For the month of May, I’ve had a solo show hanging at the Gateway Gallery here in Gustavus. Since I’ve had several individual pieces in group shows—and since many folks here are familiar with my science illustration style work—I wanted this one to share a side of my art that people might not have seen as much.
Half of the show…
In addition to bird portraits and “slice” style landscapes, this show includes a giant sketch-style canvas with the poem that sparked my new children’s book I Was—The Stories of Animal Skulls, plus a series nest-inspired semi-abstract panels.
…and the other half
The show also features five years’ worth of Artober cards mounted together on interactive twisting poles:
Judging from feedback I’ve received so far, the Artober series is making the biggest splash. People say they enjoy finding something new every time they stop in. Hooray! Now I just have to figure out what to do with the displays after the show comes down next week…
I recently received an author’s copy of my upcoming children’s picture book, I Was—the stories of animal skulls, published by Candlewick Press, illustrated by Natasha Donovan. What a treat to have a real copy!
The book will be available in early April. Advance copies have drawn some nice comments from reviewers, including “…a poetic appreciation for nature and the animals that cohabitate in our world…” (Edelweiss review from a bookseller), and “…both the facts presented and the plea to appreciate the multiple ways nature speaks to us are clear.” (Betty Carter, Horn Book).
Contact me if you want to know more about the book. It can be pre-ordered from Candlewick.
The star shape on the gnomon casts a shadow allowing us to mark specific points in the yearly solar cycle. I already had a mark for the Summer Solstice solar zenith, and wanted to catch the shadow at Winter Solstice zenith as well.
The day didn’t look promising—lots of rain and low clouds. But just a few minutes past zenith time, the clouds zipped open. Close enough!
I was tickled to see that the yellowlegs (the bird to the right of the shadow) just happens to be pointing its beak directly at Winter Solstice zenith.
All the hour-birds are now on the back wall; the floor is next. I’m planning to do a kind of pebble-textured surface with lighter and darker stripes for the hour intervals. Wayne created an ornament that attaches to the gnomon; on the summer solstice zenith, it will illuminate a single spot on the floor, and I’ll mark that spot with something special. Not quite settled on what…
Partially-completed sundial. The oystercatcher’s eye marks the noon line. Can you tell what time this photo was taken?
A couple of years ago, my friends Kim and Wayne asked me to paint a mural on their house. They had built a small greenhouse, then decided they didn’t want it anymore. They disassembled it, leaving an empty roofless alcove on the house’s outside south wall.
They didn’t have any strong feelings about what the mural would consist of, so I spent way too long pondering what to paint. They’re both avid sea kayakers, so I thought it would be nice to include some representation of the kayaking experience—maybe a beach scene with various critters?
Then one day I had an idea. The mural alcove faces due south, and their house has almost 360 degree sun exposure. How about a mural that would function as a sundial? I proposed it, and they liked the idea.
Next: what style of sundial would work best here? There are many choices! After researching, my favorite options were:
1. A horizontal style, which is what a lot of folks (including me) picture when they hear “sundial.” An angled gnomon sticks upward, casting a moving shadow across a horizontal surface.
2. A vertical style, with the angled gnomon mounted on a wall; the shadow travels across the wall below.
Pretty quickly I realized that these two are not mutually exclusive. If we used an angled bar, attached at both ends, as the gnomon, we would have both types of sundial in one. That approach seemed like it would suit the space well: a rocky shoreline scene, giving the effect of relaxing on the beach and watching wildlife, with hour markings designed into the scenery on the wall and floor.
Wayne got very interested in the process, and while I refined the mural design, he dug into gnomon planning and construction. He made the gnomon from a length of pipe, and forged two decorative brackets out of steel. After considerable research, many compass bearings, and night-time sightings on Polaris, he found the correct angle and bearing to mount it.
That was last summer. Since then, all of us have been watching the shadows and marking the hours. In the process, we discovered that sundial (solar) time doesn’t exactly match clock time! This has to do with the Earth’s elliptical orbit around the sun; the speed of the sun’s apparent motion across the sky is different at different times of the year. We witnessed this firsthand last winter when the shadows were as much as 10-15 minutes off the marks we’d made in late summer. Some sundials have adjustments to account for this discrepancy, but we decided to just embrace solar time.
This summer I started painting. The sundial spot is not covered, so I’ve had to wait for dry days, but fortunately we’ve had a few good sunny spells lately. It’s been a treat to watch the shadow crawl across the mural as I work, and it has been really satisfying to watch it keep time.
I finished the background on the vertical wall a couple of weeks ago. Last week, just in time for Solstice, I started adding the bird-silhouette hour markers. On each solar hour, the gnomon shadow will pass across the eye of a bird. The first bird I added is a favorite of Kim and Wayne’s: a black oystercatcher (lugán in Lingít). It’s at the noon hour.
13 more birds to go, and then I need to tackle the horizontal sundial on the floor!
The Gustavus Community Center has a nice little gallery space in its foyer, where local artists have been holding monthly themed shows. May’s theme is birds. It is a great opportunity for Steve and me to display some of our recent collaborative bird sculptures (Steve carves them and creates the mounts, and I paint them). This photo shows half of the show. I painted the kingfisher, warblers, and whimbrel. Steve painted the turnstone.
The swan painting on the left is also mine. It took me four years to paint… not because I painted slowly but because I couldn’t decide on an approach for the sky!
I recently started painting more small landscape studies. In part this is to improve my ability to show the environment for the critters I paint. But the process is also teaching me more about choosing and balancing colors (something I’ve always been a bit shaky at). And it helps me learn to adjust landscape elements—and even create whole new landscapes—while still having the artwork feel true to life.
Carver friend Steve provided me with two new bird painting “assignments.” First was a kingfisher, which had quite a bit of wood patch-work so I decided to paint it completely rather than try to show the wood grain as I did with the owl last summer.
Then a whimbrel. This one had to show the wood grain—it’s such a natural undercurrent for the feather texture!
Here’s the last set. As in previous years, this has been challenging, fun, and surprisingly productive—every year, I’ve ended up with at least one or two images that turned into other art projects—from sweatshirt designs to greeting cards. I wonder which of this year’s will inspire a future art piece?
My thanks to the folks at SCBWI and GNSI for creating the prompt lists!
“Whiskered”“Shell.” These are from one of my favorite clam species… the delightfully wonky (and highly talented) piddock (Zirfea pisbryi )“Parasites”
Another fun exploration of negative space: “Dolphin” and “Bees”
Katherine Hocker 