No. 337, "Three and One"

No. 337, "Three and One"  watercolor

This painting is SOLD!

It may be surprising to learn that the paint color used most in No. 337, "Three and One," is yellow. I went through two packs of yellow watercolor in reproducing this peaceful countryside.

Yellow, you see, is the perfect blender.  It brightens greens, lightens browns, makes whites less harsh and provides a good transition between light and dark spaces.
Truly the only place yellow doesn't work is in the sky.

There is a lot of blending going on in this image, and it's not all in the paint. Take a good look: There's a road cutting through the scenery, with a guardrail and highway signs. There are utility poles and wires strung across the trees. A fence has been erected to hold back the traffic but to keep in the four horses: Three socialites and one loner.

What is striking about this place is that the human footprints upon the land have not substantially altered its beauty. A person can stand at that fence and see for miles.
In fact, that's precisely what I did, and how I felt, at the start of summer. I snapped a phone picture of this green place from a driveway, as I was getting into my car to head down that road. But I knew from that moment that I would transfer it to paints.

But I'm not going to tell you where it is.  I thought about it, but it's not my place to do so, other than to say it's in Trumbull County, Ohio.
But I have been there a few times. I like visiting even though I know zero about horses, other than they are pretty -- and big.
Its isolation is, I believe, a necessity. This is about as natural as a place can get.
It's so very quiet.
It should stay that way.

The real thing.

 About the painting:

"Three and One" began untitled and at first was an ink rendering. Of course I always intended to color it, but I wanted the horses and fences and railings, as well as the tree skeletons, to stand out. It's such a bright scene but the sun created deep and dark shadows -- so dark that they required inking.

The next step was a watercolor wash of blues, browns and greens -- plus yellow!

The sky actually remained simply that first watercolor wash, with the exception of some tinkering with the white clouds. The watercolor blues soaked into the paper and created a rippled, mottled effect that is accidentally cloud-like.  So I didn't fuss with it.

The tree line was another matter entirely:  It took four days to flesh out those tall trees  They are a mixture of black, blues, greens, browns -- and yellows.  I watered down white acrylic paint and added some blue to create the illusion of skylight between the branches, using a very fine brush.

The grasses also benefited from the rippling and mottling of the watercolor yellow, green, brown and blue into the paper. This created the effect of terrain, which I added to with other brush strokes to create grasses, rocks, dirt and wood.  Maybe even some manure!

The horses were last to be finished. I went over that black ink with black paint, then red, then brown, and then white -- to create the look of shiny bodies and smooth out their shadows. Really the shadows were a blessing, simplifying the drawing while at the same time creating a central visual to draw the eye.

These elements of ink and color have blended to recreate on paper a picture that is already perfect in reality.

Thank you, love ya ...

No. 336: Swinging with Joni Mitchell

Joni Mitchell by Tom Wills, July 2016.  Pencil. 

"When the world becomes a massive mess with nobody at the helm, it's time for artists to make their mark."

Some 25 years ago, I took my brother's Joni Mitchell album "Dog Eat Dog" (1985) from our dad's basement, along with Steely Dan's Greatest Hits. If he didn't know about my theft, he does now.
(Update | He now has the picture hanging in his home!)
I'd already gathered up "Don Juan's Reckless Daughter." (1977) "Heijira," (1976) and "Mingus"  (1979) from record store cut-out bins and found fascinating the jazzy interplay among the musicians.
They were practically giving these records away, apparently because most people couldn't get their heads around the involved compositions and deep (and lengthy) lyric sheets.
Plus I thought she was kinda sexy.

You know it never has been easy
Whether you do or you do not resign
Whether you travel the breadth of extremities
Or you stick to some straighter line

So when I write about and draw Joni Mitchell, I'm thinking of her jazzier, more rocking side -- although I did eventually gather up all of those early, high-pitched acoustic albums that made her famous.
As I drew and wrote I listened to "The Hissing of Summer Lawns" (1975) through "Turbulent Indigo" (1995), which I believe is her most interesting period of work. There's the aforementioned jazzy stuff plus some of the later music incorporates a few jolts of electric rock guitar and funk. I also checked out "Miles of Aisles," a 1974  live album with somewhat jazzier versions of her earlier output.

