Molly Hashimoto

Watercolor Travel Journal

On Sunday, January 31st, 2010 I will be teaching a one day workshop on watercolor travel journals at the Seattle Daniel Smith store. I'll demonstrate all kinds of ways to use watercolor while traveling, and participants will bring their own favorite photos so they can experiment with the new ideas I'll share. These are a few sketches I did on a trip to Leipzig, Germany several years ago. We had a view of a beautiful abandoned apartment building across the street from our hotel room and I sat on the bed to sketch it in permanent pen. It took some courage to draw it without rulers and other drafting tools handy, but the lack of precision makes it seem fresher and more immediate.

To the right is a doorway, overgrown with shrubbery. I used no pen on this sketch--it's just watercolor. In the workshop we will sample methods for rendering architectural feautres like windows and masonry.

Domes, cupolas, gables and other roof features are interesting and not difficult to sketch.  I did a whole series from Leipzig, including this Neues Rathaus dome,  as Leipzig is a centuries-old city, full of  historic architecture.

Arches

Last summer during the weekends I taught at the North Cascades Institute's Environmental Learning Center on Diablo Lake I walked past the arches of Diablo Dam and marveled at the beauty of the blue waters of the lake seen through the arches of the dam. I took pictures at different times of day, hoping to do a painting this year, and a couple of weeks ago I did a couple of preliminary sketches in my journal.

 

This second sketch was from a photo taken near sunset, and it may be the one I work from first.

Recently I was reading a novella by the Sicilian Leonardo Sciascia called Death and the Knight and I encountered a quote that reminded me of these arches. The main character is strolling among the colonnades in a mainland Italian town and says  "Arches make the heavens more lovely" in the words of the poet."  I am guessing he may have been referring to Dante or Petrarch, but haven't been able to locate the original source.

Yellowstone Bison Woodblock Print

 I printed this on Magnani Pescia gray printmaking paper using white, brown and black water soluble inks. I have taken countless photos of bison at Yellowstone, and I really love the sculptural quality of their forms--I think this is about the 6th image I have created from the photos I took.  At the moment I am working on a 5 color print.  I began it way back in October, and am amazed at the length of time this is taking, as my primary medium is watercolor, which can be painted really quickly.  I do like the meditative quality of carving, and also the handling of a three dimensional object. I have talked to several printmakers who say they like their wood blocks better than their completed prints, and wish they could frame the blocks!

I understand that--I really like the woodgrain on this block and wish it could reveal itself better on the print. I used Japanese shina plywood and moku hanga carving tools, a knife and a u-gouge, all ordered from McClain's Printmaking Supplies.

A Student's Craftsmanship

Claire Russell is a longtime student, and a talented calligrapher and book artist.  During the fall quarter class I taught on Compositon and Color, Claire painted many experiments with different palettes, including a triadic palette which you can see in this album design.  She created the album to hold two of her leaf studies.

 One is a split complementary color design, and the next more strictly complementary.

Yellowstone Revisited

 In September I was walking at daybreak above the Gardner River near the Rescue Creek Trail.  I took some photos but in no way did they communicate the feeling of being alone in a special place, privileged with an apparition that might only last a moment.  I am not sure if I have been able to express it in this painting, but I think there is some sense of the alien, other-worldly landscape that one sees in the Northern more arid zones in Yellowstone National Park.  You walk along, subdued by the grays and low light of dawn, still sleepy from waking up so early, and suddenly you find yourself transported to a world of intense color, glowing with autumn and sunrise. It's a moment that occurs so often in nature--you gasp involuntarily at the sheer beauty of something. In art it happens infrequently, but once in a while. I remember going years ago to the Cloisters Museum in New York, just after opening before anyone else arrived. I walked into the Campin Room, and saw the Annunciation Triptych --and I gasped at the sheer amazing beauty of it.  Later on before leaving the museum I peered into the room from the landing above and saw a man looking at it for the first time, and he gasped too!  And I realized at that point that my goal as an artist and teacher was to work all my life so that some day I might acquire the knowledge and craftsmanship to share some portion of that awe with other people.

Annual Holiday Studio Sale: Moonviewing with Pine

 
My annual studio sale is next weekend. On Friday and Saturday, December 11th and 12th, 2009 I am participating in the Holiday On Earth Sale at the beautiful, historic Laurelhurst Community Center  in Northeast Seattle with several other artists, weavers and other fine craftspeople, some of whom are my friends.  I will be offering for sale original watercolors, egg tempera paintings, relief prints and giclee prints (like the one pictured above, Moonviewing with Pine), as well as my illustrations that have been published as cards by Pomegranate Communications in California.  I will also have a brochure with all my summer teaching plans.

The weekend is featuring an evening luminary walk, music (last year there was a great jazz combo), and activities for children.

