Molly Hashimoto

Travel Journal: Students' Work in Pen and Wash

Here are two stages in Gail Karges' journal; these are cupolas and domes in eastern Europe. She allowed us to critique her first version in class and we felt that some ruled pen lines would add a crispness and strength to the page. Each of the journal pages here relies on pen work; in subsequent posts I will share other students' work.

The domes and the Road Runner page were done by student Soo Young Hwang. I admire how she adapted her style to the subject matter in each.

Romanesque Arches

There is something about Romanesque arches that has always moved me: their simplicity, solidity, here in evidence in a quick sketch I did in walnut ink of the Church of Santa Fosca in Torcello, Italy, near Venice. Romanesque arches feel elemental, basic, yet full of grace. I've never really been able to put my feelings about them into words, but then yesterday read a poem by the 2011 winner of the Nobel Prize for literature, Swedish writer Tomas Transtromer, beautifully translated by the Scottish poet Robin Fulton.

Romanesque Arches

Inside the huge Romanesque church the tourists jostled in the half darkness.

Vault gaped behind vault, no complete view.

A few candle flames flickered.

An angel with no face embraced me

and whispered through my whole body:

“Don’t be ashamed of being human, be proud!

Inside you vault opens behind vault endlessly.

You will never be complete, that’s how it’s meant to be.”

Blind with tears

I was pushed out on the sun-seething piazza

together with Mr. and Mrs. Jones, Mr. Tanaka, and Signora Sabatini,

and inside each of them vault opened behind vault endlessly.

Over the Rainbow

Later this season Pomegranate Communications will publish this print as a small notecard. I titled it Mountain Bluebird and I used the same method to create it that I employed on the Goldfinches print, a printmaking technique I wrote about for the Daniel Smith Artists' Materials catalog. I was inspired by the many mountain bluebirds I've seen in Yellowstone National Park--often flocks of them perch and fly near us when we have hiked at Specimen Ridge. I perched my bluebird on a pine branch at the foot of the mountains just inside the Park near Gardiner, Montana. I've always loved E.Y. Harburg's lyrics for the movie The Wizard of Oz. So many of the songs are funny and witty and perfect. And others are just beautiful, like Somehwere Over the Rainbow.   Somewhere over the rainbow/Bluebirds fly. Yellowstone, and the other amazing places that are national parks have often seemed to me to be the places "over the rainbow." 

Watercolor Classes: Spring Quarter 2012

Spring quarter I'm teaching two 8 week long classes in Seattle. The classroom that I rent for my teaching endeavors is located in a beautiful old elementary school in the University District--now called  University Heights Community Center with various tenants--I think this is the best classroom I've ever taught in, with wainscot to ceiling windows on 2 sides, light pouring in on even the gloomiest days! I'll be teaching Mondays and Tuesdays 9:30am to 12pm beginning April 2. Mondays I am offering Wildlife and Birds in Watercolor with special emphasis on placing the wildlife in landscape contexts, and on Tuesdays Watercolor Flowers and Gardens. We will paint flowers using various styles and techniques, as well as garden landscapes. We'll visit at least 2 private gardens in this class, including my friend Jennifer Carlson's amazing urban organic garden, complete with chickens and vegetable garden as well as ornamental plants and hardscapes designed by her: to learn more visit Haven Illustrated.  Please email me to register for either class.

Watercolor Travel Journal: Student Art

Today I'm including a number of other student sketches created in the travel journal workshop that I taught at Daniel Smith Artists' Materials on Sunday. Looking at all the architectural subjects was a real pleasure, and made me realize that the kinds of structures created by human beings all over the planet and over the course of history are almost as diverse and wonderful as the natural world--in fact, they aren't really any less "natural" than, say, a bird's nest!

Watercolor Travel Journal: More Students' Work

These are two facing pages in the journal of Noel Kreicker, who attended the workshop I taught at Daniel Smith on Sunday on watercolor travel journals. I'm including other fine work below and on subsequent posts, not all of it with names, as some students weren't on my contact list.

Watercolor Travel Journal Workshop: Students' Work

Yesterday at Daniel Smith Artists' Materials I taught a workshop on watercolor travel journals. We did small vignettes using pen and wash, pencil and wash and walnut ink.  I am featuring several of the students' efforts here and in coming posts. These sketches are by Cathy Dempsey and are scenes from Amalfi.

To the right is Mary Heath's pen and wash sketch of a cottage in Hawaii.

Maple, Moon and Snow

I recently completed a set of moon and snow paintings for Pomegranate Communications, who will be publishing them later this year in a boxed set of holiday notecards: December Moon. It was challenging and fun coming up with the four designs.  I had just traveled to Yosemite, and then the Portland Japanese Garden, and those places inspired my illustrations. There was a beautifully intricate Japanese maple at the garden, and I imagined it with snow, and changed the perspective just a little bit, to include a pond and distant shoreline. I used masking fluid to save the snow atop the branches and small shrubs. The blue paint I used was a mixture of Daniel Smith indanthrone blue and phthalo blue red shade.  It gave me some dramatic dark indigos.

Whidbey Island Wildlife

We spotted this Sunflower Star on the beach at Double Bluff on Whidbey Island yesterday. It was a quiet, windless morning with sun and wonderful wildlife. This star is also called the 20 rayed star, and it is the fastest in the west! In the space of 10 minutes we saw it travel 3 feet.  I don't think I've ever seen a sea star travel before!!

Several common mergansers were fishing and diving along the shoreline and we saw this one catch a fish.

All Things Counter, Original, Spare, Strange

This week at Snoqualmie Pass, where we skied, I saw these beautiful natural patterns, and couldn't help but hear the words of one of my favorite poets, Gerard Manley Hopkins, in one of his finest poems: Pied Beauty. Here is an excerpt. Even readers who are not religious can appreciate the poetry of the Jesuit priest Hopkins--his innovations with the English language, and his deepfelt love for nature speak to everyone.

Glory be to God for dappled things...

All things counter, original, spare, strange;

Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)

With swift, slow, sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;

He fathers forth whose beauty is past change:

Praise him.