Carrasco Studio

A Snort for Spring

Ieeeeeeeiiiii!  Cabin fever, spring fever and prison break fever all combined.  I look out my windows and see blooming tulips, daffodils and Weeds.  I am pawing the floor. Let me outta here. Four more weeks in the house.

This is an illustration I did recently for Tom Douglas's calendar (Tom of the fabulous restaurants, cooking fame and one-time Iron Chef).  Several artists contributed to the calendar, and mine was the month of September.  The illustration was supposed to be about one of Tom's favorite recipes, and his September recipe was full of tomatoes, garlic and olives and beef.  Well, of course I thought of Ferdinand the Bull, and to get him energized, I had to sting him with the mythical bee.

BTW, the first scream in my blog is an actual word.  I heard it spoken/screeched for the first time when I was riding a provincial bus in the Philippines.  We rounded a corner on the wrong side of the road and barely missed another bus.  We cringed by the bus by going off the road and went lurching madly through a ditch.  Everyone, including me screamed Ieeeeeeiiiiii, the bus righted itself, and continued to barrel on down the road. 

I always thought that kind of scream was just invented by the writer of "Terry and the Pirates".

©Jennifer M. Carrasco 9/17/09  All blog entries on this site, visual or intellectual, are the property of Jennifer M. Carrasco (unless stated otherwise) and cannot be reproduced or used without her written permission.

Harvest Table, Sukkot Thanks

  I just finished doing a centerpiece panel on a table I had decorated years ago. My client's family had grown to grandchildren, and she needed to extend her table another couple of leaves.  As I remember, the initial finish was very complicated and took ages to do, and when I looked at the table leaves to match I was in despair.  Also, it just wasn't up to my standards today.

So, I suggested that I design a panel for the middle leaves, and I would separate the end edges with a small border to offset any discrepancy between the new and the old finish.

My clients are Jewish, and since the table will be often used as a family dining table, I suggested using artifacts from the Jewish harvest festival of Sukkot.  I looked up the items on the Internet, and decided to use the Lulav (palm leaves, myrtle and willow in a woven palm container and a citrus called the Etrog) for my design, with some grapes thrown in for jollity.  My client is an opera singer, so he suggested the mandolin and music motif in the center.

     

I did the drawing on tissue for the client's approval....drawing one fourth section and folding it twice and tracing it for symmetry. (Well, sort of)  Too much symmetry gets my back up...raises my Zen hackles, so to speak.

After approval of the design, I did  the prep and stippling of the boards...about six layers of different stippled glazes.

 

  Then I covered the panel area with a frisket that I picked up from a sign painting company.  It's called Transferite and it's like a big sheet of moveable masking tape.  I've had a roll of it forever, and to keep it from being too sticky, I dust a little talcum powder on the surface before I lay it down.  I cut out everything with an Exacto blade except the foliage, the grapes and the lulav and etrog, taped off edges with blue tape, and sloshed on hooker green Liquid Golden acrylic mixed with a little bone black.  Then, while it was still damp, I spritzed it a little with a mixture of rubbing alcohol and water and picked up some of the mottled areas.  I waited and then added several layers of green and black, let it dry and then peeled off the remaining Transferite on the fruits and leaves and the lulav.  Then I started painting them with liquid Golden Acrylics....beginning with transparent glazes until I got the rich colors I wanted.

Then I painted all the sections I planned to gold leaf with a vermilion red.

After that, I started wiping on water based (diluted slightly with water) polyurethane over all the two panels, again and again....sanding with 320 wet dry every three or four layers.  After about 8 layers, I again frisketed off designs and borders I planned to gold leaf and cut out the areas of decorative borders, painted vermillion in those, painted with size and applied gold leaf.

 

I waited overnight, then removed the tape  and patched the gold leaf wherever it was too distressed (my gold leafing, out of necessity, always looks very antique), cleaned up wherever it was needed. vacuumed my glittering studio, put on many more coats of urethane, and there you are.

©Jennifer M. Carrasco 11/21/09 All blog entries on this site, visual or intellectual, are the property of Jennifer M. Carrasco (unless stated otherwise) and cannot be reproduced or used without her written permission.
 

The Only Fish in the Sea (Not) Water color Lesson #2

This is an example of glazing, not in watercolor, but in acrylics...I started with laying out  the  simple shapes in the LIGHTEST value ....pale browns, olive greens, pale reds, etc. , and to keep it simple (I was on a tight budget and of course, needed it done yesterday), I used a MEDIUM value next of all the colors, and then used the darkest and most intense values (sparingly) last.  The reason I bring this up in a watercolor class is that IT'S EXACTLY THE SAME STEPS I USE IN TRANSPARENT WATERCOLOR....with the exception, as you can see....where I used an opaque blue white for the fish and the guy's shirt (as a little dash of seasoning on a beige background)  This is one of a series I did for Tommy Bahama's flagship store in Vegas.

