Goat

The sculptural shapes and date palms make this painting look like a travel poster from the 1930s. I am still working on the plants but am happy with the calm dignity of the goat. They are such wonderful creatures.

Here is the most recent version of the goat. The new plants I added grow wild in the Jordan Valley and I am working from photos taken by the some of the women in the photography workshop we did there.

My wild flower guide book says the plant is Calotropis procera and it grows in tropical and central Africa but I found them as roadside weeds in the farms of Dead Sea. They can grow to fifteen feet tall. They are also known as Apple of Sodom, which is appropriate for the region where I found them. In Arabic they are called "ashir". I have noticed them before with their poisonous grapefruit-like fruit later in the season and would like to try using the sap as a glue or pigment binder. I like how the leaves are similar in shape to the ears of the goat.

I can't decide if I like the palm tree or if I shall change it into a procera too. Trees are so hard for me!

Animals in Jordan

I loved all the goat herds wandering the hills of Jordan. This family are my favourite colour to paint - white!

What wonderful faces they have - and ears which I suppose may help to keep them cool.

A sleepy donkey waits for a customer in Petra.

Petra is also home to many working Arabian horses and the Brook Horse Hospital that ensures they are well cared for. This horse got away from it's owner and enjoyed a spirited gallop for about ten minutes. It was beautiful to watch.

Another gorgeous white animal. There may be a painting waiting in this one.

Baby camel and it's mum.

I love this picture.

So many camels.

Plants in Jordan

I didn't take many pictures of the plants in Jordan but here is one of my friends and me standing in front of some bouganvillia. It must need very little water to grow as it hardly ever rains in the Jordan Valley.

Geraniums are grown in olive oil cans just like in Greece. These were odd because they were soy oil. I wonder where the soy is grown.

This is a date palm flower. 

I was warned not to get the sap of this plant in my eyes. 

This is the tree outside the Women's Society building. In Arabic it is called something like "dom" and the berries are edible though pasty and bland.

After I taught some botanical illustration we cut a stencil from recycled x ray plastic and stenciled it with mud.

Here is the result!

A Crazy Fun Time Teaching Art

I just got back from Jordan where I organized two weeks of art workshops with the women of Safi Crafts Women's Society. We tried silk screen printing which was a disaster. Our light sensitive screens fried in the intense sun of the Jordan Valley. Stenciling and mud dyeing were much more successful and fun. I taught digital photography, botanical illustraion and drawing both from life and from photographs that we took.

What a crazy and wonderful time. I am having a hard time coming back down to earth. The snow here in Seattle yesterday didn't help!

Fatmeh holds a stencil cut from recylced x ray plastic.

Here are the mud dyed bags we made. We used tea and iron to get the grey.

You can read about the project at our new web site. http://web.mac.com/jeanbradbury/iWeb/Site/safi%20crafts.html

A Break in Spring

I'll be away from the studio for the next month, teaching art. If I get a chance I'll post some of the things we make. I'm going to refresh my silkscreen skills and try looking at the world in flat shapes for a change.

Hiding in White

How strange to carry on with daily life with one part of my brain while another part tries to come to terms with the things happening around the world this week. The heartbreaking news from Japan. The bravery and suffering in Libya. And I hide away in my studio taking solace in the peace of white paint and gentle shadows.

This painting is two feet square and is on canvas, so it is softly textured.

High Winds. Heavy Rain.

There is a high wind warning today. And continued heavy rain. For those in Seattle who are fed up, like me, you can look at the cherry blossom from my post on February 26th last year. I could use some of those right now. Hurry up please spring.
At least I am not tempted to get out into the garden and can spend my time painting.

Rabbit Study

I am so pleased with this little study. It is painted on clayboard so it is very shiny and smooth and I painted many layers of glaze to get the white super white and the shading very delicate. I don't think this glowing look translated to the computer. In real life it almost has the look of egg tempera. It is eight inches square. I'll hang it at Homegrown for sale though I will be sad to part with it. It has no narrative. Just pretty.

The Great Divide

I'm still working on chickens and I enjoy their round shapes. The rabbits are sweet but they are looking at the chicken as though she doesn't belong in their garden. I think she is wondering the same thing.

I indulged myself by painting some peonies, even though they aren't in season. I need them right now.

I'm a Driver. I'm a Winner.

Part of struggling with the winter blues is wanting to sleep a lot. It feels like I am surrounded by people who have more energy and ambition than me. They flutter around achieving things while I just want to curl up and wait for the spring bulbs to flower.

I have such empathy for chickens who try to fly and can't - but they try anyway. I think this painting is about that too. I'm not really sure what the narrative is. I will probably do more work on this but for now it sits in my studio while I work on other paintings. Slowly. I am a tortoise not a hare right now. Or a chicken.

This painting measures 18"x24" and is oil on panel.

Monumental Chicken

Another chicken. This one has a monumental quality, even though the painting is only 10 inches wide. At the risk of sounding pretentious, I think I was influenced by the recent Picasso show here in Seattle. So many of his shapes had strong shading and modeling, which surprised me. They were like paintings of sculptures.

This chicken ended up reminding me of art deco paintings like this Lawren Harris from 1929.

And this relief sculpture by Robert Garrison at Rockefeller Center.

More Colour in Winter!!!

