Hello, readers and friends. After a long period of quiet, welcome back. I have been working behind the scenes the last several weeks to update this website. Some digital spring cleaning, if you will.
These major changes are complete:
Launched a revamped Ship Shop. It combines content of 2 previous pages, which listed art for sale separately from other items like notecards and books. New expanding and collapsing section headers promote a tidier, more navigable layout, and the display has a new look.
Updated art gallery layout, designs, and functionality. This includes the Art Portal—the page itself and the galleries to which it links—and all other galleries/grouped art displays sitewide.
Refreshed the Services page with the aforesaid expanding and collapsing functionality and updated listings.
Created a “carousel” on thehome page to increase interactivity and provide a preview of what kinds of art visitors like you will see here.
Installed a new email subscription plug-in (program). if you know anyone who might like to receive occasional e-newsletters from me, please let them know & have them try it out. It is on the Subscribe and Contact pages.
On a smaller scale, I have spruced up other visuals and text and will continue to make some adjustments. Gratefully, the bulk of the work is done. Once all the planned updates are finished, you can expect some art news.
Did you know I am available for more than art commissions? I do freelance work in writing, editing, publication design, and more. Please have a look at the updated Services page in case there is a way I could help you. I am ready to be of service.
I had not planned to do two zoo posts in a row, but here we are. Here is the prior post in case you missed it. Enjoy these sketches of creatures great and small (mostly small) from a visit to another zoo two weeks ago.
Various lemurs
Black & white ruffed (top, middle), ring-tailed (top right), & Coquerel’s sifaka (bottom)
The zoo had 7 or 8 species of lemur. Most zoos I’ve visited have one or two at most — usually ring-tailed & one other than the sifaka. Seeing the sifakas was a treat!
Eurasian eagle owl
A beautiful, fluffy, & dignified bird.
Hyacinth macaws
Alpaca
Red-tailed boa
Birds needing no introduction
The seasonal 2- to 3-day molt was underway; these fellows looked a little better dressed than some of the others.
Last weekend I took my sketchbook to a zoo. I don’t do so often, but each time I do, the drawing exercise is enjoyable and good practice. Sometimes I like to think of sketching animals from life as “extreme figure studies” (like extreme sports) since, unlike paid models, they do not pose for any length of time. Sketching primarily with pen adds further commitment to the quick draw–no erasing.
Here are some sketches from the outing. As usual, click to enlarge.
Malayan sun bear
Parrot
Sleeping tiger
Lift gondola turning point. Not an animal, but still moving.
Little trees
Giraffes
This was a fairly “bear”-bones post, but I hope you enjoyed it.
We “arr” back for Pirates on the Brandywine, part II. Today’s post covers my visit to the Brandywine Museum of Art in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, & the illustrations of N.C. Wyeth. Part I covered Howard Pyle & the Delaware Art Museum.
To save reinventing the wheel, here is a brief biography from the museum.
My first known encounter with Wyeth’s artwork occurred in fourth grade. My class received a magazine called Weekly Reader, which provided reading, questions, and other exercises on a different topic each week such as nature, history, and literature. The Treasure Island edition contained excerpts from the first few chapters of Robert Louis Stevenson’s famed and influential tale. The illustrations paired with them were Wyeth’s Billy Bones & blind Pew. I found them gripping.
Captain Bill Bones (“All day he hung round the cove, or upon the cliffs, with a brass telescope”), 1911.
Old Pew (“Tapping up and down the road in a frenzy, and groping and calling for his comrades”), 1911.
Back then, why I found them gripping was perhaps not so simple to articulate. They certainly weren’t the usual fare for a fourth-grade girl who enjoyed carefully pasting vibrant Lisa Frank & Disney stickers on her school supplies. Thinking back to that time, it seems it was the presence and power they exuded and how well the imagination blends the story and the illustrations, creating an amalgamation greater than the parts. The description of Pew—his tap, tap, tapping, threatening demeanor, and delivery of the infamous black spot—without an illustration was enough to strike terror in the heart until recess. The compositions are simple but dramatic. (“Essential” may be a better word than “simple” given Howard Pyle’s lessons.) They exude presence. Light & dark values contrast strongly.
I discovered another intriguing quality on my in-person visit—for illustrations, they’re huge! The dramatic element was certainly not lost when they were scaled down for book publication, but the true size is more striking.
Like Pyle, Wyeth illustrated several historical pieces and adventure stories. Here is Wyeth’s cover artwork (1918) for Jules Verne’s The Mysterious Island, sequel to 20,000 Leagues under the Sea. There’s some glare, but you can see the non-titular area well enough.
I found it interesting but not surprising that he painted the title box right onto the canvas. Why waste time or materials on an area that wouldn’t be seen? These days, it seems more common that an artist paints the whole cover image and then the title is layered over the cover art digitally. The upside to that is flexibility (image scale, placement of text); there is also something nice about having the cover art also stand alone.
Captain Nemo here reminds me of Merlin–not just generally, but of another Wyeth illustration. Nemo was on display; Merlin was not. (Both are cropped here; click to see full size on the museum’s website.)
Merlin taking away the infant Arthur (“So the child was delivered unto Merlin, and so he bare it forth”) for The Boy’s King Arthur, 1917. Side note: for anyone interested in a historical and political exploration of King Arthur and Merlin, this lecture sponsored by Rising Tide Foundation is interesting.
This was new to me (the painting & the book): The Pledge for The Scottish Chiefs, 1921. Quite theatrical.
In addition to gallery collections, The Brandywine Museum offers studio tours of both N. C. and Andrew Wyeth. The N. C. studio tour included the house and studio, which I am pretty well convinced is bigger than the house. At least it gives that impression. The first photo is of the house; the rest are of the studio.
Wyeth made use of props, which you can see all around the studio, some small, and some large like this beautiful birch canoe.
This painting was not on display, but I thought you might like to see one with a canoe.
Hiawatha’s Fishing, 1907 (linked to museum website).
The mural in the second big room in the studio depicts William Penn and the new world (William Penn, Man of Vision · Courage · Action, 1932). To his back is England, and he looks toward America.
After the studio tour, I returned to the museum to finish viewing the exhibits and have a second look at some paintings. That said, I suppose it is time for Pirates on the Brandywine to conclude. I hope you have enjoyed “sea”-ing and learning about some swashbuckling American illustration and the illustrators. ‘Til next time, fair winds & full canvas, whether of wind or paint.
As announced in an earlier post, an oil sketch I painted of paper lanterns was selected for inclusion in Principia’s 2024 calendar and set of alumni artist note cards. If you would like to order either, you can do so on this webpage. If you would like to see what you are clicking into, you can go here–www.principiaalumni.org/events/upcoming–and scroll down to “2024 Principia Calendar and Notecards.” There is a thumbnail image of some of the items (but you can’t see any of them fullscreen or alone). Card sets and calendars are $10.
This will most likely be the last post for 2023. Stay tuned for Pirates on the Brandywine part two in early 2024.
Merry Christmas. May you and your families have a new year blessed with light, truth, freedom, and joy.
