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Today is my mother’s birthday. She was born 93 years ago in the little town of Groveland California, where her Dad headquartered as the Doctor on the Hetch Hetchy project. Hetch Hetchy, from the Miwok word hatchhatchie, meaning edible grass, is the name of a valley in Yosemite National Park, drained by the Tuolumne River. It was dammed and flooded in 1923 to accommodate San Francisco’s water and power needs.

Helene Angela Degnan, known as Nell, grew up in Yosemite Valley, raised by her dad, Dr. John P. Degnan, aunt Mary Ellen, and paternal grandparents, John and Bridget Degnan. It was a magical childhood she and her sisters enjoyed. They spent summers at play by the Merced River observing nature close at hand. Later this was shared with us, her children, who played by that same river.

Of course, a parent has many influences on a child. Beyond food, shelter and etiquette, my mother made all seven of us deep lovers of nature. It has manifested itself in many ways, coming out in poetry, music art, and lifestyle. She noticed things like light rimming leaves heavy with dew, turning them into jewels. On our many walks around Yosemite Valley, we learned the names of trees, flowers, birds, and rocks. Mom knew all the Miwok Indian legends about Yosemite, and where many of the grinding rocks were in the woods by our house near the chapel.

My mother always made sure I had plenty of art supplies. She bought reproductions of famous paintings and hung them around our house. We had place mats that were copies of Renoir, Van Gogh, Pissarro, and other artists whose work she loved.

Today the world is very different from my parent’s era. It is different again from my childhood. Things are speeding up at a dizzying rate. Still, there are constants that are markers. Markers in that they remind us who we are. For me it is going back to the river, recalling those nature walks with my family when we were little, and basking in that glow. 

The last conversation I had with my mom was on the phone. She was in a sterile hospital room describing to me the birds and flowers she saw out her window, and the Sierra with cumulus clouds gathering over them that dark August day.  She was unfailingly kind, gracious, and a child of nature. 

Coast Live Oaks are full of character. This one has survived drought and fire. It stands on a mountaintop high above the blue Pacific. A young couple bought the property in the 1930's and raised their family there. That family is there still.

Leaving the coolness of the coast redwoods one follows a winding road up through a mixed forest of fir, pine, various oak and madrone. The land opens to the sky several miles up, with huge grassy expanses and glimpses of the ocean way below. I was invited to come there to paint an oak that was an important part of my friend's childhood.

While she was growing up on the coast, I was growing up in the Sierra. The particular scent of the woods; sounds, shifting visions in mist, sun, snowstorms; all are part of my reality as they are hers. So we have an affinity for trees. 

Successful work requires a connection, and there are varying degrees. If I were asked to paint a forest landscape, there would be an automatic relationship. If a forest landscape in California were specified, it would be deeper, and deeper still if the request were for a forest landscape in Yosemite.

There are other kinds of connections too. My Dad commissioned an artwork of Bakhita, a brave girl from the Sudan, who was stolen and sold into slavery as a child. She overcame tremendous adversity and became someone who deeply influenced everyone around her. The portrait of her, "In His Hands", was gifted to the order of Canossian Sisters of which Bakhita was a member. View "In His Hands" at moiradonohoe.com.  Her story inspired me, and my feeling for my father deepened that connection.

Everyone has intricate webs of connections that touch and overlap in myriad ways. It is stunning to contemplate the interwoven relationships just one aspect of my life, art, has brought me. What about you? What passion, pursuit or vocation have connected you?

Moira Donohoe’s Art Blog/Evolution of a Painting 

Traveling the highways and byways of the Eastern Sierra Nevada in California, there is inspiration for a painter in every direction. The dramatic upsweep and decent of the highest peaks to the deepest valleys in the lower 48 are records of the intense forces that formed this landscape. These mountains were created by colliding tectonic plates that caused upheavals and subductions (diving under), while weather, erosion, glaciers and volcanic activity further sculpted the rugged escarpment. Interesting that such a wondrous and inspiring place evolved from so violent a birth.

Coming into this sudden country, possibility after possibility reveals itself in the shape of a wildflower, lake, meadow, peak and butterfly. I want to paint everything I see. How on earth to choose what to put in, what to leave out? Sometimes making sketches are helpful in arriving at a composition. I like drama and often play with color, light and shadow patterns. 12,242 foot North Peak is in the 20 lakes basin above Saddlebag Lake.  In the work in progress, North Peak in summer, I began with loose gesture lines using vibrant color.

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In step two the initial layer is built on with more vigorous line work and color, adding depth and structure, but staying very free at the same time.

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By step three, the composition is taking on more form, with almost all important areas defined.

I continue adding mass and color, working all areas of the painting, keeping in mind integration of all elements including color, shape, line, and value or tonal structure. Make sure to check out my next post for the next few stages to the finished painting.

