Molly Hashimoto

Library Programs: Artists in the Parks

Yesterday I offered  programs at the Marysville and Granite Falls Libraries on sketching and painting in the National Parks. Many enthusiastic patrons came, all set to look at natural specimens, sketches and my photos and try their own hands at creating art inspired by the Parks. I was delighted at how warmly they responded to everything. What a fun day! We used a variety of media, which gives everyone the opportunity to see how simply and easily you can work outdoors.

Yellowstone Sketch: Canary Spring

We sketched at Canary Spring in September when I visited with my Yellowstone Institute class; in previous posts I have featured students' work. This is what I came up with and I was happy with the ethereal quality of it--for me this is what watercolor can do like no other medium. I think John Henry Twachtman's oil paintings of the pools are marvelous, but few other oil paintings have done them justice. I've been re-reading John Berger, whose thinking on art was so seminal in the 70s. In Ways of Seeing he talks about the contrast between oil painting and watercolor: What distinguishes oil painting from any other form of painting is its special ability ro render the tangibility, the texture, the lustre, the solidity of what it depicts. It defines the real as that which you can put your hands on. It is interesting to note here the exceptional case of William Blake. As a draughtsman and engraver Blake learned according to the rules of the tradition. But when he came to make paintings, he very seldom used oil paint, and although he still relied upon the traditional conventions of drawing, he did everything he could to make his figures lose substance, to become transparent and indeterminate one from the other, to defy gravity, to be present but intangible, to glow without a definable surface, not to be reducible to objects. This wish of Blake's to transcend the 'substantiality' of oil paint derived from a deep insight into the meaning and limitations of this tradition. Blake found watercolor more appropriate for his purposes, and it's that vaporous quality that I love so much. It captures the fleeting moment and experiences that pass away before we can even really register them, before they solidify into memories.

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone: Plein Air Sketch

Here's my plein air watercolor sketch of the scene I wrote about a few days ago. You can see my pencil lines still evident, especially the ones on the far side of the canyon. I never painted the spires, as they weren't visible until the sun came out at the end of our session there, casting shadows that sculpted the forms. The light was a little bit on the gloomy side, and I have been giving some thought to painting a larger studio work from this sketch. I like the low light, the forbidding aspect of the Canyon. This trip to Yellowstone I found I was looking for the lesser known places, the quieter spots, sites where the Yellowstone mystique may not interfere so much with my own immediate reaction. So many artists have focused on the amazing colors of the Canyon, and rightly so. That is perhaps the most striking thing about it. But this year I was especially moved by the the deepness of it, the sheer cliffs, the immense power behind the falls. When I visited the Brink of the Lower Falls, I could feel my body quivering a little from vibrations sent out from the water movement. It was positively thrilling, but with a small element of fear thrown in. To be that close to something so inherently powerful and dangerous lets you partake of those qualities, just a little bit.  As my students and I sat on the trail just above the steep walls of the canyon, I had a similar feeling. So close to the precipice, to the possibility of falling.  I want to convey something about that in my painting. And maybe it will be something new, that other artists have not felt or seen.

More Student Work from Yellowstone

I am sharing more of the work my students created in the workshop I taught for the Yellowstone Institute. It's not entirely fair to call these sketches and paintings "student work", as so many of the workshop participants were students in name only and were very competent and talented artists. But it was a pleasure to have them join me and demonstrate their skills outdoors. This is Babs Vanyo's sketch of Canary Spring--in the distance is Mt. Everts.   Below is Karin Connelly's diptych sketch of the same place. On the left she has focused on the dead trees--both artists created compelling portraits of the trees. On the right Karin has looked more at the colors in the pools and at Mt. Everts. 

