painting of Michelangelo's David.  She is interested in three dimensional art as well and has been especially skilled at constructing innovative books and albums (I featured them on this blog).  She scanned the art and ran it through her printer on a special fabric paper, creating an image that could be elegantly and durably displayed on this beautiful bag.

Watercolor Travel Journal

I painted this small watercolor sketch at the travel journal demonstration that I did at Daniel Smith. I used a photo I had taken while hiking the Slough Creek Trail in Yellowstone back in September. The striking fall color of the grasses seen against the Absaroka range filled us with awe.  A small sketch like this took only about half an hour--I chose the photo to show how trips can continue to inspire us for months, long after we are settled back in at home.  If you'd like to read more about the demonstration I did, follow this link to the Daniel Smith blog. Deborah Burns writes an excellent blog for Daniel Smith and I was most appreciative of how ably she captured all of what I considered the most useful things that I talked about in my demostration.

Two of the more salient points. 1. You don't have to go on a trip to keep  a journal.  You can just go out in your back yard, or to the park--the world is full of amazing sights.  I started my journals when I was unable to get out much, but my back yard provided great inspiration to me, so at that point I called them my garden journals.  Later I decided that I would compress everything that I do into the journals so that there would be no distinction, no categories of journals.  Now they are only chronological.  2. If I do a page that I heartily dislike and know that I will not want to flip through and see again, I tear it out!   Yes, it's perhaps a little wasteful, but the purpose of the journal is to make me happy and if I see some piece in it that reminds me too much of a struggle with the medium, or a failure, I remove the offending sketch and move on to a new subject!

Student Art from the Snow Goose Festival

I asked the students I met at the Snow Goose Festival at Four Springs House on Camano Island to send me images of the art they created that day.  Austin Biehl, a 15 year old, sent me this wonderful sketch. I especially admire the sweep and flourish of his brush strokes in the water, suggesting the dynamic quality of water without getting labored about it. Notice how as the brush unloads most of its paint, the strokes become drier and more of the texture of the paper shows through--the drybrush technique.  Austin also figured out a way to mix watercolor with white gouache to indicate the softer lighter feathers atop the heron's body. It was a real privilege to work with Austin and all the very talented people I met there. I bring Prang 8 color paintboxes for these kinds of programs, and I think they are a really great bargain, with excellent colors (unlike some other manufacturers). I have been using these for my library programs for over 15 years and have never had to replace one. When the individual pans of color run out, I simply replace them with refills availabe online.  It's great to have discovered this way to minimize waste. 

Sitka Center for Art & Ecology Watercolor Workshop

On July 23 - 25, 2010, I'll be teaching at the Sitka Center for Art & Ecology. The classrooms and  studio are situated on beautiful Cascade Head between Neskowin and Lincoln City on the Oregon coast. This will mark the 4th summer I have taught there, and it is always a great joy to be on the coast in high summer, often in glorious sunshine, with cool breezes that bring relief from the hotter temperatures that many of us are escaping from the inland Northwest. Registration has just opened for my workshop Cascade Head Landscape Watercolor.  Be sure to check out all of Sitka's  other wonderful offerings for the summer of 2010.