Animated short “Wings”

The Animation Project that I began in 2011 is now complete! “Stop-motion” is both the animation process I used to turn still images into film, and the literal description of the eight year journey it took to finish this 4 minute and 21 second short film.

Storyboard sketches

During the summer of 2012, I made 26 charcoal drawings that I photographed as they were drawn and/or erased. I pared the images down to about 800 for the editing process. This project was often on the back burner while I worked on other drawings, prepared for shows, and investigated editing programs and equipment.

In 2018, after several unsuccessful editing attempts, my son Matt Green (mattgreenfilms.com) came to my rescue. He had the knowledge, experience, and editing program that I lacked.

Still image from animation, charcoal, 22″ x 30″

True to form, I waited a year before contacting  Josh Ritter’s crew to get permission to use his song Wings, which is the inspiration for the drawings. Aaahhh, procrastination!

See two previous posts, Animated Drawing and Animation Continuation, for more info about the development and research for this project.

The Sketchbook Project

Its been a year since Black Thumb Art closed its Oregon studio. We traveled to the East Coast, Egypt, and Turkey before relocating in Spokane. While the new charcoal studio is being built, I’ve been working with different media and processes.

For several years I’ve collected photos from the sports section of the local newspaper; images that remind me of religious Mannerist paintings with their twisting figures, mouths agape, and heavenward glances.  Before moving, I scanned and printed several of these photos onto paper.  I’ve been experimenting with them since, layering opaque watercolor (gouache) and gold leaf over the images.

Recently I used this process in a book I submitted to The Sketchbook Project, part of the permanent collection at the Brooklyn Art Library and one of the largest collections of sketchbooks in the world.

My book, Angels in Egypt, has been chosen to be part of The Sketchbook Project’s Mobile Library tour this summer.  You can check it out (literally) if you are in one of the tour cities, beginning this weekend in Chicago’s Millennium Park.  The tour ends August 28th, back in New York at the Whitney Museum.  Here is a link to the full tour schedule.

 

If you can’t make it to one of these cities, Here is a link to the scanned version of Angels in Egypt.

 

 

“Angels in Egypt” pages 19-20. Colored pencils, Gelly Roll and Micron Pigma pens.

Scanned pic from the Corvallis Gazette Times

Drawing Deeper

“St. Maggie”, charcoal and gold leaf on canvas, 5″ x 7″ x 2″

I’m showing new drawings this fall at Chemeketa Community College.

This exhibit  features four other artists whose work is focused on the discipline of drawing – Debra Beers, April Coppini, Megan Vossler and Samantha Wall.

 

 

“Drawing Deeper” will run from Nov. 4 to Dec. 4 in the Gretchen Schuette gallery, located on the first floor of Building 3 on the Salem campus. The gallery is open from 9:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Fridays, or by appointment.

 

“Balanced #2″ (detail), charcoal on paper, 65″ x 17”

Making a Mark

Unhomelike #10, Her Head

A fabulous show just opened, Making a Mark: Drawing in Oregon, and three of my drawings from the Unhomelike Series are included. There will be a reception April 12, 5:30-7:30 at the Arts Center, and two special lectures are scheduled. April 18th, Andrew Myers will talk about his work and the significance of drawing. Clint Brown, OSU Professor Emeritus will give an historical overview with images from art history on May 3rd.

The Arts Center • 700 SW Madison Ave. Corvallis, OR • 12-5, Tue-Sat

Unhomelike #5, Bent

Opening at the Au Naturel Exhibit

Clint Brown is the juror for this year’s annual exhibit Au Naturel:The Nude in the 21st Century. He’s a professor Emeritus at Oregon State University and the author of two books on art, and my neighbor…we recently met and I discovered he lives just over the hill.

I’ve participated in Au Naturel in the past (first place award and solo show, 2007) and am happy to be included again this year. Clint chose two of my drawings, Balanced and Three Chairs.

Balanced

In 2007 while living in Idaho, my husband and I strapped my over-sized drawing to our car roof for the drive to Astoria. That’s not an option I consider anymore- bubble wrap can chafe plexiglass, even inside a box, at 60 mph in a headwind.

The exhibit runs from February 21st – March 28, 2013. An opening reception is Thursday, March 7 at 6:00 pm.

Clatsop Community College, The Art Center Gallery, 1799 Lexington Ave. Astoria, Oregon.