More Student Sketches from Yellowstone

 Karin Connelly did this wonderful energetic sketch of Electric Peak and the north edge of Swan Lake in the watercolor class I taught for the Yellowstone Institute. She was working on a fairly smooth piece of paper, which allows for a more textural approach, very appropriate for all the grasses and low shrubs of the Flat. Swan Lake Flat is one of my favorite places in all of Yellowstone. One morning I drove out quite early and discovered frost on the sedges and grasses at the lake's edge. Only a short distance from the Park's main road, but early enough in the day to be away from the major traffic movements, we listened for the huge silences of the Park, and were treated to a beautiful distant chorus of wolf voices singing out to each other. To my ear, it seemed to be sung in a minor key, but I think I may have been projecting a human autumn melancholy onto the wolves.
To the right is another of Karin's fine sketches--this one was done in Porcelain Basin at Norris Geyser Basin.  I appreciate the economy of brush strokes in this sketch, and I was very impressed at how Karin was able to show the  scalloped edges along the inner edge of the pools.

Yellowstone Paintings: Student Work

Seen left is the lovely painting Babys Vanyo did from her sketch (pictured on the right) of the Canyon. Notice how in her sketch she began with a monochrome thumbnail, then a color thumbnail, finally scaling it up to a bigger and more detailed sketch. I also find it interesting to see her thought process between sketch and more finished studio painting. She emphasized the pinks and golds, carved out the rocks and cliffs more sharply, and added elegant foreground tree shapes, mirroring the spires on the cliffs. I will be featuring more of Babs' work on this blog in coming days, and also other students (who have kindly shared their work with me) from the workshop I taught last week at the Yellowstone Institute.

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

Last week I taught a plein air watercolor painting workshop for the Yellowstone Institute. This was my fourth consecutive year of teaching, and for the first time we visited the canyon, thanks to the suggestions of one of my students. The canyon has been a favorite of many of the artists who've painted in Yellowstone. You can read more about them in the article I wrote for the Yellowstone Association's magazine Discovery. The meditation on the place that occurs while sitting in one spot for a long time, drawing and painting, is one way I have found of getting beyond the more Disney-esque aspects of Yellowstone. My student found this out-of-the-way location, and we all sat quietly contemplating the beauty, giving it our utmost attention. I have photographed it in many light conditions and the first day I was there without my students, the morning began foggy. Later it cleared, revealing more shapes and colors. The day my class visited began overcast and shapes were not well-defined: the distant canyon walls were barely distinct from the foreground walls.     

Just before we finished our sketching and painting the sun came out, revealing spires on the other side of the canyon.
 
    

Artists in Yellowstone

Many of the artists who've painted in Yellowstone National Park have visited Norris Geyser Basin to paint the incredible colors of the thermal areas. I sketched this runoff channel from Whirligig Geyser in the Porcelain Basin area of Norris when I was teaching a class for the Yellowstone Association Institute. I've researched several of the artists who visited Yellowstone over the last century and a half and I recently wrote an article, Artists in Yellowstone, for the Association's magazine Discovery. 
You can preview the article at this link.

Sacred Trees

I've been working on several new watercolor paintings, and each of them has a tree, or a forest as a subject. I saw this venerable rocky mountain juniper at Yellowstone Park when I was teaching there last September.  Being a lifelong tree lover and one who cherishes Central Park, I was thrilled to read this morning in the New York Times about a project to map the trees of Central Park; Edward Sibley Barnard and Ken Chaya spent the last two years studying the park and have created a beautiful map called Central Park Entire. The two men spent almost $40,000 of their own money to complete the project--it was, essentially, a labor of love--they are hoping that through website sales they will break even.  Barnard says that "old trees have a sacred element...they created us. We're all mammals that spent our time in the canopy."  Chaya added that he considers the park to be one of the most important masterpieces of American art. And he went on to say this is a masterpiece that is always changing. Only 150 of the original Olmstead and Vaux trees remain in the park. Storms and old age take their toll, but there are always new trees being planted, thanks to the efforts of the Central Park Conservancy. I've written several posts about Central Park and its trees, and my favorite spot in the Park, the Ramble.

Terrace at Mammoth Hot Springs, Yellowstone

  I began this watercolor painting back in the fall, after seeing this otherworldly terrace while teaching a class for the Yellowstone Association Institute. I was inspired by the work of Gunnar Widforss who painted Jupiter Terrace at Mammoth, and whose work I viewed at the Yellowstone Heritage and Research Center in Gardiner, Montana. Our Yellowstone Institute class visits the Center and it is always a highlight of the class.