Yellowstone Revisited

 
The bull elk I saw very early one morning just inside the Gardiner entrance to Yellowstone inspired this journal sketch.  I began by laying a yellow ochre wash over the entire page, dropping in some neutral greens and a deeper brown I mixed with carbazole violet and quinacridone burnt orange.  After that dried I sketched the elk body on top, and painted his body with a slightly darker ochre mixture, laying in the beautiful neck ruff with a small paint brush once the first wash was almost but not entirely dry.  I used a mixture of carbazole violet and quinacridone burnt orange for the deeper brown.  Next I mixed a more saturated brown adding a little phthalo blue red shade for the dark shadows on the elk's hindquarters and underside as well as the long autumn shadow he cast.

These summer sights (captured in sketches and photos) keep me going during the long rainy Seattle winters.  I'll be teaching a one day workshop in late January for Daniel Smith on travel journals--I'm really looking forward to showing how I incorporate quick sketching on location, and later more reflective entries like this one (done in the comfort of hotel rooms and home) in my travel journal. Students will bring their own photos so they can try out these methods using their own adventures as inspiration.  We'll be using many quick-sketching techniques and materials for our journal entries, as well as more carefully planned techniques with watercolor.

Relief Printing with Ink and Watercolor

 I created this relief print by carving a Safety-Kut printmaking block. I inked it with Daniel Smith water-soluble black ink (for ease of clean up), and after allowing the ink to dry for a few days, I painted the inked print with watercolor.  The ink is no longer water-soluble once dry.  I used Magnani Pescia printmaking paper because it accepts washes readily, though not as smoothly as a watercolor paper.  I was inspired to create this print for a workshop I presented for the Write On Calligraphers guild in Washington. I have admired the work of early twenthieth century German typographer and artist Rudolf Koch for some years, and the letterform that I created for the word "lupine" owes much to Koch, incorporating some of the design work he did with blackletter or Gothic letterforms.  He is most famous for inventing the Neuland font.  I presented a demonstration on this at Daniel Smith Artist Materials a few weeks ago; check out the Daniel Smith blog link to learn more about the process. 

Sparrows in November

 
This week I visited Union Bay Natural Area between storms--the Pacific Northwest has been buffeted by winds and rain for the entire month. I took a photo of this song sparrow on a cattail, his head feathers uplifted by a wind gust.

Union Bay Natural Area advocate Connie Sidles is reading from her new book In My Nature with friends from the Seattle Audubon Society on Sunday, December 13th at 3pm at the Center for Urban Horticulture. They'll also be birding there.  My student and friend Alex MacKenzie will be there--she illustrated Connie's book.  I  have met her and Connie Sidles at Union Bay on countless occasions, and Alex has devoted hours to photographing, sketching and painting.

I was sad to say good bye this week to all my wildlife painting students, as we had our last session. I attempted to photograph some of their work, but my photos really didn't do justice to the work. Luckily a couple of students had the ability to send me scans and here they are.

John Tubbs is a photographer and has keenly appreciated birds for a long time.  He photographed this Savannah Sparrow at the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge.  I enjoy the perspective on this one--the bird's tail disappearing behind it, as well as the loosely painted background.

Susan Jones took pictures of these sparrows just outside her window at home. She really captures the character of their interactions and flock behavior.  This is a work in progress.  In class critique we talked about directions she could take with anchoring the birds and we all decided that a loosely painted ground, with perhaps just their cast shadows, would finish this beautifully.

Oregon White Oak

I spent the last several days in and around Portland, and marveled at the beautiful stands of Oregon White Oak there.  Significant stands can be found all around the Willamette Valley. I photographed this specimen at the Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge. Many thanks to my online colleague Max Smith who suggested this and other natural areas near Portland. 

  I photographed these Canada geese and a couple of Pintails swimming alongside in the Tualatin River there.

The Tualatin Hills Nature Park has an amazing forest of white oak and ponderosa pine.  Prior to logging at the beginning of the 20th century the forest there was made up of Douglas fir and Western red cedar, but the succession forest that replaced it includes the oak and what some botanists think is a separate species of Ponderosa pine, more adapted to the wetter conditions west of the Cascades.  I took this photo of the oak leaves woven with pine needles and lichen. 

There is an iconic quality in the shape of the oak, both in leaf and in its bare winter armature. Seeing it brings to my mind my studies long ago of the classic Fraser book The Golden Bough.  The oak has been our constant companion thoughout history in Western Europe and America, playing a role in myth, religion, architecture, and commerce.  I don't see it in such abundance in Washington state where I live, and I miss it, so spending all that time in the Willamette forests was like meeting old friends.

Here are the oaks at Oak Bottom Park in Portland.  Many are still in leaf, displaying beautiful gold fall color.

I was surprised to see the deer at Oak Bottom, right in the heart of busy Portland, but there is considerable acreage here for browsing.