Laurelines

Bringing the far North closer

When my beautiful daughter Cecelia won a scholarship to live and go to high school in Germany at age 16 for a WHOLE YEAR (!!!) I missed her so desperately that I started painting paintings of her at all stages of her childhood. In a miraculous way, those paintings brought her back to me during the endless 12 months of separation.

In a similar way, the paintings and studies for paintings I'm making for my upcoming show bring Iceland and Norway back to me. The studies below are quick and gestural, drawn from sketches and from the images in my mind's eye.

 

The trick will be to make finished works that share some of the energy of these studies. If I could, I'd spend one whole year just making large scale study after study like the last one shown here, acrylic on board. I wouldn't worry about producing a certain number of finished pieces, I'd just paint my heart out. And at the end of the year, I'd see where I'd been. Maybe that will be what 2014 holds for me. We'll see. There's a still-fresh 2013 to live first!

To Florida and back in 36 hours

I have long wanted to see Richard Thompson perform, and preferably, perform solo. Who knew when he'd be nearish to my part of the world again? As it turns out,  he'll be HERE on March 30th! Oops.  But I didn't know that way back when I was researching the subject. Anyway, he'll be the opening act for Emmylou Harris then, so it won't be the same. Am I going to see him again on March 30th, when he'll be only 8 miles away?  Of COURSE! But that's a story for another day.

I had hoped to be able to sketch him while he performed, but the seats at Ponte Vedra Concert Hall are squished quite closely together. Plus, the woman in front of me with the Big Hair blocked all the light. So, sketches of Richard Thompon?  No.

However, here are other sketches I managed to eke out:

Waiting at the airport is fun when you have a scene like this to sketch and some new italic waterproof pens to try out!

If you ever get the chance to have a meal at Palm Valley Fish Camp in Ponte Vedra, you should seize it. We had to dash in and out quickly to make it to the concert in time, but wow, what a delicious meal.. and what friendly, attentive service! The curly, leaning wirework of this basket and the mouth-agape fish caught my eye:

Fish mounted on the wall is mandatory decor for Florida. I believe there's a state law to that effect:

So now, back to real life and to the paintings waiting for me in the studio. Plus, the forecast here for today is for "ice pellets!" (What, as a great friend of mine asked on hearing this, happened to the perfectly good word 'hail?') Anyway, all that's a far cry from 70F and grilled gator!

January! We're new again!

Because my birthday coincides with the new year, I'm always ready to get clear of the past and start again, with hope and gusto!

And so, here we are, starting again. My primary goal for the year is to get paintings painted for my show next fall. 

But, of course, I will always have drawing and sketching and writing in my journal and occasional illustrating to do. Once I have shared these images with you, two from my new Stillman and Birn Alpha  9 x 12 journal (this is my eighth!), two from a drawing session I had here yesterday with two friends, I'm going to finish tidying up my painting studio. And THEN I'm going to paint.

These drawings are of my young friend Meg, who is obviously quite beautiful. But there is a quality to her that has made me really want to draw her from the first time I met her. I can see the tiny child Meg still there in her features and I can also see the spare beauty of a Byzantine saint as well. Her soul is both old and new.

Finally, some palette cleansers, as I call them... today's sketches from my new journal. I make these images first thing in the morning in my studio, as a way to sweep away yesterday's struggles, to invoke new energy for the day. I love the natural calligraphy inherent in flowers, so when I have them, I draw them.

2012 was important... and busy!

This has been a significant year. I've worked on several fronts, most art-related but not all directly involved with the making of art. 

It all began on January 2nd. A friend I saw at a party urged me to apply for a show at a great local venue. I was between galleries and so I thought, "Why not?"

In February, I made an illustration for The Morning News and fell hard for volcanoes as subject matter. I carried on with volcanoes as images for paintings and started a painting series as part of my application for a solo show.

 

So now, I'll be having a show fall of 2013! I'm a slow painter, so I'll need all that time to get the paintings done.

I had some illustration jobs to do, small and large. In addition to the volcano one for the Morning News, above, I designed the logo for a new literary prize that is launching in a few days. My friend Maxine Mills, a brilliant graphic designer, tweaked and fine-tuned. My reading pig looks very polished now, don't you think?

I illustrated the second edition of a local foodlovers' guide.

I curated the first group exhibition of Urban Sketchers, a brilliant idea proposed by Alice Southwick of the Ackland Museum Store in Chapel Hill, NC! My fellow Urban Sketcher correspondents were so generous in donating their work to this successful fundraising show.

I traveled a LOT in 2012. First was Rome in February to see two of our children and to sketch with Concetta Flore!

 

In late June, it was back to Italy again, this time for the wedding of a dear, old friend's son.

In October, compelled to visit the land of volcanoes again, my husband and I went back to Iceland.

Then, in early December, it as off to Vancouver for a brief celebration of our 21st wedding anniversary!

Putting it all together like this, I'm overwhelmed with gratitude for what WAS, clearly, a very important year. I'm reenergized and I'm ready to begin again! I thank you for sticking with me through a year of infrequent blog posts. Life, the blogging world, change...and we change with them. I'll be back with more in 2013! Happy New Year to every single one of you!

Sending you love! Laura

Vancouver BC sketches

Last week, we took a lightning-quick trip to Vancouver to use up some airline credits we had and to see that beautiful city and region we'd long wanted to see.

