The visual inspirations of Sandra R. Wagner
First day and what fun we’ve had. Blind contour writing and color mixing with lots of exercises involving sumi ink, graphite pencils and watercolor. This photo was taken at the end of the day and represents blind writing of an early Greek alphabet and colors developed from a simple palette of Daniel Smith watercolors – quinacrodone gold, quinacrodone coral and phalo blue (RS). Finding all those mysterious browns and grays was both challenging and wondrous.
It’s a wonderful rainy morning here in beautiful North Carolina. The swallows are busy nesting in the eves of the craft house and the fog has settled in for a while. What a great way to start the week. I’m spending the week with Laurie Doctor and those of you who don’t know here work should peruse her website. She’s an amazing artist and teacher. The other half of the class is working with Denis Brown on his polyrhythmic techniques. We’re lucky to have wifi now, so I’ll try to post some photos in the evening. Needless to say Cheerio is the closest thing to a calligrapher’s heaven on earth.
While I’m in watercolor mode, here’s another. This one is from a photo I took out in Parke County Indiana, the covered bridge capitol of the world. We were there in late October when there was very little foliage left on the trees.
Those of you who subscribe to Bound and Lettered might remember seeing it there in an article I wrote about using masking fluids. The white portions of the bridge, the rocks and some of the larger areas of white on the trees were masked. After it was removed from the bridge, the grey tones and lettering were added.
Clicking on the graphic it will open a larger copy in a new window where you can see more detail. The rocks and under the bridge have a slightly shiny take to them where I used brushed gum arabic to create a wet look. The white areas of the trees are sgraffito. I removed the color with a fritch scrub brush and an exacto knife.
I enjoy painting with watercolor. The transparency allows for color mixing and blending unlike either oils or acrylics. I try to have a camera handy when we travel and keep a digital file of reference photos.
This watercolor is loosely based on a photograph of a bridge in the Blue Ridge mountains near Roaring Gap, NC. The aging stonework offered such an array of earthtones balanced against the trees and sky.
Click on the thumbnail for more detail.
Back to the studio. This week I’ve been working with acrylic mediums. For those who aren’t familiar with acrylics, the various gels, pastes and liquid mediums allow for shapes and color to be applied in various glazes and textures. This also allows for lettering on and between layers. For more detail click on the thumbnail.
This is a 16×16 canvas collaged with unpainted double shuen. It was then covered with a layer of white wash so that when it was dry I could use water media to write and also to allow me to impress letters into the surface. If you look closely at the detail below you’ll see small block letters rising like bubbles from the sea.
There are more collaged papers giving the illusion of fish. The raised “seaweed” was created with gesso thinned with matte medium applied with a squeeze bottle. The illusion of sand was created with mica gels. The various layers of color are acrylic glazes. I’ve posted the work here before any lettering is applied so that you can see the underlying structure more easily.
I began keeping loose-leaf notebooks some thirty years ago when I attended classes and workshops. In the beginning they included not much more than some exemplars and practice lettering sheets. When I found I was becoming a pack rat, I realized that it made more sense to place the exemplars in clear sheet protectors and keep only those bits and pieces that I knew I might revisit when the creative muses were on vacation.
Later, as I added classes in life drawing, watercolor and pastel, I switched to spiral bound sketchbooks. I still use notebooks for exemplars, but now I use the sketchbooks to take notes, cut and paste small examples from workshops, and to experiment with design, color and tools. They have become an invaluable reference.
If you’re like me you spend a lot of time with your hands in water. Whether rinsing out brushes, sponges and rollers or using various wet techniques to wash backgrounds. The combination of water and dry winter air can make for some pretty rough skin; what the commercials of the 1950’s called “dishpan hands”. In the spring, I’m also an obsessive gardener and the wet dirt isn’t much easier on the hands. It seems like no amount of hand lotion helps. One thing that has helped my hands over the years is a product called “Bag Balm”. Designed in the 1890’s to heal cracked udders on milking cows, it soon found its way into the kitchen and a host of other places. I haven’t the foggiest idea how it works, but it does and that small green can will last forever.
The creative spark has been in full gear this past week. Between shoveling snow and being invited to participate in the Washington Calligraphers Guild Invitational Exhibit, I’m afraid I haven’t been posting as often as I’d like. I’ve been having great fun preparing a new piece to send off this month to DC. Meanwhile, photographing art for the gallery here is temporarily on hold, but I couldn’t resist taking some photos of last night’s beautiful snowfall.
Announced by all the trumpets of the sky, Arrives the snow, and, driving o’er the fields, Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven, and veils the farmhouse at the garden’s end. The sled and traveller stopped, the courier’s feet delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit around the radiant fireplace, enclosed in a tumultuous privacy of storm.
Out of the bosom of the Air, out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken, over the woodlands brown and bare, over the harvest-fields forsaken, silent, and soft, and slow descends the snow.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Just having fun with the alphabet, here’s a 10×24 canvas covered in double shuen, multiple layers of collage, text and pastel. Using watercolor, walnut and sumi inks, graphite and Dr. Martin’s Bleedproof white, and a bit of gold dust, there’s lots going on. You might even spot some life drawing if you look closely.
Click on thumbnail for complete image.
This 24×30 gallery wrapped deep canvas piece that’s still in the works. The photo probably doesn’t do the detail justice. I began by covering the entire surface with double shuen paper using rice paste. That was followed with walnut and sumi ink spritzed and brushed on; then a coating of 50/50 matte medium. Still not satisfied with the surface, I then pasted more shuen papers that have been rolled with black relief paints. On top of that are acylics both brushed and rolled. It still isn’t finished as I’m experimenting with text and color to add yet another dimension. I enjoy the process of slowly building up the design gradually until it has a satisfying balance of both texture and color.
Click on the thumbnail for more detail.