Here is another inspiring video of art in Seattle. I have a hard time driving past this without causing an accident. You can see this mural by Weirdo at 2nd and Yesler in Pioneer Square. We're so lucky to have this in our city. Someone from the Aquarium hire this guy fast!

Playing With Change

Some winter days feel like a crawl on hands and knees through murky cold. I find my energy for painting very low. So this little movie about Seattle painter Fay Jones was like a tonic. There are so many inspiring images here.

I hurried up to the studio and painted these chickens who think they can fly. In a style that is more care free or "care less" than my usual. It turned out to be quite cheerful looking, but chickens are tragic figures for me too. I am thinking of this as a study for another painting that I am working on. And it is called "Things Are Going to Change. I Can Feel It", which is from a Beck song. Also not as cheerful as it might seem.

Thinking About Chickens

This little picture is only six inches wide. You can see it at Homegrown Sandwich Shop in Fremont. I wonder if it will quietly encourage folks to choose the vegetarian options. Sorry Ben!

See My Work in Enumclaw!

I hung a small show yesterday at the City Hall Gallery in Enumclaw. What a charming town to visit on a sunny day with Mount Rainier so close and beautiful. People there were very sweet. My work will be there through the month of February though I think the space is closed to the public on Tuesdays when court is in session. How strange it would feel to be on trial and have bunnies and weasels looking at you from the walls.

Bread and Roses

This is a difficult time of year for those of us who need warmth and light. I have been painting with reds and pinks lately to help to satisfy my craving for colour. I have enough warmth and food and light to function - but need something dazzling to give me energy. "Give us bread but give us roses". I was so excited to find these roses hiding in the sedum plants of an otherwise dormant garden.

I pull aside the browns and a treasure garden of pink roses waits for me.

And sometimes, when minature roses aren't enough to cheer my heart, the muffling clouds depart and reveal an evening like we had two days ago. As Henry and I stood on the roof deck, wrapped in blankets, I noticed neighbours coming out of their houses too, drawn by the extraordinary sunset.

Absinthe Dreams

I have finished my mural surrounding the projection screen at Cancan night club. I wish these pictures could convey the size. I didn't measure and am poor at guessing. I suppose it is about fifteen feet high. The plants are wormwood and anise.

Are these animals the visions of someone drinking absinthe? Emile Zola said that everything is a dream. (Tout n'est qu'un rêve)

I painted a quotation from Zola along the bottom of the screen "Je n'ai guere de soucis de beaute ni de perfection... Je n'ai souci que de vie, de lutte, de fievre. (I am little concerned with beauty or perfection. All I care about is life, struggle, intensity.) No wonder he needed a drink!

Still Untitled

This painting started with a trip to the Burke Museum to photograph their taxidermy collection. The moose head was so wonderful, mounted high up on the wall, as tall as a moose. I remember when I was a kid in rural New Brunswick, Canada, my school bus had to stop to let a moose cross the road. It sauntered past and had a good look at us sitting up high in our yellow school bus and it was so big that it looked DOWN at us. They are giants. (and much more thrilling alive than stuffed. So sad)

Once I had painted the moose I started painting other things that caught my fancy with no rhyme or reason. Love-in-the-mist seed pods. Beauty berry. Black moths. And finally I wanted to be part of this strange twilight landscape so I painted a rabbit as my representative.

Usually I have a narrative to go with each painting I make. This painting has suggested many different narratives. They are all about relationships. Moose to bunny. Moths to moose. Animals to plants. Living things to the twilight.

I hope that it speaks to some relationships in your own life.

I can't decide on a name for this painting. "Moths to a Flame" maybe or "Moths to a Moose". Some creatures are so charismatic. And little bunnies sit and watch.

This painting is oil on panel and measures 36"x24". You can click on it to see the details I think.

Treasures in a January garden

Though I am suffering from the dark and wet weather I made the most of the warmth today by getting into the garden where, as well as a little vitamin D, I found this treasure. It is a half rotted poppy seed pod. I used the photographs of the amazing Karl Blossfeldt as inspiration for these snap shots. If you like plants or photography or wrought iron you'd enjoy his work.

I also photographed this Magnolia grandiflora found on the ground after a wind storm.

A sycamore pom pom.

And the plants I am painting at the moment, Love-in-a-mist.

Group Show Opening

I will be part of a new group show at Woodside Braseth with my painting "Time Flies" It's a pretty one that I painted this summer showing Isobel on a swing with hollyhocks and the suggestion of time passing quickly. I was in quite a serious mood! You can see it here. The show opens tonight and I will be there from 6 - 8:30. Drop by and see the gallery. It's a wonderful space full of inspiring art.

Wormwood and Anise

While I usually paint small tender images of thoughtful moments and gentle animals from the solitude of my cosy studio I have started the new year by doing something nearly opposite. I am painting murals on the wall of a burlesque and absinthe club in Seattle called Cancan.

Balanced on a very tall ladder and surrounded by dancers, carpenters and electritians I have been trying to adjust to the chaos. This mural surrounds a silver screen onto which images of historic burlesque acts will be projected. I am painting the plants used in the making of absinthe; wormwood and anise - and some crazy animals that one might see after drinking a little too much absinthe - or maybe just the right amount! Happy New Year!