“Le Papillon”

Small work, charcoal and white pastel on Mylar, 9×7”

This young French student artist wandered into my studio one evening during our open studio event. I liked her look and thought she would be a good model for my Black Butterfly series, so I asked if she would mind posing for a few photos. We had a fun visit, and she showed me her lovely Moleskine sketch journal and we also exchanged emails.

I took quite a few great photos of Melodie, so I most likely will do another small work or two from them. She was a delight. Also, I am happy to realize that “Melodie” is the Muse of Music.

These small studies present their own challenges. I like to complete them in one sitting and the scale is difficult for detail, but I feel that I did capture the subject's hopefulness and creativity in this small work.

"Isis" another Black Butterfly drawing

From the Black Butterfly series, charcoal on mylar drafting film, with white backing paper 24 x 48"

This work was created from a reference photo self-portrait by Myspace friend Brett Manning. (I have to re-photo this piece in daylight, the color is a bit off.) A continuation of my "butterfly as muse" and Goddess themed series, the piece is inspired by Brett's artistic muses (the butterflies.) These are art, fashion, design, illustration, drawing, her Frankie, coffee, chocolate, her kitties, her puppies, and 60's music, especially Bob Dylan. The butterflies in this piece are "ideas" that flutter around Isis's
head. The necklace is a nod to fashion, and to the lyric in Bob Dylan's
tune of the same name. "The World's Biggest Necklace" is also from
Egyptian mythology.



There are eleven butterflies, symbolic for myself and my ten siblings. My mom is definitely a Goddess too.

Brett has been to my studio several times, and showed some of her paintings at one of my open studio events. Her work meshed well with my Beatles White Album series, since she likes to paint 60's musicians, including George, Lennon, and Bobby Baby. Her fashion illustration is drop dead gorgeous and flys off of her pen like butterfly kisses. She is also a quirky but down to earth girl, and I love her to pieces. Thanks for the use of the photo and for the inspiration Brett! xx ~ Alice


"Isis" lyrics by Bob Dylan:


I married Isis on the fifth day of May,
But I could not hold on to her very long.

So I cut off my hair and I rode straight away
For the wild unknown country where I could not go wrong.


I came to a high place of darkness and light.

The dividing line ran through the center of town.

I hitched up my pony to a post on the rise,
Went in to a laundry to wash my clothes down.


A man in the corner approached me for a match.

I knew right away he was not ordinary.

He said, "Are you lookin' for somethin' easy to catch?"
I said, "I got no money." He said, "That ain't necessary.
"

We set out that night for the cold in the North.

I gave him my blanket, he gave me his word.

I said, "Where are we goin'?" He said we'd be back by the fourth.

I said, "That's the best news that I've ever heard."

I was thinkin' about turquoise, I was thinkin' about gold,
I was thinkin' about diamonds and the world's biggest necklace.

As we rode through the canyons, through the devilish cold,
I was thinkin' about Isis, how she thought I was so reckless...

Norwegian Wood triptych

"Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" triptych, 24 x 48" charcoal and pastel on Mylar

This ended up a much more difficult project than expected and was on the easel for a full month. Finally finished my "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" triptych today. It's the next in the ongoing White Album series.

I used three photos of my daughter for the work, cropped and manipulated in the computer until I found the composition I liked. I decided to do a triptych because I liked all three photos and thought they looked well together. I took the photos 2 years ago in the cemetery down the block from our home. My model was fascinated by a fallen mature oak, and was sitting on the trunk in the second view photo. She chose the clothing for the shoot, but I changed the t-shirt design to work with the theme for my piece, which is bird extinction.

The triptych is charcoal on a heavy weight mylar drafting film, and was worked on the frosted side. There is a backing of Canson pastel paper in moonstone (a pink gray) because the translucent paper needs some backing, and white was too stark for the effect I was attempting to achieve. There are small touches of "white charcoal" - white pastel pencil for highlights, I also used a gray pastel pencil in some of the tree areas.

The mylar is a very slick surface and fun to work on, and has more of a sensation of painting because of the "oiliness" of the charcoal on the mylar. Delicate areas are quite difficult to achieve. If you rub your finger over a fairly lightly covered area, the paper wipes clean, so soft gradations are troublesome. You can build up dark layers of charcoal and lighten it to gray by rubbing with your fingers, or erase back down to the surface with a kneaded eraser. I purposely left much of the work rough because the surface works so well for that. The finished work has a very interesting glow in person that doesn't photograph well. The frosted finish is quite lovely - almost like human skin in sheen.

I plan one or two more of these larger drawings on mylar for the January show.

Lucy In the Sky With Diamonds

"Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds", pastel on sanded paper 24 x 36"

I've been getting some questions about this piece, I suppose because it's a bit of a departure for me. More surreal or psychedelic than my usual work. Part of that is intentional as a reflection of the nature of the Beatles tune which influenced the work. John Lennon always denied that the song referred to LSD, and was really inspired by Julian's childish drawing of a girl flying in the sky. Appropriate that this pastel is inspired by my daughter's personality. It shows her progression toward adulthood, which is the underlying theme of my White Album series.

This work began as a candid snapshot of my artsy daughter at 16. We were visiting my son at Kent State U, Ohio, for Homecoming. She was really wearing the cheap top hat around campus that day, she had gotten it for her Halloween costume. The Kent Homecoming committee were passing out the balloons and she took one, and for some reason decided to name it "Tuesday" and wrote that on the balloon with a sharpie. It was a windy day with large puffy white clouds, and she was standing on the hill where the Kent State Massacre had occured. This is an important detail about my thought process for the piece, as the tragic event happened in May 1970 - the year the Beatles broke up, and around the time John Lennon began his life with Yoko and did the Baggism, Bed-In and "War Is Over" song and campaign.

I saw the shot that day as she stood on the hill, and my daughter held the pose for just a moment. She hates when I take her photo - but she's so damn quirky and cute I can't resist! I got down low to have only the sky for a backdrop. Her expression is actually more resigned exasperation with me than anything deeper. Somehow her signature stoicism works.

I played with the image in photoshop and liked the sky reversed, with darks where the whites had been. The blue sky turned the opposite on the color wheel, "marmalade" colored. The white outline is a remnant from the photoshop effect I was using, and since she was backlit in the original photo, I thought it was cool, and again, a bit surreal. The balloon was really blue, but the effect reversed that, too. It's not meant to be realistic. I had just watched "John Lennon vs. the US" at the time and thought I'd add the words "War Is Over" to the balloon, as a flashback to the 1970's and a hopeful premonition for today. "War is over Tuesday" may have worked as well ;) My daughter is an activist against the war and while she doesn't like her likeness here, she does like the message.

The flowers on the balloon could be a reference to "cellophane flowers of yellow and green towering over your head" but that didn't occur to me til today :)

My friends have been interpreting this piece in different ways. One wondered if the balloon is her hallucination. Another says the clouds are post-war colors. I like that.

~ A