It's acrylic paint on Roclon canvas that has been primed with beige gesso.  My first layer of paint was the glazed "bloom" of orange for the background, and then I went from light to dark in my values of paint.

Here's the black and white version, so you can see the value change.

So many people tell me they hate acrylics because the medium is "garish".  It's not, if you glaze, and make your colors your own...cool down that shrieking green with a little red, chill out a magenta with a little ochre, and GLAZE a complimentary transparent green over that shocking orange.

OK.  Next week please bring a tube of Lunar Black from Daniel Smith.  If you can't make the trip, let me know and I can either pick up one for you or make arrangements with another student to get a tube.  You can also share!

Yep. You guessed it.  The next lesson is about VALUE.  Don't miss it!  And I must say, I was so proud of the way you toiled away at your apple rendering in the last class.  Most of you got it by the end of the lesson, and I have to tell you I was thrilled.  I promise, after the next "basic" class, we are going to get a little more wild and crazy, and your lovely individual style will find more expression.

Water color Lesson #2, Fall 2009

 

2 .Watercolor Class, Fall C and P   Contour drawing.  Using only secondary and tertiary colors. Fruit and and fish.  Warm and cool colors.  Structure.

Look at leaves!  Color samples...warm or cool...guess what combination of primaries.  Secondaries or tertiaries?

1. Contour drawing....mountain ash, boston ivy.  Why? It centers you and slows you down.....gives you focus and a quiet meditation.  SLOW....find an edge and start SLOWLY...back up on shared edges, don’t lift from paper...turn away from.paper.  This is an exercise in looking that happens to use the physical skill of drawing. Focus entirely on the object you are drawing....let the world and your internal “edit” fall away.  (ten minutes)

2. The difference between Hansa yellow and A. yellow, Manganese ,pthalo,  and cobalt, alizarin crimson, cadmium red and earth red.  Notice degrees of staining, granulation and opaque quality.
Mix some secondary and tertiary colors in your pallatte wells.  Make them fairly intense.

On two small pieces of watercolor paper...Draw very lightly (1) Three apples  (1) three fish.
Notice the structure of the fruit and the fish.....this is what drawing can show you.   Put a pale wash of yellow on all six shapes.  Work quickly.
On the second and third apple and and the second and third fish drop in while still wet,  secondary colors and tertiary colors. Let dry.

Show how to make shadows of cobalt and umber (or manganese and umber)  (I don’t like stains for shadows.)
Put shadows to the side of the apples.

Glaze some stain color patterns (dots, stripes, zig zags )on your fish.
 Use red and green (which is what primaries?!!) (mix each with a bit with a complement) to do the curving stripes on your apple and mix a brown from red and green for stems. 

When fish are dry, try wetting all of # 2 fish and using a blue/umber wash on the bottom to show shadow.  Then use  Lunar black for shading on the last fish. (with a light hand!)

Assignment.  Reread 1-15 in Jan Hart’s book.
On a quarter sized paper, lightly draw arrangement of  five fish of different sizes and shapes and angles, or 3  fruit and  branches, leaves or vines. Spend only 20 minutes sketching out your arrangement. Think of the negative space.  Don’t get too complicated.  Use large size or group shapes for a focal point.  Start light, paint shapes with water, then add a pale wash and then let colors bleed into the shapes.  Work from top to bottom.  Use some of the cobalt/raw umber or lunar black to show modeling or shadows.

Using a cool color to create modeling....letting a blue "bleed" into a wet warm colored shape to create a shadow below.

 

Or, using Lunar black to create shadows or modeling....paint area with clear water and then paint with a glaze of lunar black, letting the granulated black pigment "fade" out as it approaches where the light hits the form.

As you work with the paints, I think you realize that the blog entries, while giving you some information and also as a definite reinforcement for what you did in class, are not a real substitute for being in class.  It's a commitment, and I know how our lives are so tangled up with other people and other promises, so the combination of the blog, your efforts and all my support will contribute your feeling of success in this class.  I just hope you will end up loving painting as I do.

Last, but not least, I want to emphasize that I am NOT teaching you splinter skills!  You can use the concept of glazing with watercolor, wash drawings, acrylics and oils. When I was taking lessons on trompe l'oeil (fool the eye) painting and my still life looked too "jumpy" or full of unrelated objects, a GLAZE (over dry paint with oils) of raw sienna, dioxide purple, cad red, or hookers green...(lightly, lightly!) made everything unified...until I punched a bunch of stuff up  and had to glaze it again!

If you have a chance to go to the Vancouver show of Dutch painters, take a look at Rembrandt's lace collars and cuffs...he calmed down that blinding flake white with a swish of umber glaze that puddled deliciously in the impasto valleys.

