Winter Landscape - Reindeer Lapland Bracelet - A Haiku

I kept this rather clumsy watercolor sketch of winter birch trees as a reference for future work using this pallete.  There is something very calming and restfull  in the contrast of the cool greys and blues (paynes grey, neutral tint) and the warmer earthy colors raw sienna, burnt sienna, sepia and burnt umber.

Winter landscapes provide a remarkable variety of color - subtle, shifting and almost elusive during the darker days.  In this dormant but nonetheless beautiful time of year there is a stillness which leads to inner contemplation and a restfullness after the hectic activity of the previous months.

 I was delighted when I ordered some white reindeer leather from my supplier.  I had expected it to be really white and brash but instead it is a natural white color with a grey/blue tinge like the reflection of the winter sky on snow.  I was reminded of an episode in one of the Clan of the Cave Bear books where Ayla tans some leather to make for her wedding dress. She bleached the leather white by soaking it in urine - nowadays I suspect the principle is the same but probably with a refined form of ammonia rather than raw urine. I had this leather for months not quite knowing what  would do with it until now,  the icy Northern winter has set in and given me inspiration for this piece of jewelry.  I combined sepia colored leather to represent the color of the bare trees on a dark blizzardy day. The pewter wire shines bright like a frosty morning.

Just as I´m writing this a snow blizzard is blowing. This haiku by the master Matsuo Basho  is in essence what I´m seeing from my studio window at this moment..

Winter solitude-- in a world of one color the sound of wind.

Watercolor Monoprints - Autumn Birch Leaves

The exciting thing for me when I make these prints is the tension between abtsract and realism and control and spontanaity.  My need to play with paint is satisfied at the same time the paintings have a subject or theme.  Here I have added quinacridrone magenta to my usual pallete.  The pigment explodes when dropped onto wet paper and spreads itself beautifully.

Mandala - Watercolor Monoprint

I made this painting last summer. Here I´v arranged the objects into a circle.  I didn´t want the finished piece to look too haphazard or random  - this is my attempt to make a composition and I am pleased with the result. I have used a flower head in the center and was surprised that  the delicate and fragile petals printed so well. Fern leaves are very satisfying to print because they have such a well defined structure - but it is worth  experimenting with all kinds of  plants.  The larger rounder leaves come from a garden birch tree. They refuse to lay flat on the paper and there is a hole in the middle where the leaf does not touch the paper. At first I was irritated by this but I think this also adds textural interest  to the overall picture.

Monoprinting With Watercolor

Fern Monoprint

Like many artists, the nature around me and my relation to it, is a source of inspiration.   I live in a forest in the middle of Sweden and spend alot of time wandering around with my dog and just being.  Ferns grow in abundance here, a reminder of our primeval, prehistoric past.

The technique of monoprinting is a very exciting one because one cannot predict the final result. Here´s how I do it:
I select plants and leaves - sometimes small twigs when I meander in the forest. When I come home I take a piece of heavy weight, fine grained watercolor paper and stretch it.  I spray the surface with water and let it soak in.  The paper should be damp. Then I take a large brush and saturate it with color - a lot of paint is used in this technique. Just drop pools of color onto the paper.  When the paper is full of color I arrange the leaves and other objects on the paper.  The pigment should still be soaking into the paper.  I study this process for a while because different pigments react differently.  Here I must help the painting along by adding more pigment here or there or dispersing color with a water spray.  When I´m satisfied I cover the objects with stones so they lay flat and are pressed onto the paper. The stones are also part of the composition they leave wonderful fascinating marks and add another texture to the painting.

Now it´s time for a cup of tea and a long wait.  I usually let the painting dry overnight - it might even take longer. I sometimes help it along with a hair dryer. Now the exciting part - removing the the stones and leaves and seeing what lies underneath.

You can see in this painting, by pressing the the leaf on the paper, wet paint is pushed away under the fronds leaving an almost ghostly photographic image. The outline of the fern is defined because the pigment collects there.

I love to experiment with this technique, it makes me feel like an alchemist looking for the definitive combination of paper, pigment, water and objects. Waterford paper lends itself to sharp well defined images whereas Fabriano leaves more diffuse marks.  Paper and pigments have their own characters and it´s my way to learn more about these wonderful materials.

Sometimes the results are not how I expected. The pigments can blend too much leaving muddy colors or the object did not print as I wanted or quite simply the composition is not good enough.  I keep these " mistakes" because the colors and textures are very interesting.  Here I´v used one of these unsucessful compositions  as a kind of collage,  I was intriged by the play of color the bottom right hand corner. It acts as a backround and frame to another work.

Here is a series of ACEOs I have made with birch leaves.

I picked these leaves from the forest floor at the end of autumn. I have kept mostly with earthy colors and greys; raw umber,burnt sienna, paynes gray and neutral tint.

Raw umber is a grainy pigment and leaves a kind of gritty texture on the paper . See on the top left hand side of this first picture.

When I can, I incorporate neutral  tint in these kind of painting.  It has a very special character - it spreads itself very easily over the paper and when it dries it leaves a well defined contour almost like an etched line.