Book Recommendation: Little Things in a Big Country by Hannah Hinchman

Author & artist Hannah Hinchman has given me years of inspiration with each of her books, including Little Things in a Big Country.  Her words feel alive and express the essential nature of a place, a moment or a creature.  

She has managed to describe ineffable human experiences like truly seeing colors in nature after a half-hour's hike, or drawing the intricate light and shadow patterns on a silver teapot.  She expressed human experiences -- from anxiety to wonder, editing her words down to the essential heart of the matter.  Anytime I pick up her books, I feel inspired to be a better artist, writer and human. 

Even if you're not looking for a deeply human encounter with a book, simply seeing into another person's sketchbook is a golden opportunity.  We humans are curious about our fellow humans.

Hannah hand-wrote this book, and her writing adds a beautiful energy to the storytelling.

I hope you take the opportunity to check out Hannah's books!

Hannah's books:

A Life in Hand: Creating the Illuminated Journal, 1991, Peregrine Smith Books.

A Trail Through the Leaves: The Journal as a Path to Place, 1997, W.W. Norton & Co.

Little Things in a Big Country: An Artist and Her Dog on the Rocky Mountain Front, 2004, W.W. Norton & Co.

I heartily recommend them all!

Happy Reading!

Sun Prints

This fall when I was out hiking, I collected leaves from trees, ferns and weeds. Back at home, I pressed them in books to flatten them.  I tried to collect a variety of shapes and types of leaves to use in sun prints, also called cyanotypes.

Below is the two-part mixture product I used to make my sun prints.  

The process takes a bit of preparation, requiring you to add distilled water to the powder in each bottle, then wait 24 hours for the mixture to activate.  After 24 hours, you mix equal parts of Part A and Part B, stir it up and paint it onto whatever you want to use for printing.  

In this photo, you can see examples of paper cyanotypes I made.

After trying paper sun prints, I bought some 100% cotton napkins and painted them with the cyanotype mixture.  

You have to let the mixture dry before printing, and you have to do all of this in dim light, away from the sun.  I set up a painting station and drying rack in my pantry and kept the napkins in the dark while they dried.

Finally, I was ready to make sun prints!  

I laid out a napkin on a drawing board, arranged the pressed leaves, and put a piece of glass over the top to keep the leaves from being blown away by the wind.

After 20 minutes in afternoon sunshine, this is what the napkin looked like.

The cyanotype mixture changes color from yellowish green to bronze in the sun.

The final step is to rinse the print in cold water, which will set the print so it is no longer sensitive to light.

You can see the yellow-green mixture washing out from the areas that were covered by leaves.

You rinse until the water runs clear, then hang up your print to dry.

Here are two of the four napkins I printed.  As time passed, and the afternoon sun moved closer to the horizon, I had to expose the napkins longer, up to 30 minutes.  But I could always tell when the napkin turned bronze in the sun that the print was done.

You have to be careful when laundering your cyanotype fabrics not to use bleach or detergents with phosphate.  Also leaving them to soak too long can wash out the blue dye.  Hand washing is recommended.

But that's worth it for the thrill of creating things for your home that reflect the beauty of nature!

Happy Creating!

Artist's Choice!

When you're out roving in nature, keep your artist's eye watchful for beauty.  Sometimes it comes in wonky, quirky forms like this wild grape vine.

Remember that as the artist, you get to decide what to include in your painting.  

I loved the wibbly-wobbly nature of this grape vine, and wanted it to stand out. 

I painted it darker than the rest of the forest.

I added more detail in its peeling bark.  

I edited out the dark cherry tree leaning in the middle of the composition, and simplified the leafy forest into splotches of light and midtone greens.

When you look at nature, what catches your eye?  

That's the part to lavish your attention on so it stands out in your painting.  

As the artist, you get to leave out parts, change parts, and simplify the scene.

Isn't that freeing?

Happy Creating! 

