Monday, July 6, 2020

Confinement Container Series 2020




For this posting, I choose a small sketchbook that I worked on from mid-April to mid-June. It has sixty pages. I chose twenty that I like the best. They have a good narrative flow I feel. A sketchbook becomes a diary.


My idea or concept was to choose a container as a symbol of confinement (or isolation or quarantine or whatever you have called it). Since we live in the woods, with a long dirt driveway leading to private roads, we have always been able to leave the house to take a walk, and get a feeling of peace from observing nature. Besides the container, each drawing/painting includes a bit of the natural world brought indoors from a walk.

From my subject matter, you will be able to see spring, then summer arrive. As another item to notice, my still life props like fabrics, and the containers (bowls, bottles), and a yellow bird, come and go into the compositions. Like actors in a play who appear on stage, leave, then dramatically reappear.

The above drawing includes a clump of white pine, two quartz rocks, a chunk of brick, and black mica. I am counting the white plate as a container.


This is the first appearance of the very small bottle which came with maple syrup in it. The white quartz is back,. a different white plate, a pink scarf and a branch of rhododendron which looks nice and green all winter. The blue line at the top is some sketchbook messiness oozed over from another page.



By now, you can recognize the white plate, the bottle, the rocks and brick. The new players are the daffodil and the yellow bird.



I am not certain that a container is here. Maybe the folded paper which contained a written note.



I only had one daffodil so I had to get the most out of it. We seem to be hovering directly over the round plate. I had a lot of fabric scraps lying around that I was making into face masks.



I roamed around the house and came up with this container, a small box I bought in China. It has pressed metal around the sides and an old tile shard on the top. The cala lily is from the grocery store. I was feeling braver about going there.



A few wildflowers were starting to pop out along the roadways. Of course, that is my small ceramic container for my watercolors. It was rather fun to paint the drips.



Our LA daughter sent me a craft kit for making lovely crepe paper flowers. It is a poppy.



The ferns were starting to poke up through the brown leaf carpet in our woods. They are very hairy when they are all curled up and starting to unfurl. A silver cup makes its first appearance on the stage.

This time, I copied the painting on the card, seen earlier.



Yellow bird is back. He is carved wood, bought on a trip to Costa Rica. I did a few acrylic paintings at this time. The paint tubes remain on my art table.



Brand new leaves are often yellow, and reddish colored. The package of gummi bears come from a coffee shop. It was open again and I felt brave going in. I followed all the taped signs on the floor.



More accumulated paint tubes on the table. A first sighting of one of my favorite old bottles. One tiny bloom is all the nature we get this time.



The silver cup again with lots of reflections.  It has many names and birthdays inscribed onto it. My husband, our daughters and all four grandchildren. I am calling the rock as nature. I sometimes carry small rocks in my suitcase when I travel because many places do not have enough rocks. I am from the Granite State.



The flat old bottle is back. And one printed leaf on a cotton sari quilt from India.



New leaves, a couple of bottles, and yes — the daisies are in the fields now.



It is time for day lilies.



And red clover, and white yarrow. And my favorite bottles with fascinating writing on them.



On this day, I decided the wildflowers could stay in the bottle, but the cup and bowl and box should fly through space. My friend, yellow bird, keeps me company.



These bottles got so big, the bottom edges are cut off. It was a quick sketch.



The rocks are piled on top of the brick again. except for one. And the tile box is close by for conversation.

The end.

 I hope you enjoyed my condensed version of my third Art At Home Sketchbook.