Whirligig #41
Whirligig #41, 23″ x 23″ x 11″ (58cm x 58cm x 28cm), alluminum, African mahogany, assorted hardware
Whirligig #41
features
Industrial Bearings
Riveted Aluminum Construction
Zypher Rating*
*turns in lightest air movement
Thursday, July 24, 2008
Saturday, July 19, 2008
Drawing with Edna
Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 58cm), charcoal pencil & pastel on Strathmore 2 ply rag Bristol
Detail of the Preceeding Drawing
Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 58cm), charcoal pencil & pastel on Strathmore 2 ply rag Bristol
Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 58cm), charcoal pencil & pastel on Strathmore 2 ply rag Bristol
Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 58cm), charcoal pencil & pastel on Strathmore 2 ply rag Bristol
Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 58cm), charcoal pencil & pastel on Strathmore 2 ply rag Bristol
Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 58cm), charcoal pencil & pastel on Strathmore 2 ply rag Bristol
Sketch for the Preceeding Drawing, 24″ x 18″ (61cm x 46cm), charcoal pencil and pastel on paper
Edna and I have done six drawings over the last two sessions, July 10 and July 17. I’ve started to include at least one detail of a drawing. The digital images don’t justice to the quality of the lines and subtlety of the erasures. When we work in the morning, we’re not just warming up, but seeing what kind of imagery surfaces. Usually we carry some of those ideas into the afternoon. Sometimes we enlarge on the ideas in a morning drawings. Sometimes we a take a whole drawing and redo it. The last drawing above is one such morning drawing, which we reworked in the afternoon. We saw two problems with the morning drawing. The first was the round shape in the center. The second was the weak connection between the drawing’s left and right sides. We eliminated the center round shape and added a few more round shapes to get a relationship between the left and right sides. The line toward the center with acute angle creates an incomplete vertically oriented oblong shape to its left improving the relationship between the drawing’s left and right sides.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Siberian Elm - Training
Siberian Elm (Ulmus pumila), 11″ (30cm) tall
Siberian Elm (Ulmus pumila), 7.5″ (19cm) tall
When I first moved to Albuquerque, New Mexico, thirteen years ago, I planted Siberian Elm seeds in flats. After the first year I put the seedlings in the ground where they have been until this spring. They were transplanted to raised beds about ten years ago. When I dug up the trees to put them in the raised beds, I trimed the roots and put 8″ x 8″ (20cm x 20cm) pieces of half inch thick Styrofoam insulation under the trees to force root growth laterally. This tactic worked very well, and the Styrofoam does not degrade over the years. Almost every year since then I have used a sharp shovel to cut the roots without digging the trees up. On even years I do the north half of the trees and on odd years I do the south half. That way I don’t loose a year of growth to the plants’ reestablishing all its roots.
The difficulty with this species grown from seeds, is the large callouses that grow where branches have been trimmed. The tree buds vigorously at the callouses, so the new shoots have to be controlled constantly. After thirteen years, I can say that the larger trees begin to grow into their callouses. The vigor of this species in this climate - 8 to 10 inches (20 - 25cm) rain per year, low humidity, high level of sunshine at 6000 feet (1829 m) and high summer temperatures - is astounding, especially when they are cared for as potential bonsai material. All the new leaves you see on these two trees budded within four days of my trimming and wiring them.
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Drawing with Edna
Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 59cm), pastel on Strathmore 2 ply rag Bristol
Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 59cm), pastel on Strathmore 2 ply rag Bristol
Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 59cm), pastel on Strathmore 2 ply rag Bristol
Detail, Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 59cm), pastel on Strathmore 2 ply rag Bristol
Edna and I got together yesterday, July 3, for another day of joint drawing. We continued with the addition of color.
Tuesday, July 1, 2008
Drawing with Edna
Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 58cm), charcoal pencil & pastel on Strathmore 2 ply rag Bristol
Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 58cm), charcoal pencil & pastel on Strathmore 2 ply rag Bristol
Untitled Drawing, 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 58cm), charcoal pencil & pastel on Strathmore 2 ply rag Bristol
Untitled Drawing (detail of preceeding drawing), 29″ x 23″ (74cm x 58cm), charcoal pencil & pastel on Strathmore 2 ply rag Bristol
Last Thursday Edna and I got together to draw at her studio. We’re continuing to add color. I’ve added a detail of one of the drawings. The details - smears, falling grains of pastel, incomplete erasures, lightness or heaviness of touch, paper texture - that give immediacy to the drawn image get lost in the translation from drawing to internet image.
