anika mari

The clouds were thick and gray on Tuesday, giving me enough cover that I decided it would be ok to go beach combing in the middle of the day. It was still steamy and hot but bearable without the sun beating down. I made my way to Lau Lau Beach where I’d had good luck finding lots of little white cowrie shells on my previous visits. Oh my, how things have changed in 6 years.

Instead of a beach littered with shells, I found myself picking a path through plain old litter. There was trash in the water, up on the beach, everywhere!

I kept walking down the beach and eventually came to an end of sorts where the beach gives way to coral rock. I glanced in the water and saw what I thought could be a broken sea urchin. Looking around, I saw some bits of broken plastic lying on the beach that looked remarkably similar. I decided I wouldn’t wade into the knee deep water unless I found some actual sea urchin pieces on the beach or in shallow water.

After surveying the area, I did indeed find a few urchin fragments, so I rolled up my shorts and waded in to check out the suspicious collection of shards. They were all pieces from sea urchins! I gathered them up and soon had a nice handful in a variety of shapes and colors and textures.

I had planned to cut up the green print for my next art project, but after I found the sea urchin pieces, my wheels started turning in a different direction, and I decided to create watercolor prints using a similar technique to that used when making palm prints.

I knew I would have to adjust the process slightly when working with the brittle sea urchin fragments.

I painted a little area of the sheet of watercolor paper with clear water. I then applied relatively saturated watercolor paint to the nobby side of the first sea urchin piece. I carefully placed the piece paint side down onto the wet paper. I used my finger to firmly push and roll the curved portion of sea urchin shell against the paper’s surface. The piece snapped right in half. Despite the now further fragmented shard, I continued printing in a horizontal direction across the paper, wetting the surface, painting the two pieces of shell, and pressing them down individually. I cautioned myself to be more careful with the next pieces.

I chose a new sea urchin piece and a new color for each subsequent horizontal band in the print (see below). All but one of the fragments broke into smaller pieces while I was making the print. So much for being more gentle. Truthfully, it would have been hard to get a good enough print from the delicate texture if I hadn’t used firm pressure, so I doubt the breakage could have been avoided. When all was said and done, I ended up with another byproduct painting that’s quite different than the pods piece that I added drawing to.

I took the photo of the splattered final byproduct with the pieces of sea urchin resting on the paper. The sea urchin shards are dry and porous. They sucked up the paint and are essentially dyed blue or green now. When I’m finished printing with them, I’ll have to find some way to showcase the actual pieces of shell.

When I started creating the sea urchin print, I was pretty much winging it in terms of composition and colors. I didn’t have a specific goal in mind at the start, but as the piece progressed, I decided to create a variety of textures as the color changed from blue to green.

I’m most happy with (from the top) the first and fourth bands of color/texture. The bottom row was kind of a disaster that I managed to salvage to some extent. The watercolor that I apply really has to be pretty thick. Then the wet paper can do the job of drawing out the paint to create an interesting texture. Using gouache instead of watercolor might the right consistency. For that last green band there was a lot more water in the paint, so when it met with the wet surface of the paper it bled like crazy. When I tried a drier surface, it still bled a lot, but a totally dry surface wouldn’t pick up much, if any of the paint.

I certainly haven’t perfected this sea urchin print technique, but I want to keep working with it. I really love the pattern and texture achieved in the 4th band. To create that unique result, I used the only shell fragment that had a more pronounced texture with larger nobs than all the other sea urchin pieces. The larger points held a good amount of the watercolor while keeping the flat surface of the shell away from the paper. It was the only piece that didn’t break too!

In the process of experimenting with watercolor prints, I inadvertently created a unique watercolor painting.

While working on the print, I rested palm fiber cutouts on another sheet of watercolor paper in order to apply the paint. The different greens created an outline around the center white space that was covered by the cutouts. I liked this byproduct, but I also felt that there was something missing. The shapes looked like little empty pods that were just begging to be filled with ink drawings.

My next step was obvious, but since I only had the one painting, I explored a bunch of different patterns and textures in pods that I drew in my sketchbook.

After filling two sheets of paper with patterned pods, I was pretty happy with a number of them. When I sat down to do the final drawing the next day, the second page of sketches was mysteriously missing! I honestly have no idea where it could be, or how it could have gotten to wherever it is. I couldn’t remember all the pod patterns from the missing sheet, so I started a new set, scribbling down the ones that I could remember first and then adding new ones. I ended up doing one more page after that, for a total of 3. The missing sheet will have to remain a mystery to us all. Unless of course it turns up at some point.

If you want to take a look at the 3 pages of sketches in more detail, you can check them out here, here and here.

Perhaps it was lucky that my second page of sketches went missing since I ended up using a couple of patterns from the last 2 pages that I hadn’t developed in my first round of studies. I examined the different pods in the painting as individuals and as a group to decide where to draw the different patterns. I wanted to include a variety of patterns and textures that are each unique enough to add interest when viewed in detail, but that also share a similar visual “weight” so that no one pod would jump out from the others.

I (almost) accomplished achieving uniform visual weight amongst the different patterns. From further away, the one that sticks out is the chevron or braided pattern. When viewed closer, I don’t think it stands out quite as much.

