Molly Hashimoto

Coastal Forest

Last summer when I taught at Sitka Center for Art & Ecology, I walked in the forest each morning and often saw sunlight pouring through the mist. I took a photo one morning and I recently painted this watercolor of that experience. In reality, the light was a little less golden, but I emphasized that quality of it because there was a real warmth about that moment, and it felt right to emphasize that.

More Plein Air Watercolor Sketches

Teaching 2 classes in July at Sitka Center for Art & Ecology gave me the opportunity to paint outdoors for almost an entire week. I love the diversity of forms and colors we encountered there. Most striking of forms is this mature Sitka spruce, a tree that reaches its greatest height in a very small section of the northwest coast--just within a few miles of the ocean. When I am there, I have a strong sense of the rare and precious existence of this coastal rain forest.
I've painted this meadow many times, but this year everything seemed greener and lusher, due to the rainy cool early summer months. I'm trying to achieve a quicker study with each plein air sketch, striving for the most economical brush stroke and the surest application of color, so that it won't be neccessary to paint additional layers. Each time I work en plein air I hope to get closer and closer to that kind of painting.

 This is a view of the sand spit on the Salmon River estuary at Sitka, with the young Sitka spruce trees and dune grasses. I did most of this in a first wet into wet painting, only adding darker tree shapes at the end once that first wash had dried. With this method of working it's crucial to wet the paper first, and have all the colors you need ready to paint.

Sketching with Water-Soluble Pens

I'm preparing for a fall class I'll be teaching on sketching with water-soluble materials. While teaching last month at the Sitka Center for Art & Ecology, workshop coordinator Dawn Stetzel helped us canoe across the Salmon River to the sand spit near Road's End-- these are the headlands down there, seen up close. In the past I've painted them from way above on the Sitka grounds, so it was very exciting to see them so intimately. For this sketch I used a Pilot G-Tec-C4 (sounds like a military jet--what is it about pen technology that encourages these bizarre names? As my husband just reminded me, the pen is mightier than the sword!) It's got a very precise metal tip--the size is 0.4--and it doesn't bend after use, and it dissolves into a monochromatic leaden gray. Once lines were dissolved to create areas of diverse values from gray to dark gray to black, I allowed the paper to dry and then added a watercolor wash on top of the sketch. I have not tried this on top of the Stylist pen, another pen I love for quick sketching. The black Stylist pen dissolves into a beautiful blue gray, but I think that blue would interfere with the laying down  of color. What I was after in this sketch was using the monochrome sketch as a kind of grisaille, over which I could then lay the colors.

A Summer of Plein Air Sketches

 I used my Arches spiral bound journal to paint several plein air sketches this summer at different locations. The image to the left was done in July at Sitka Center for Art & Ecology and it's a view of the Salmon River looking east in morning light back to the Coast Range.
To the right is a sketch done at the North Cascades Institute's Learning Center on Diablo Lake in early June. The vine maples and alders were bedecked in their bright new colors. I could have added alot more detail here, but decided that this very sketchy and quick approach may have conveyed more of the truth about this location.  In 1765 Denis Diderot wrote in Salon Review,  A sketch is generally more spirited than a picture. It is the artist's work when he is full of inspiration and ardour, when reflection has toned down nothing...

Plants at Cascade Pass, North Cascades

 Snow lingered so late in the high mountains of Washington this year that the wildflower meadows were just beginning their show when we went up to Cascade Pass last week.  In the forest on the way up I was impressed by this grand display of devil's club, a shrub known for its wicked thorns. If you've ever bushwhacked through a Northwest mountain forest you'll know what I mean! I am working on a painting of this now, and will post it when I'm finished.
Close to the Pass, we saw this beautiful gentian hanging onto the side of a mossy rock which trickled with water. Everything water-loving was lush and full this year because of the late cool and rainy weather.

 

For the first time in the many years I have traveled up to the North Cascades Institute's Environmental Learning Center on Diablo Lake, I saw a maidenhair fern near Sourdough Creek just off the road. 

Sketching with Walnut Ink: North Cascades Wildlife

 
  I've just returned from a few days in the North Cascades, where we saw some great wildlife, including this marmot at Cascade Pass. I took a photo of the marmot sprawled in the snow on its belly, cooling off. I would guess those big rocks really heat up in the sun and a little snow-bathing must have felt very good! I decided to try out some walnut ink sketching back in my studio, so here's a demonstration. 
1. Materials and tools: Staedtler Pitt brown brush pen with permament ink. 3 waterbrushes, one with plain water, 2 with solutions of walnut ink made from walnut ink crystals. One solution is weak, the other stronger.

  Step 1. I began without pencil, brushing in the overall shape of the darks, with the brush pen that was filled with a weak walnut ink solution. It's liberating to forgo the pencil because then you find you are really looking at shapes and darks and lights, which is what we all want to get to as artists!  You can see a few pen marks on the marmot's tail. Even though the pen is waterproof, it will still dissolve if you wet it before it has a chance to dry and fix.

More Student Work from Sitka Center

Kim Lawbaugh just sent me a couple of images of the work she created at the workshop I taught in late July at Sitka Center for Art & Ecology. To the left is the painting she did outdoors of a huge Sitka spruce specimen just outside the studio.

Below is her sketch of the three rocks at the mouth of the Salmon River. I first met Kim last year at a workshop I taught for the North Cascades Institute. She has been keeping journals for some time, and they just keep getting more and more beautiful! Visit her blog to see more of her work. 
 

More Student Work from Sitka Center

I'm posting more work of my students from Sitka Center for Art & Ecology. The sketch to the left is by Jeannine Bailey, done at Neskowin Beach with a view southward.

To the right is Margaret Pettibone's paintng of a Sitka spruce. Both of these were painted en plein air, and quickly capture the essence of their subjects!

Writing Retreat at the North Cascades Institute

Check out the North Cascades Institute's  website to register for the annual Thunder Arm Writing Retreat, being offered from September 8 through 11, 2011 at the Environmental Learning Center. I loaned them this watercolor for use on the poster; I saw a striking vine maple on the shores of Diablo Lake when I was teaching there last fall, and this was my rendition of it.

Painters at the Salmon River

 Diane Adam took this photo of all of us at the mouth of the Salmon River, getting set up for sketching. In the distance you can see the Three Rocks and Cascade Head. This site and the one at Knight Park looking back up the river to the Coast Range were my favorite painting locations. I am including some of the very fine work of students here.
To the right is Patricia Gladden's painting of the view south across the Salmon River. I appreciate the atmospheric effects of the hills and headland forest, and the sharp demarcation of sand and vegetation.

 To the left is Diane Adam's painting of the Three Rocks. I like how she modeled the forms of the rocks with some deft wet into wet brush strokes.

To the right is Ginny Wyman's sketch done on location at the river, looking back to the Coast Range. She had never worked this way before, establishing forms and working wet into wet in a quick way. I admire how brush strokes very simply establish foliage masses,  vertical conifers, and grasses.