Plein air Paddle

A picnic lunch, a canoe for two, and a bag of art supplies -- all the ingredients for a lovely day in the state park.

As we paddled along, I stole the opportunity to sketch with my paintbrush and Winsor & Newton travel watercolor set.  The brilliant sunshine cast bold shadows on the hills & valleys.

I hope you take some art supplies along with you on a park visit.  It's a lovely way to slow down, see the landscape, and keep developing your art skills.

Happy Creating!

Alaskan Adventure: Icy Strait Point, Alaska

My favorite day of the whole trip was spent in the coastal temperate rainforest of Icy Strait Point, our third port.

Our ship docked right next to a beautiful forest with an easy-to-walk nature trail that ran through the woods.

The rocky coast was rich with a variety of colors, shapes and textures.

Earthy yellow kelp along the shore caught my eye.

I spent most of my time in the woods, along the nature trail, sitting on a bench painting or walking slowly through the forest.  

I asked an employee about bears, and he said that they hadn't seen any in the last 2 weeks.  The trail was well traveled by tourists while I spent time there, so I felt safe.  Still, I made noise and kept a sense of awareness about my surroundings.

Entering the woods, you could see towering hemlocks and spruces, rich vegetation, and moss everywhere.

Western Columbine was blooming.  June is the best time to go for wildflower watching.

The earth underfoot was soft and spongy with decaying wood.

Bunchberries bloomed on the forest floor.

Fallen trees hosted new life springing up from their roots and surfaces

Blueberry bushes grew much larger than eastern varieties.

Deer heart's glossy heart-shaped leaves seem to call out to be drawn.

You can see the ocean out beyond the forest.

The crooked tree with the craggy limbs in the background of this scene above drew my eye in, and I sketched it at the bottom right of my page.

Sometimes the tiny things in a larger scene tell a story of their own.

Hours spent sitting in a forest, forest bathing, was more relaxing than a spa day for me, and gave me a chance to fill several pages with sketches and paintings.

I hope you'll take inspiration from some of these photos and create artworks of your own.

Happy Creating! 

Making a Hand-Carved Stamp

I've always felt a connection with American Crows.  

They're intelligent, curious, and have a magical air about them.  

This crow photo, by Brad Silberberg, inspired a rubber stamp I made recently. 

I first made some sketches of the crow, then I chose one design to become the stamp.

I used a big pink eraser chunk for my rubber stamp. 

You can create stamps out of a variety of materials -- I've used corks, erasers & the soles of blown-out tennis shoes.  You can also buy "Speedy Cut" rubber blocks from Speedball.  They're uniform in texture and easy to cut into with carving tools or an X-Acto knife.

I chose a sketch and transferred the design onto the pink eraser by coloring on a scrap piece of paper with a 4B graphite pencil, then placing that face-down onto the stamp.  I placed my sketch on top, and traced over an outline of the drawing with a pencil to transfer the design.

As I carved out the crow, I began playing with doodles in the margins. I ended up wishing I had left more material above the crow's head to carve swirls into.  Though there's no "undo" button in stamp-carving, I can easily create another stamp.  Artists often work in a series.

I inked up the stamp with Ranger permanent black ink for a first test. 

I liked the design, but decided to simplify it -- editing out the marks in the space outside the crow.

I used to be impatient to finish a project like this and put it to use, but I now realize that the therapeutic power of art lies in the tinkering process as well as in expressing my unique vision.

Here's a look at the final crow stamp.  

I'm happy with the simplified look, and stamped up a bunch of stationery.

A home-made stamp like this is wonderful for decorating journals, for adding to mixed-media projects, or simply making greeting cards.

Playing around with art supplies with no goal other than to create for your own joy helps a person to drop into timeless time, into a place of peaceful exploration, into that blissful, childlike experience of creating. All the cares of the day fall away, and a person can relax into their own world of creativity.

I hope you take time to be creative for your own delight & relaxation this week.