Click here more information and images at the Au Naturel Exhibit.

New Work at The Art Spirit Gallery

I’m heading to Idaho with new work for a show that opens Friday, August 10.  Carey Weigand and I will be joining forces- her sculptures and my drawings- for a clay and charcoal synergy!

The opening reception is part of Coeur d’Alene’s ArtWalk, from 5-8. I will give a drawing demonstration in the gallery from 1-4 on Saturday, August 11.

The show will be up through September 8, at The Art Spirit Gallery, 415 Sherman Ave, open every day from 11-6.

Take a peek at the Undressing Room

I’m delivering a drawing to Portland’s Froelick Gallery this week for an exhibition of contemporary nudes, entitled Undressing Room. There are numerous receptions -I’ll be at the preview reception Wednesday, June 6, from 5 to 8-  and the show will be up for the June and July 1st Thursday events.

Click on the Undressing Room link above to see more work from the show, or visit the Froelick facebook page. The gallery is in Portland’s Pearl District, 714 NW Davis St. Tuesday – Saturday, 10:30-5:30.

Ch-ch-ch-changes in Charcoal

Untitled (Crowd)

We’ve been busy here at Black Thumb Studio, just like Santa’s workshop, trying to make that December deadline.  I’ll be delivering and installing 20 drawings at Columbia Basin College in a show of Drawings and Ceramics that opens January 9, 2012. Sculptor Carolyn Nelson and I will show at the CBC’s Esvelt Gallery through February 2, and we’ll both be on hand at the opening reception January 10th, 7 pm.  Come join us if you’re in the Tri-cities area.

Crowd drawing, early stage

This drawing of a crowd has an obvious compositional problem -a bit busy on the right side – but I resisted the need to make dramatic changes to this drawing.  I liked the hint of landscape and quiet pastoral setting.  Why can’t this crowd just live here, happily shoved up against the right edge of the paper, absorbed in something that’s happening beyond the left edge?

Sometimes you can’t have what you want… after six months of unsatisfactory solutions, I transplanted them to the city and they’re much happier now, though they may need a new title.

Contour line ritual

I started several drawing projects during last month’s residency Artists @ Work. While most of these drawings involved charcoal, I had one daily ritual that required clean hands.

Every morning I began the work day with a blind contour line drawing. Using a fine point marker on square sheets of paper, I drew what I saw in front of me with a continuous line, moving around and across the surfaces of objects, architectural structures, and people.

          

-list from illustrator Tim Dose

What makes these drawings quirky (some would say ugly) is the “blind” part of this process. Here are the rules: Do not look at your paper, only at the objects you’re drawing. Start at the edge of the paper and move slowly along observed contours, with your hand and eyes working in tandem. Do not stop or lift the pen until you run off the edge of the paper.

My goal was to create a 2-D representation of the 3-D space and a record of our residency, by beginning and ending at the same point. Instead, I started with the piano in the southeastern corner of the building and ended with Hester at the computer, in the northeastern corner. I spent too much time hung up on the ceiling.

I’m now in the process of connecting the 19 sheets in an accordion format. Using a sewing machine with white thread, I’m having fun linking the pages together with sewn/drawn shapes that describe what I can remember of the space – windows, podiums, a ladder, etc.

Friends and fellow resident artists Gale and Julia joined me for a group blind sketch: 

Mike Bergen's drawing of Carol

 

Animated drawing

Artists @ Work week 2 and 3:

I switched my focus the last two weeks of the residency from “crowd drawings”  to an animation project, based on the process used by South African artist William Kentridge. I’m animating a song lyric, 4 minutes in length, and this 19 second sequence is about half of the second stanza. It’s like a “rough draft” that allowed me to experiment with the process.

Draw mountain valley, “click”…

I layered multiple drawings and erasures on the same sheet of paper, usually making incremental changes that I photographed at each stage. After 6 days, I had 103 images viewed at 3 frames/second for the train sequence.

Draw gray smudge, "click"...

Enlarge gray smudge, "click"

Use eraser to make white rocks fly from smudge, "click"

It may be fortuitous coincidence, synchronicity, or divine intervention, but the public component of this residency turned my little project into a truly collaborative work. These guys wandered into the Arts Center and shared their knowledge: artist Bill Shumway, animator Matthew Coffin,  film editor Paul Ahrens, and Chris Gray, single-gauge railroad aficionado.