It was quite rainy, it being late November/early December and all, but we didn't mind. I made some sketches. 

Here they are.

 

 

My gray toned sketchbook from Iceland came in handy here, too. I have a thing for cold and wet climates, have you noticed?

The Museum of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia is one of the world's best. Do go see it, if ever you have the chance.

The Public Market on Granville Island is a great place to go on a rainy day. There are lots of enclosed areas and lots of places to sit, snack, and sketch!

You'll get an idea of the size of these monumental masks by looking at the second sketch posted above.

Happy December!

Introspection

It's been an in-drawing month, a time for introspection and reflection. I'm still here, though, and I'll be back more visibly soon.

 Norway from a moving ship, December 2009.

 

    All in calmness---

the earth with half-closed eyes

    moves toward winter

                            Dakotsu

Iceland: last sketches

Much of what I made in Iceland were sketches designed to prime the pump in my painting studio once I returned... more private, more shorthand and oblique than my usual ones. But here are some that fall more into my normal scheme of things. 

The fields surrounding Hverfjell crater are basins of abstract shapes, curves and ovals. I saw dark chocolate with powdered sugar and caramel sauce, too, in the colors and textures there.

I wish I could post these two sections below of the one drawing and show them connected as they are in real life, so you could see the tiny islands scattered pell mell  through Breidafjordur.

Across from Budir bay on the Snaefellsnes peninsula are ridge after ridge of volcanic mountains, stretching as far as the eye can see.

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On the way to northern Iceland, I was sketching in the car, first a little snow flurry and then the snow came thicker and faster. My marks got more stacatto and urgent... all of a sudden, we were in a snowstorm. The car fishtailed. It was quite scary. We made it, obviously, but not without increased reverence for nature's power in Iceland.

The land forms swoop and slide, as below... when they don't jut and jab.

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The pen I used below had water-soluble ink, unbeknownst to me. Thus the grayish casts in the washes. Probably appropriate, all things considered.

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So now, I'm hatching plans for my NEXT trip to Iceland, wherein we will pay a visit to the south and east coasts. I've got glaciers on my mind!

Iceland: made it and back!

It was definitely touch and go, but we made it! And we loved it! We did almost crash our car in a sudden snowstorm, but, well, here I am, wiser than before about the power of that dramatic landscape. You underestimate it at your peril.

This trip, I drew quickly, quickly, as you have to to be able to capture all that energy that Iceland is always emitting, in one form or another.

 

 

If I squinted my eyes, I could pretend that these steam plumes and clouds were little volcanic eruptions. Not to make light of the the danger and power of volcanic eruptions, but you know me... I'm in a volcanic mode this year.

My husband and I scrambled to the top of Mt.Hverfjall, a crater of a volcano that last erupted 2500 years ago. It was, to say the obvious, awe-inspiring.

I made a very, very quick drawing of the land around Budir, on the Snaefellsnes peninsula. We fell in love with this area four years ago and we fell in love with it again this time. I have other sketches of this area to share.

And we visited again our favorite Icelandic café in Hellnar, where the world's best bread and the world's best fish soup are served in tiny quarters, tucked into a hill overlooking the sea.

Here is a sketch I did of this café four years ago, just for comparison.

More to come!

Iceland, interrupted.

I was on my way. I'd left my home airport and was at JFK, waiting to board my flight for Iceland. But wait, my passport.... it was gone. GONE. VERY gone.

I, a most meticulous and frequent traveler, obsessive about my passport, had lost it... and then someone must have picked it up and kept it.  I, along with my husband, airline, airport, and TSA employees at JFK AND my home airport looked everywhere. Gone.

SO. My husband and I drive to DC Monday for an appointment with the US Passport Agency where, I HOPE, they will give me a replacement one. Then we drive home.

Then, the very next day, we begin again our journey to Iceland. I have rebooked all hotels, flights, etc. exactly the way they were... just seven days later.

Cross your fingers all goes well this time!

This forced hiatus has allowed me to test drive some of the supplies I'd packed to take. I was very eager to try  a Strathmore sketchbook with toned gray paper, my new Stillman & Birns Delta sketchbook with heavy-duty cold pressed paper.. and to use again my old trusty favorite drawing tools from art school, Caran d'Ache watercolor crayons. I figure I'll be sketching fast and loose (even more than I usually do) and in inclement weather... so the crayons will be perfect for getting down tones, gestures, textures FAST. I'll use them with other drawing materials, too.

I made sketches from photographs and sketches from my last Iceland trip and from references I found on the internet...just to get the feel of Iceland again. Some of these remind me of my sketches of Norway, which makes complete sense.

Here are some I've done. It will be so interesting, don't you think, to see how the ones done on site will differ from these? These do have, of necessity, a slightly generic feel about them.

 

Heading for Iceland again!

I've been super busy and have not had one instant to blog, but I will, I will! I'm going back to Iceland again to stock up on inspiration for paintings. Here's what I said last time I was there, in August of 2008. See you on the other side!

I've traveled a fair amount, but I have never felt such an emotional response to a place as I did in Iceland. Back last night, I'm still wide-eyed and mouth-agape and filled to the brim with images of that gorgeous country.Iceland is the youngest land mass on the planet, a mere toddler at 20 million years old. Created by volcanic eruptions issuing from  the ocean's depths, it remains a place where earth, air, fire, and water play out their eternal drama before your very eyes.

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