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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?

Caterpillars, milkweed and life stages

My sister is growing caterpillars. Actually she is growing milkweed to attract monarch butterflies to come stay and raise their families. Once abundant, milkweed is declining from herbicide and pesticide use, urban development, and other reasons. The monarchs, dependent on milkweed are dwindling in numbers. It is both the plant on which they lay their eggs and subsist on as caterpillars. This toxic diet protects them from predators as adults. Several generations are born and die over the summer, and the last are born to fly hundreds and even thousands of miles to winter over in Mexico or coastal California and make a return flight north the following spring. With their vivid orange and black patterned wings, monarchs are beautiful. It is this coloring though that warns away predators who know they are toxic.

How people can attract butterflies

If you don’t have the time or inclination to plant and tend a milkweed garden you can still attract butterflies. They will often come to you if you just sit still.  I was given some advice from my Dad as a young adult. Knowing art was my passion, he advised me to follow my heart with this caveat: “Stick to one thing and be the best you can be at that one thing.”  As with many young people, I listened but did not completely hear this advice. Following your heart when young can lead down many roads. I think I followed all the siren calls. I also think I inherited from my Dad, ironically, a streak of wanderlust. It is one that I still entertain, though certainly to a much lesser degree.

Balance

I have lived in California, Alaska and Arizona. I love going, exploring, experiencing and hitting the open road. I read somewhere that travel is like reading a book. If you only read the first chapter you limit most of the book, or possibilities. Being still is something that is very hard for me, perhaps it is an acquired taste. I know that both states contribute toward a balanced life. Maybe, like the monarch, there are times and seasons for everything.

Focus

Possibly learning how to be still in an active life is key. The ability to focus at the exclusion of distractions is a goal that eclipses all goals. Mastering that may just be the secret to a happy and successful life. While painting, focusing is directly related to a successful experience, and I suspect true of any endeavor. I have noticed the difference in paintings that have seemingly “just happened” and those that were huge struggles from start to finish. The ones that seemed to have painted themselves, upon reflection, were the one’s painted while I was calm and focused.

Tempered Passion

But what about passion? It is still there, it has just changed. All experience goes into the mix, and like tempered steel, is harder, finer, and more true.

Moira’s Blog

Thoughts on drawing

I think drawing is the backbone of many art practices especially painting and sculpture. Drawing helps flesh out ideas, and resolve issues with composition and structure. It also can stand alone as a viable art form. Over the years I have used many different tools to draw. The artwork reflects both the nature of the artist and the materials used. The images selected here are from various sketchbooks or newspaper illustrations I made over the span of the last 25 years. Some are using traditional media such as pencil, ink or charcoal. Some use these media with unconventional tools like sticks and feathers. There are scratchboard drawings, ink wash drawings, and drawings made from charcoal collected after a burn in the forest or campfire. They all loan their particular characters to the finished drawings, or the sketchbook drawings which I consider more along the lines of brainstorming.

The following pencil renderings use a conventional 2B pencil, a carpenter pencil, and a 4b pencil. The B indicates it is soft, and the 2 that on the scale of soft pencils, it is close to center. HB is in the middle of the pencil scale, with softness increasing as you go up in number. For instance 2B is softer than HB, 3B softer still. My softest pencil is a 6B.  Harder pencils have H after their number like 2H, 3H and so on. The higher the number, the harder the pencil. Harder pencils also leave lighter marks but can dent the paper if you press too hard. Soft pencil lines smudge easily and are capable of rendering rich dark tones and fuzzy lines. Hard pencils are cleaner and good for tighter less atmospheric drawings. I never use a pencil sharpener preferring the variety of lines one can achieve with an exacto or knife sharpened pencil.

 Tree drawing using a carpenter pencil                     Aspen using a 2B pencil                                 Contour Tree drawing using

                                                                                                                                                                                  a 4B pencil

The following ink drawings were done with brush, sticks, and pen. It is fun to take a bottle of ink and sketchbook into the woods and pick up sticks as drawing tools wherever you are. Each stick leaves a myriad of lines depending on which part of the tool is used. Lines and textures can be stamped, scribbled, or drawn roughly or delicately. A lot of variety can be achieved in one drawing. Other natural materials like feathers and pine needles impart their own unique marks. Both the quill end and soft part of the feather can be used, and depending on whether a pine needle is single or in a bunch, different effects are possible.

       Ink wash with brush and pen Yosemite Pioneer Village                               Ink Wash with brush Summer Wildflowers

                                                                                                                              Illustration in Anchorage Daily News by Moira Donohoe

                             Ink and stick drawing Tree                                                 Ink wash and pen drawing Trees

Charcoal is versatile in that it can be energetic and messy or elegant and refined. Great atmospheric effects can be achieved with charcoal. Vine charcoal from willow is light and ephemeral, and compressed charcoal much heavier and denser. The fireplace charcoal tends to have characteristics of both of the above manufactured types.

                                   In His Hands Charcoal                                             Yosemite Buffalo Soldier Shelton Johnson, Charcoal

Scratchboard is a panel with a coating of fine white clay with a subsequent layer of India ink. The image is made by scratching fine lines with a sharp tool through the ink surface to expose the white clay underneath. The final image can be very finely detailed like a wood engraving, or loose and freer, and many things in between.

            Scratchboard drawing Yosemite Pioneer Village         Scratchboard drawing Hope, Anchorage Daily News illustration

                                                                                                                                             by Moira Donohoe

Welcome back to my art blog. Last weeks post illustrated a step by step process and some of the considerations involved in beginning the painting "North Peak in summer." This week will show how I continue the process and bring the painting to completion.

We will begin with step 4.  In this step I add more depth to the painting by establishing the creek in the foreground and reestablishing some of the darks, both helping to lead the eye into the painting. 

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Step 5 fleshes out the sky area and middle ground which anchor the composition and help me make a few decisions regarding the foreground relative to the rest of the painting, as you will see in the next step.

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Step 6 is the last and final step where I concern myself with completing the forground and making sure that everything in the painting is integrated. Toward that end I  change and darken the color of the rock mass on the left upper third of the picture, heighten the color of the midground willows, and add new and deeper colors to the creek in the foreground. I also added some warmth to the clouds, and put in some foreground plants. Adding details are fun and should be left to the final stage of a painting. 

North Peak in summer original pastel by Moira Donohoe

I hope you enjoyed this blog demonstration. How do you approach designing your paintings? Please comment and share your thoughts.

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.

Along the rocky riverbank in Wawona, these snags, or dead trees provide homes for a lot of the creatures of the forest and river; birds squirrels, and many insects. All part of the web of life