David Hockney Exhibit

I loved this exhibit and want to make a post about it even though I saw it on NOV. 29. I FIND INSPIRATION FROM David Hockney. I’ll be talking about the Hockney exhibit and the prints I am working on in this post.

I love this 9 panel painting of the Grand Canyon by David Hockney.

He did many landscape paintings and especially The Grand Canyon. I am always returning to the Grand Canyon in my paintings, drawings and prints also Camping in Vanna, my VWEuro van. This is another painting of the Grand Canyon by Hockney below. I like the way Hockney simplified the shapes of the cliffs and plants. These paintings capture some of the Grand Canyon feeling for me. It’s hot, vast, deep and mysterious.I learned from the exhibit that Hockney was a frequent visitor to The Grand Canyon. It also mentioned that he was inspired

by Thomas Moran. I am very fond of Thomas Moran who painted and sketched at The Grand Canyon and Yellowstone in 1871. I always visit Moran Point named after the artist Thomas Moran, when I travel to the Grand Canyon.

Hockey’s first work in The Grand Canyon series was, the panoramic sixty-canvas “A Bigger Grand Canyon”. The exhibit explained it was too large for this exhibit (really, The Met?). But I had first seen this 60 canvas painting on exhibit at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts years ago. It is still with me in memory.

The Grand Canyon is one of Hockney’s favorite American Landscapes. So many paintings in the exhibit I liked but I picked just a few to post in my blog. I liked was “Nichols Canyon” done by Hockney in Los Angeles. Wow! I love the colors he uses.I liked this painting “The Road Across the Wolds”.

“Medical Building” a wonderful painting. The painting below is “A Lawn Being Sprinkled”. The both offer a new twist on a familiar boring. I can’t leave the exhibit with out mentioning Hockney’s iPad drawings.

I first started on iPad drawings after hearing about Hockney’s and then seeing many at The Los Angles Museum of Art. In this exhibit at the Met they had three screens that continually showed Hockney’s iPad drawings. The screens also started with the blank iPad and showed the drawings developing. What fun to see.

Lunch at the Met dining room was a delicious way to end viewing the exhibit. My sister enjoyed the exhibit and lunch as much as I did.Sauces that came with my fish.

I’m back at home revisiting my Grand Canyon Monotype Prints. They needed a few tweaks to finish and I was inspired!

The print of the Grand Canyon is a monotype collage. On paper.

I had to darken a few area on this watercolor Monotype. I almost threw it out as I am trying to declutter and now I’m happy with it.

Another watercolor Monotype I looked at again. I decided I liked it. I like the foreground bushes and plants. These Monotype prints on printing paper and run through the printing press.paper.

Thanks for reading my blog. Carol

Heading West on I-70

 

Leaving Mt. Gretna, Pennsylvania I headed west to Ohio.   I love being on the road, in my head I review all that I did this summer from Maine to North Carolina, Connecticut to Pennsylvania.  Pennsylvania’s  beautiful farm land starts me singing. “This Land is your land, this land is my land, From California to the New York Island.”   Thank you Woodie Guthrie for writing this song in 1944.

 372 miles on my speedmeter to a KOA at Buckeye Lake in Ohio.  It starts to rain just as I am registering.  I grab my umbrella, bathing suit and head for the swimming pool.  Umbrella and swimming pool, no wonder I am the only one there.  I look across the pool and see cows.  Are they real?  No they are cow sculptures.

Early the next morning and full of energy the next landmark is   Columbus, Ohio and then to Indianapolis, Indiana.   I stop at the Illinois Welcome Center.  They are preparing for the Solar Eclipse on Aug. 21.  The woman tells me there will be an Ozzie Osborne concert.  I’m glad to miss that one.

399 miles to Mulberry Grove, Illinois.  The campground is next to the pavilion.  No events right now so I have my own bathroom, refrigerator, stove and roof.

Mulberry Grove, Illinois

Pavilion at Campground

Morning comes and I’m on my way to St. Louis, Missouri, a coyote crosses Highway 70 as the fog was lifting.

 Endless skyway through Missouri to Kansas.  There was a lot going on in Missouri.  Signs on the highway posted Solar Eclipse, August 21, Expect Delays,  Heavy Traffic.  Highway 70 was also closed at one point.  I started making a list of all the unusual church names.

Element Church, Faith Church Family Church, FCFC,  Liberty Church, Reach Church, Victory Baptist Church and Praise Assembly of God.

398 miles landing in Paxco Kansas!