There's a lot of stylistic overlap as her musical tastes changed, and throughout it's amazing to me that Joni Mitchell's voice has survived.
It's cigarettes, you see. A habit so dear to her that she once wrote a song  with the instrumentation based only on tape-looping the sound of pulling on a cigarette machine knob.
She told The Telegraph in 2007: "It's one of life's great pleasures …  I have smoked since I was 9, so obviously it didn't affect my early work that much."
Her singing voice has noticeably changed over the years, so now she has two instantly recognizable voices: falsetto (hi) and vibrato (low)

Sometimes change comes at you
Like the broadside accident
There is chaos to the order
Random things you can't prevent
There could be trouble around the corner
There could be beauty down the street

Another thing that I have always liked is the relationship between her music and art. At first she had wanted to be a painter, but an English teacher inspired her to “paint with words” So she wound up doing both quite fabulously.
See for yourself at http://jonimitchell.com/paintings/

People will tell you where they've gone
They'll tell you where to go
But till you get there yourself
You never really know

As I built my jazz collection it dawned on me that the great jazz cats were turning up on Mitchell's records: Jaco Pastorius ("The Greatest Bass Player in the World"), Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, Pat Metheny, Peter Erskine, Charles Mingus and others. Mingus wanted to collaborate with her, presenting six songs for Mitchell to pair with lyrics. From this came her album, Mingus.
It's not all easy listening. Sometimes the chords are odd and the rhythms are tribal, and occasionally the topics are uncomfortable or downright unpleasant. Just as often the music is bracing or uplifting.
The challenge brings the reward of music that you cannot forget.
A really good overview of her first 10 albums is here: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/cdreviews/9655783/The-Studio-Albums-1968-1979-by-Joni-Mitchell-review.html

I picked the morning paper off the floor
It was full of other people's little wars
Wouldn't they like their peace ...

She has really long hands and fingers, clearly evolved for guitar and piano, which gave me fits to draw. They are in the foreground of the picture and clasped, and it was a little hard to see where one handful ended and the other began.  So I tinkered and shaded and erased and worked these hands for four nights until I got them reasonably human. Really they are still not just right but sometimes you have to know when to stop.

Mitchell kept her hair long and blond but didn't fight the aging process, or hide from it, perhaps seeing the changes to her face as another chapter, a new challenge, a further evolution of self. I respect that immensely.
Be a fighter but know the fights you can win.
This is an illuminating video:   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUu1MvnAecc

She had a brain aneurysm in 2015, following a period of organizing her vast catalog and withdrawal from performing. There's not a lot of detail out there about her progress, although some reports say she's home and speaking well and has resumed her painting.
I will assume she is not using broad strokes, striving instead to bring out the finer details.

"I know my generation - a lot of them, they're getting old now, and they want to think back fondly, they want to kid themselves. A lot of them think, 'Yeah, we were the best.' That's the kiss of death. That's non-growth. And also that's very bad for the world." 

The Joni Mitchell lyric excerpts are published by Crazy Crow Music.
This illustration is sold.
Contact willstom01@gmail.com or hankbonesman@embarqmail.com

I know my generation - a lot of them, they're getting old now, and they want to think back fondly, they want to kid themselves. A lot of them think, 'Yeah, we were the best.' That's the kiss of death. That's non-growth. And also that's very bad for the world. Joni Mitchell
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/joni_mitchell_4.html

I know my generation - a lot of them, they're getting old now, and they want to think back fondly, they want to kid themselves. A lot of them think, 'Yeah, we were the best.' That's the kiss of death. That's non-growth. And also that's very bad for the world. Joni Mitchell
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/joni_mitchell_4.html

I know my generation - a lot of them, they're getting old now, and they want to think back fondly, they want to kid themselves. A lot of them think, 'Yeah, we were the best.' That's the kiss of death. That's non-growth. And also that's very bad for the world. Joni Mitchell
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/joni_mitchell_4.html

I know my generation - a lot of them, they're getting old now, and they want to think back fondly, they want to kid themselves. A lot of them think, 'Yeah, we were the best.' That's the kiss of death. That's non-growth. And also that's very bad for the world. Joni Mitchell
Read more at: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/j/joni_mitchell_4.html

No. 334: Slurp! (Welcome to Summer)

No. 334, "Slurp!" by Tom Wills, June 2016.

Welcome to summer.
Welcome to ice cream cones, sprinklers and swimming pools.
Steaming pavement.
Thunderstorms and cooling rain.
Air conditioning!
Hello to flowers and bees -- and cicadas.
Frogs, toads and snakes alive!

The soil is warm, the plants are green and they are reaching for that sunshine.
How they have ached for it. My pale self, too!
My hibernation has ended, the coats and boots are thrown into the closet.