Moira Donohoe’s Blog

Outdoor (Plein Air) Painting

Painting outdoors or en Plein Air is enjoying huge popularity these days, but it is not a new phenomena. Extremely popular among artists it has also captured the collective imagination of the country. Since the French Impressionist in the later part of the 19^th Century began painting outdoors to capture the effects of light on form, painting in the open air has experienced ebbs and flows. It was avidly pursued on this side of the Atlantic in the later part of the 1800’s, and the early 20^th Century, and groups such as “The Society of Six” based mostly in Coastal California, and “The Canadian Seven” in Eastern Canada actively painted and promoted the art form. Santa Catalina Island off the southern California coast was and still is a hot spot for plein air painting. Many art groups around the country have their branch of ardent outdoor painters, such as Yosemite Western Artists based in Oakhurst California. www.yosemitewesternartists.org/  and the Modoc Plein Air Painters, www.facebook.com/groups/ModocPleinAirPainters/   www.alturasartcenter.com/  in Alturas California

Alturas is high desert country in north eastern California and quite different from the Yosemite area where I was raised and still live part time. Contrast can bring dynamism to a painting, so too perhaps to life. We had not been in Alturas long before I discovered the Art Center where I began teaching art classes through Lassen College.  Margo Curtis was the much loved and respected resident teacher who was retiring. She was a tough act to follow. The first class I taught at the Art Center for Lassen College was drawing.  About 18 people had signed up, and among the names was Margo Curtis! OMG! One of the staff there told me that one student was “the” Modoc County Arts Council, the county being so small in population that Ken did everything.  Well, I gave it my best shot, and today I count some of my good friends and colleagues from that group. The current exhibit at the Art Center Gallery is Modoc Plein Air Painters, The group began informally as friends who enjoyed painting together outside. Now we have a monthly date during the months that one can feasibly paint outdoors here. Subjects are varied from mountains, aspen groves, to sagebrush steppes, and we’ve planned painting trips to the coast, Sierra Nevada, and Southern Oregon, with thoughts of going further afield in the future. 

What child if given the opportunity wouldn’t love being out in nature smearing paint around on paper in response to the life around them. That’s the way my love affair with paint and brush began. I painted outside in the meadows of Yosemite as a child, and later took gear hiking on the high trails in the Sierra. Going outside to paint has its pros and cons. The biggest best thing to me is responding from the gut, in the moment, on the spot. Paintings done outside have a freshness that is sometimes lacking in studio paintings. They also are challenging at times. I personally have gone out in all kinds of weather, as have many die hard painters. It’s not always what I prefer, but it certainly makes you feel alive. Then there is the proverbial fly in the ointment which translates to fly in the paint, or mosquito, or gnat, or no see um. Once while teaching a pastel workshop in Yosemite, one student who paused to consider his work took a bite of his prussian blue instead of the granola bar he had in the other hand. Another time in another workshop, the same student spilled his entire palette of 200 or so pastels as he watched his easel somersault down the creek embankment it had been perched on. These are just a few of the possible occupational hazards. Still in all, the positive far outweigh the negative. Around the country plein air events and competitions are growing in numbers. Plein Air magazine has an enthusiastic following, and plein air workshops in all media abound. For me I can combine two long abiding loves, being outdoors and painting.

I recently attended a Celebration of Life for a very special person. She enriched the lives of many children, including my own. As their kindergarten and first grade teacher, Ti was the perfect mix of sweetness, discipline, and fun. I began teaching Art as a volunteer in the Yosemite Valley Elementary School when my kids began their school careers. A project inspired by Ti stands out these many years later. It revolved around the pioneer apple orchards in Yosemite. The apples ripened in fall, and the kindergarten/first grade made a field trip to James Lamon’s Orchard every September. Planted in the 1850’s, it was one of the many orchards frequented by the Valley children for generations.  Others were by the chapel, and around our house in the Old Village, planted by my Great Grandfather, John Degnan, at Camp Curry, and by Rocky Point picnic area. The day at the orchard picnicking, playing tag, and collecting apples, was the culmination of a week of study about the orchards, the varieties of apples, and the natural history of the apple tree. The Apple Book was a handmadebook filled with the drawings and sentiments of the 20 or so students of the 1996 Kindergarten/1^st grade class of Yosemite Valley Elementary School.

Apple Blossom Time

Apples played an important role in Pioneer America. Yosemite, where my family settled in the 19^th Century, was very isolated, especially in winter. My grandparents told me they ordered their bare root apple trees from “Monkey Wards” catalog (Montgomery Wards). That and Sears Roebuck catalog, saw many pioneer families through various needs. The trees were planted and carefully tended. Pies, cider, jelly, and numerous other dishes were gleaned from the apples. They were stored in a root cellar and used throughout the long winter. Apples were a mainstay, not a frivolity.

The Yosemite Apple Trees are important to me as a descendent of those pioneers. Growing up in Yosemite we continued the tradition of gathering apples in fall. Our Grandpa loved to make pies and jelly, and used all the apples we brought him. Wood smoke, coffee on a crisp morning, and the smell of pies baking, heavy on the cinnamon, encapsulates all that is good about the season. Although my grandpa is gone, I have his pie recipe, and my children collected apples from those very same trees.

The painting “Apple Blossom Time”, is one of my favorite paintings. Its success is in the expression of uninhibited joy, the promise of spring, the sunlight and colors, and the freedom of childhood.