The man that checked me in at the campground in Paxico, Kansas said he didn’t like any people from California.  I said, “There are all kinds of people in California.”  He had no use for any of them.  BUT, he took my $25. and gave me a nice campsite.  He told me about the storm shelter in case of ??

I’m still trying to figure out what it would be like to live in Kansas.

And the wheat fields waving and the dust clouds rolling, ,This land was made for you and me.

“Don’t I get tired?” people ask.   I did driving through Kansas!!  I had finished my book on tape “little House in the Big Woods” by Laura Ingalls Wilder, and Kansas seemed so big.  I  kept driving.  I pulled into a rest area and listened to my power nap app on my phone.  Drinking lots of water, coffee and tea and stopping often.  I started a new book.

429 miles from Paxico, Kansas to Limon, Colorado.  I wan’t sure what my next step was but I was still in flat eastern Colorado.  I went for a swim at the KOA and decided to head the next morning for the Black Canyon of the Gunnison.

When the sun came shining and I was strolling.

 253 miles from Limon, Colorado to the KOA in the town of Gunnison, Colorado.  I stopped at a Safeway to load up on groceries.  I had a space in the campground all to myself with a pavilion right beside it.  It had tables, a stove, sink and roof over my head.

79 miles to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison.  Kansas was straight and flat and now Colorado was curvy and high. Be careful what you wish for,  my sister often says to me.  It was a challenge for Vanna and me around and around the mountain curves.

Mountain sketch

Campground in the Black Canyon of the Gunnison.  I went to a Ranger Program that night and learned more about the dark skies.  This Park and the Grand Canyon are dark skies National Parks.

Me sketching

Black Canyon

The canyon was dark and deep.  One picture shows the empire state building at the bottom of the canyon.

 208 miles to Mesa Verde National Park.   I find a nice campsite.  4 drives around the campground to pick just the right spot.   Many spots were available.  Why weren’t more people camping here.  I had a tour for  Cliff Palace Dwelling at 3 p.m.  More curvy winding roads to the Cliff Palace.  It was a great tour.  The Park Ranger was full of information and interesting stories.

I’m currently working on paintings of the Cliff Dwellings.  The ancestral Pueblo people is the term used now.  Anasazi name is no longer correct.

Polishing off the best burrito breakfast at 9a.m. sent me on my way to the East entrance of the Grand Canyon past the 4 Corners.

I found a campsite and took a trail to the canyon.  I was happy to return here.  It felt like a good place.  I loved the dark sky at night.  It was wonderful looking up at the milky way.

I love the Grand Canyon

HOME!

This Land is your land, this land is my land

From California to the New York Island  (and all that’s in between)

From the Redwood Forest to the Gulf Stream water

This land was made for you and me.

Doves and Monoprints

July 16, 2016

When I returned home from New Mexico  Doves had built a nest on my porch.  They have tried this before but I never let them get more than a few twigs started as it is messy.  This time I wasn’t home and they had built their nest and Mother Dove was sitting on the eggs.  My info from the internet says: The Male looks for a place to build a nest then invites the female of form a lifetime bond.  Since doves are erratic birds caution should be exercised to prevent them from abandoning the nest.  (I guess my method was to be on vacation.)  The male collects the grass, weeds and twigs for the female to build the nest.  A successful nest will be used more than once through the breeding season. (That’s news to me.  I was going to get rid of it!  Now what?)  The female lays one or two eggs.  In this case two eggs.  She incubates at night for a period of 14 to 20 days, the male incubates during the day.  Since both male and female look alike, onlookers may think the female never leaves the nest at all.  THAT’s What I Thought!

The Mother Dove sat for 14 days that I know of before two little doves hatched.  They stayed buried under Mother.  I kept looking for them but they were hidden.  More research tells me both doves collaborate in feeding them.  In the initial stages of incubation both birds produce pigeon milk.

As the two babies got to be teenagers I was ready for them to go.  They would sit on my steps but didn’t come back to the nest.  Thank goodness as I called them poopie birds.

The Hooded Oriole visited my bird feeder.  He was hard to photograph, as soon as I came with my camera he was gone.  His breast is bright yellow.  The hummingbirds are always flittering around the feeder.  Darting in and out and chasing each other away.  Meanwhile:

My walk to the beach.

I have been working on monotypes from my Grand Canyon drawings while I am not watching my birds or taking a walk to the beach.

Buddha Temple I

Buddha Temple II

These two monoprints are based on my drawings from The Grand Canyon.  I’m trying for bright colors!

Temple of the Canyon I

The Grand Canyon is quite an inspiration.