Now that it’s done, there are a few adjustments I would have made if I could start over, but I’m going to leave well enough alone and call it done.

This was a fun and relatively easy project. What surprised me the most was that watercolor paper is actually very nice to draw on with rapidograph pens. I expected that the rough texture of the paper would make the act of drawing equally rough, but I was able to maintain very good control. The paper seemed to love the ink, and it didn’t bleed a bit.

For my next work I’m going to draw on bristol board and combine the drawing with cut up pieces of the green print since I wasn’t happy with the final result of that piece. I’m curious to see if it’ll be easier to draw on the bristol than the watercolor paper, or if I’m in for a surprise since the watercolor paper provided a surprisingly delightful drawing surface.

I’ve been in Saipan now for about 2 and a half weeks. I’ve been feeling very stuck about what to do lately, artistically speaking.  I have been focusing my attention to look out for inspiration for something to draw.  Patterns. doodles. little creatures or plants. something. anything.  I was gathering some visuals and inspiration from my environment and experiences, but it felt so deliberate and forced, that I never could bring myself to sit down to actually draw something.  At some point I was sitting on the patio, staring at some palm trees, thinking about nothing in particular, and I thought to myself, “why don’t you just do prints?”

Ding, ding, ding!

The words were in my head before I envisioned what kind of prints I should do, but the ideas followed right away.  In my earlier explorations of the yard, I had found a fallen palm frond from a betel nut palm. The bottom of the stem is quite wide, and the texture was supple enough that I had plans to cut out shapes and do a version of my sewn leaves (I still just might do that!).  That original idea easily translated into using those shapes to create prints. I found some of the material, but it was dryer than before, so I was doubtful that I could make it work.  I searched around the yard to look for another frond or other material, and I found some interesting fibrous matter from the coconut palms.  It was also pretty dry, so then I got a clue from basket making–maybe I could soak the materials and bring back some of the flexibility, plus that might help the watercolor paint get soaked up better.

With nothing to lose if the material I collected disintegrated or worse, I plunged the stuff into a big bowl I’d filled with water.  I let it soak while I gathered the rest of my materials to work outside under the carport. I set up my workspace on the little wooden table and was soon ready to try out a print.

For my first attempt I worked with some of the coconut palm fiber.  Some of the material that was older, did indeed disintegrate, but for the fresher fiber, the water worked wonders. Not only did it make it more flexible, it also helped to clean off some of the dust and debris. I cut the material in the way it wanted to be cut, and what I ended up with looked a bit like a shrimp.  I laid the fiber on some watercolor paper and applied red watercolor paint. The fiber soaked up the paint and held it pretty well.

I carefully moved the paint heavy fiber to a fresh sheet of watercolor paper and I made my first print.

Obviously I had painted the background in a blue wash before applying the print. It dulled the red down, plus those two longer strands of red on the right looked weird and very un-shrimplike. I think it looks more like a prehistoric bird fish.

I had to adjust the shape of the fiber and the amount of paint a bit, but eventually I ended up with one print that I am very pleased with that actually looks somewhat like a shrimp!

As I was making the prints I realized is that by placing the fiber on a piece of paper to apply the paint, I create another painting that is similar in shape but has quite a different texture.

The water had finally brought the dry brittle betel nut fiber to life. I tried my scissors on a small section from the larger piece, and I could cut it easily and precisely. For my next two prints, I cut leaf/petal shapes from the thicker betel nut material.

For the first of these prints, I applied purple paint to the fatter shape and made one print.  It was alright, but it didn’t pick up any of the texture.  For the next try, I used a little less paint and printed on the same sheet of paper. I continued making prints of the leaf/petal shape on the same piece of paper in shades of purple.

The next print used the skinny pieces that I’d cut from the betel nut palm fiber.  I used all five pieces and printed them several times in various shades of green. I wasn’t as happy with the outcome, but I have an idea to cut up the print and incorporate those pieces into a collage combined with some drawn textures.

When I was creating the green print, I rested the cut pieces on a piece of watercolor paper, as I did when working on the shrimp print. The result was quite different from the print.

I think the shapes look like little pods, so I’m going to fill each space with some kind of drawing since right now it looks too empty to me.

Overall, it was a fun and satisfying project. Since I used my fingers to handle the paint-covered cut outs, my fingertips were covered with paint by the end of the process. I don’t love that, so before I try any more prints with this technique I’m going to see if I can find some surgical gloves to protect my skin from the potentially yucky stuff that’s in the paint.

Now that I’m in my new apartment in Portland, OR, I’ve had the itch to do something creative.  Watercolor seemed like a good medium to explore since my quarters are relatively compact, and I don’t need too much space to paint.

I really wanted to try out my new brushes and paper last night, so even though it was late before I could sit down and paint, I spent an hour on my first watercolor pattern.

Watercolor is one of the few art mediums I’ve never taken a formal class in, so I don’t really know all the “official” techniques.  Never the less, I had a lot of fun painting last night even if I didn’t do it “right”.  I love the feel of the paint brush on the paper, and I enjoy the color variations of watercolor.

I think it turned out reasonably well for my first unplanned attempt.  I’ve been thinking about trying gouache to achieve solid color coverage.  Depending on the pattern, I’d like to combine both traditional water color and gouache for textural contrast.