I'm no Rembrandt, but I was amazed at how a glaze could calm down a rowdy bunch of grapes or day glow oysters! (you should have seen my lobster before I washed him down with a tint of purple)

©Jennifer M. Carrasco 9/17/09  All blog entries on this site, visual or intellectual, are the property of Jennifer M. Carrasco (unless stated otherwise) and cannot be reproduced or used without her written permission.

Jade Rivers and Sequined Trees

Our group of artist friends joined their artist hostess, Cathy, at her home in the Skagit county for a short visit of visual and gustatory delights. An exquisite garden, a sweeping potato field in her back yard and sheep-looking goats to her left and right..   (the goats were hairy, phlegmatic and looked like sheep from a distance except for the fact that they stood on their back legs to munch on trees and plopped themselves comfortably on top of outbuildings.  Most disconcerting.)

A short walk to the river, along the levy and into the woods brought us to a river of jade water and twinned images.  Us, the birds, the occasional cloud....these entered into a visual conversation with the river. A dialogue between reality and its reflection.

And, of course the brilliance in the trees.  The light, the sky and the water blinking and shimmering through the summer branches of the greenbelt between the river and the levies.  The light nipping at the edges of branches and leaves and making round sequins of yellow and green and blue. 

Michaela and I were entranced by the sign that warned the park was "OPEN UNTIL HOURS OF DARKNESS".  It sounded like a quote from the Inferno.

We had a splendid lunch  Garlicky chicken (divine), lambs quarter salad and beans in vinegarette, and Judy's deviled eggs with a tart salty olive in each center (a poem)....then the Skagit farm strawberries.  Fit for God.

The night before, after much wine and great conversation, I went to bed in a room of great purity and quiet.  High old windows, a very palest plaster of palest celery white, white cutwork linen sheets and quilt, and Mary had placed a bouquet I had brought from the tangled meadow that has become my garden. 

To wake in the morning, even with a slight hangover, to the sight of trees and green and far reaching fields, and bunnies hopping in the slants of light, the goldfinch flitting past and hearing the high shrill cry of the red tail hawk....and then returning to  the flowers in this still and perfect room.

Delicious?

Joined: 23 Apr 2008 Posts: 78 Location: Seattle

Posted: Fri Apr 24, 2009 11:58 am    Post subject: Good Enough to Eat? I have a client who wanted "pastry portraits" for the bedroom of her teenage daughter. Her daughter is a dedicated pastry cook at 17.....has attended several culinary institutes already, and, lucky girl, knows that she wants to do this for her career. Anyhow, the mother wanted very realistic pastries against green and salmon backgrounds to hang from large moire salmon pink ribbons in her daughter's room. She also wanted some sort of frame around each specific pastry, and she wanted the frames gold leafed. I called in my friend Cathy Connor to help me with the "icing" around the 8 ply mat boards (which I supported with 8 ply mat board strips in the back. Cathy, among one of her many talents, has studied pastry making and had her own bakery for years, so she whipped out the designs in record time. She folded up her pastry tubes with parchment paper and used Golden modeling paste. Now all I have to do is tighten up my rendering and gold leaf the edges. Another odd and interesting project in the world of decorative painting.

Ollala Beach/watercolor

Last week we took the ferry to Southworth and on to our friend's farm for apple picking and pressing. Dick and Patricia Ramsey live in this beautiful Puget Sound  beach front property where  apple trees  grow in their yard below the house, and then from there is a long walk  down through old growth forest to the water.  I have an obsession about their beach.  For one thing it is so pristine, and another is that the beach has fascinating rocks and pebbles.... powdery surfaced agates and quartz and strange rocks that look like rotten molars. A primal greed consumes me when I go on this beach, and I find pebbles I can't resist.  I fill my pockets until I can barely stagger back up the path

 I've always been like this about rocks.  Men will say, "What have you got in this suitcase,.....rocks?  Har Har!"  I bob my head in assent. I have packed rocks from all over the world.  Rocks from beaches in the Philippines to quartz from the streets of Paris.

Anyhow, this time the beach had extra presents. Maple leaves had been pushed up by previous surf in orderly rows of russet and ochre .   The leaves were dry and made a lovely papery "swish swish" as I walked through them, almost like that sound a drummer makes when he uses his brush on the cymbals.

Later, after we cored and pressed the apples, we had a potluck dinner.  Dick made a  pot roast that was truly a masterpiece.

Can you make a cherry pie/painting?????

Okay … Here I am with those glorious red cherries. In your mind, hold one of them up to the sun, preferably a sun in a clear blue sky.  That's right.  Now compose them in a painting … put a red glaze over a yellow cherry shape. Place another pale yellow paint area where the sun hits. Put another transparent red glaze over that. Maybe another red glaze in the area away from the sun.          

It's about right. Now. Make a pie.