Birds have had their babies; the mice have, too. They are out of the tool shed and into the woods.
Deer are roaming the wooded path and sniffing at the garden plants -- undeterred by the dogs and ropes and tomato cages.
People, too, are roaming: To shores, to mountains, to fields and valleys.
To adventure!

We are alive again.
Full-on garage sale season is here.  Finding treasures.
Fixing fences, digging trenches.
Moving things, shaking them up.
Wax on, wax off, wax on.
Paints and stains.
Kids are scratching up their new Christmas bicycles.
The car windows and tops are down, boats are off the docks, clothing is light and tans are darkening.
Music can be loud again!

Oh, how I wish that it would last for more than four months. Just when my bones have thawed, it seems the aching returns.
Our treat won't last so we must slurp up as much of it as we can, and quickly.
Everything is sweet for now.
Enjoy those ice cream cones of summer before they melt away.

No. 332: "The horse that Papaw painted" (True Sensation)

No. 332, "True Sensation," watercolor (mostly), May 2016.

I love it when people can realize their dreams. The best ones are the big dreams that we return to from childhood through adulthood.  Sometimes it takes a very long time to make dreams come true, and only if we persevere.

In this year, two of my longest allies in Trumbull County -- both women journalists -- have somehow acquired horses. One I know for sure nurtured her equine love as a little girl, playing with plastic stallions and mares on a bedroom floor. The other has years of experience -- horsing around -- riding, showing and caring for these massive and magnificent animals. She has followed her dream to foreign lands and back.

Grass starting to "grow"

Also this year I met new friends from Mahoning County who are acquiring horses at a rate that astonishes me, because they're not cheap and are not exactly pets. They are work, they are headstrong and they have tremendous power.
I've now drawn or painted seven horses.
This one, True Sensation, allowed me to dream some, too.

Here's how to contact Emily Love about True Sensation. Click on images to enlarge.
Brochure photos by http://storytellerphotographyimagesbyrebecca.com/

This spectacular 11-year-old Arabian stallion was acquired in April by Emily Webster Love, whom you have met here before.  http://tomwillsproductions.blogspot.com/2011/09/marengo.html She was an early mentor to me in the newspaper biz, and we have kept in sporadic contact over 32 years (really, we should do better).

Original photo. Clearly, dandelions!

One of the first photos that she took of True Sensation had him grazing among some dandelions (they had better be dandelions -- Emily informed me later that buttercups are toxic to horses). As soon as I saw it, I knew I'd paint it, and told her so.

It took about three weeks for the watercolor image to emerge. My grandson Anthony, 3, hovered off and on throughout the process, checking out True Sensation's gradual transformation.
"Ooh nice!" he'd say.

A beginning.

He would nod in agreement that the painting was coming together and once it was finished, he looked a little astonished.
Frankly, so am I, because I'm not really a painter. I draw, then dabble colorful splashes onto the paper. Sometimes I get lucky and sometimes it's a disaster. True Sensation was a little of both, and I used all of my tricks to clean up my many mistakes.

The hardest part of this painting really was the grass, and once I thought that I was finished, there was more.  That's because I had to elongate the painting at the top and bottom to fit the mat and frame. Ugh! Getting the "new" grass to match the already-dried painting was a serious challenge and took more than a few desperate hours. But eventually I blended both to my satisfaction and, I hope, Emily's,
In the final up-close analysis, however, I am very proud of this painting, a gift.

Emily, Anthony and True Sensation

But I had to wait a while to deliver it up to Emily in scenic, quiet Kinsman, Ohio.
And I had to make all kinds of domestic relations arrangements to take Anthony along, because I wanted him to see the horse that Papaw painted. Also, I had long-promised Emily that I would deliver the cute little bugger to her doorstep.
He had never seen a horse before. At Emily's he saw five of them.

Thank you Emily for these photos, and for making these memories for us.

So, my dream fulfilled was to have my grandson see Papaw's painting come to life. He recognized the horse right away! "That one!" he said.
True Sensation truly is sensational, and he made sure to show off for all of the mares.  Truly I thought he'd break the fence, but Emily wasn't worried. She is not to be trifled with.
The kid did well for about an hour  in the sun, but eventually began clamoring to ride a horse. Not quite yet, pal. But I sure hope we can return.
Thanks for the watermelon and iced tea, Miss Emily.
He talked about the horses the whole way home and never nodded off.
Sensational.

Here are a few more pictures of the painting in progress, and our visit: