What's Going On

You may think I've fallen off the edge of the earth, but no, I haven't. I haven't been able to post, because my already ancient and ailing computer got very sick- it was infected with well over 300 viruses. So, long story short, it survived, but I now have no software. No Microsoft Office, and even worse, no Photoshop. I cannot scan anything, even though my scanner works, because there is no program to receive the scan, and I can't edit photos to make them a reasonable, internet-acceptable size.

The good news is that I will be getting a brand new computer in about a month. In the meantime, I wanted to update you on a couple of things. I have 2 pieces in this exhibit at the Living Arts and Science Center in Lexington, Kentucky.

I've always felt that animals are special, that they have a sort of ageless, wordless wisdom that humans, with all our sophistication, have lost. That's why I began writing my mythic folk tale about Raven and Crane, and why I found the theme of this exhibit so intriguing.

The Living Arts and Science Center is intriguing, too, both because of the historic building it's housed in, and because of the variety of creative and educational opportunities they offer the community.

According to their website, LASC "...annually presents more than 400 art classes and workshops for children 18 months-old to adults, 6 – 8 art exhibits, participatory field trips for over 6000 students, monthly Discovery Night programs, community arts projects, numerous free and low-cost family events, and on-going free art classes for thousands of at-risk, special needs and underserved children, teens and adults." It is a very cool place, so please visit if you get a chance.

Other news and observations:

I don't know how to make the links work in this new interface, so I apologize if they don't. I don't know what "Add mime type" or "MIME type is invalid " mean. Hopefully I catch on soon, so please bear with me.

I've started to make the rounds to some of your blogs again, and am having so much fun catching up on what all of you are doing. I will continue to do this, and look forward to visiting everyone.

I'm thinking that I can email my photos (the ones already on my computer) to my son; then he can edit them, and email them back to me so I can put them into posts. Should work, right? So, expect another post very soon.

Of course, I can't download any new photos from my camera, so I guess you'll have to wait to see what I'm working on now. Unless I figure something else out, which is possible. Anything's possible, right?

Still Working On It

Remember this?  In previous posts I shared my compositional woes and color conundrums as I tried to work my way through the third in my "Traveler's Tale" series.  I thought this would be the easiest one, but I guess I still haven't gotten past that learning curve, if you know what I mean.  

I was really hoping to finish this before Christmas; there are other ideas I want to start working on before my break is over.  Also, this is what my drafting table looks like right now, and there's no sense in putting anything away when I'm going to need it again in five minutes. What a mess, huh? I decided I didn't like the map I'd chosen for the traveler figure, and I thought she was too small as well.

So, I enlarged her, and decided to cut her out of a blue map, using red for the shadow value.  I thought these colors would look more like the ones you see in fairy tale books or medieval paintings.  However, I tried several different reds, and they all looked pretty icky.  I didn't take pictures of these incarnations; believe me, you're not missing anything.

So, this is where I am now.  (Sorry, this picture is pretty wonky.)  Her hair is still one of the horrible reds I tried; I haven't changed that yet.  I couldn't think of anything else to do except to make the shadow value purple.  Green was the only other possibility, but I was afraid it would not contrast enough with the background, or with the blue.  I've also added some more fairy tale-ish elements to the piece, such as the dragons, the book with evil queen inside, the mirror, apples, flowers, and a story-book border...

What do you think?  If you have any ideas, please let me know.  Maybe, with your help, I'll finish it by Christmas!

Artistic Influences: Dulac, Rackham, and all the mermaids

There are two other fairy tale illustrators from the "Golden Age of Book Illustration" whose work influenced me as a child. Though Kay Nielsen was probably my favorite (see August 20 post), I also greatly admired the work of Edmund Dulac and Aurthur Rackham. These illustratiors used mainly watercolor or gouache, which, now that I think about it, may be why I prefer watercolor to other painting media. I love the clarity and transparency of the colors; to me they seem infused with light.

"Undine Lost in the Danube" by Aurthur Rackham

I think it's important to understand the origin of this "Golden Age", and why it produced such a proliferation of great illustrators. Dulac, Nielsen, and Rackham are only three of the great number of fine illustrators whose work graced the pages of fairy tales, story books, and magazines around the turn of the century. It all had to do with technology. "Until the mid-1890s, there had been no economical method of reproducing color plates. Printing methods in those days varied from printer to printer and were most often patented - and were always being improved. The invention of the process we now call "color separation" made it possible to mass-produce color images and by 1905 they improved the process to create images that were very faithful to the originals. The only drawback was that they had to be printed on a special coated paper and therefore couldn't be bound into the book with the rest of the pages." (http://www.bpib.com/illustrat/dulac.htm)

"Brunhilde" by Aurthur Rackham

Rackham is the quintessential story book artist, and his work has perhaps been seen by more people than any other illustrator of this period. Traits of his famous style include "a sinuous pen line softened with muted water color; forests of looming, frightening trees with grasping roots; sensuous, but somehow chaste, fairy maidens; ogres and trolls ugly enough to repulse but with sufficient good nature not to frighten; backgrounds filled with little nuggets of hidden images or surprising animated animals or trees." (Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr.)

"The Mermaids had Sea Green Hair" by Aurthur Rackham

"Earth, Sea, and Sky" by Sharmon Davidson

When I saw the Rackham picture of the mermaids, I couldn't resist putting my own mermaid in here- especially since she also has green hair! I had never seen this one before, but it's a great coincidence, isn't it?

"Mermaid Sparkle" by Edmund Dulac

Dulac's sensuous, jewel-like colors are what sets his work apart. Jim Vadeboncoeur says, "Dulac, though capable of pen and ink work, was primarily a painter and used the new technology's ability to reproduce exact tones to let the color hold the shape and define the object. This is one of the effects of Dulac's timing. The color separation process was "perfected" just at the exact moment he arrived and he never had to deal with the old-fashioned necessity of an ink line bounding the color to hide misregistration."

"Stealers of Light" by Edmund Dulac

"Beauty" by Edmund Dulac

These lovely pictures revealed to me the magical power of images. If you look with an open mind and heart, they can open doors to other worlds that lie beyond our everyday lives. I am forever grateful to Nielsen, Dulac, and Rackham for opening those doors.

Artistic Influences: Kay Nielsen

Recently I was asked about my early artistic influences, so I thought I'd try to re-trace my personal path, as an obsession with one artist or style led to another. Immediately I thought of the surrealists I had studied and so admired when I was in high school and college. But one day it suddenly occurred to me that Surrealism was not my first influence at all, that my artistic sensibilities had also been informed by images I encountered much earlier in my life, a time that was buried deeper in my memory.

"Snowshoes" by Kay Nielsen

Being a child of ample imagination, I loved to read fairy tales. My fascination with these stories went beyond listening to an adult read "Red Riding Hood" or even watching Disney's iconic "Snow White" or "Sleeping Beauty"; I went to the library and checked out every book of fairy tales I could find, and devoured them.

"Pop! Out Flew the Moon" by Kay Nielsen

I was captivated as much by the pictures as the stories; the stunning illustrations in many of these books sparked an aspiration to draw like that myself. I populated my own imaginary world with knights, princesses, horses, and dragons that I drew and cut out. I would make up fantastic tales, and act them out with these 'paper doll' characters.

"A Large Flock of Birds" by Kay Nielsen

Some of the most inspiring illustrations were done by Danish artist Kay Nielsen, who worked during the Golden Age of Book Illustration in London around the turn of the century. According to Terri Windling (From Fairy Tales to Fantasia: The Art of Kay Nielsen), "Kay left Copenhagen for Paris to study art in Montparnasse. It was there that he, like so many art students, discovered Aubrey Beardsley's work, with its fine use of line and ornamentation and its aura of dark romance. Beardsley's drawings made a considerable impression on him, containing as it did two of the things he loved best: imagery from myth and folklore, and the strong influence of Japanese art."

"How Morgan Le Fay Gave a Shield to Sir Tristram" by Aubrey Beardsley

"The Sea off Satta" by Hiroshige


"The North Wind Went Over the Sea" by Kay Nielsen

I loved the drama and emotion these pictures evoked, the lush colors, the stylized figures. For me, they were an integral part of the stories, as important as the words. The strong sense of composition and use of flowing line are aspects of Nielsen's work that I unconsciously incorporated, over time, into my own work.


"Dakini" by S. Davidson


I think the function of artwork as narrative has also been an aspect of my work, and one that has come to the forefront again in my recent work.

"The Traveler's Tale: As the Crow Flies" by S. Davidson


"Then He Took Her Home" by Kay Nielsen

It's strange how these things we've forgotten about have influenced us so profoundly. Perhaps they lay so deeply and thoroughly imbedded in our past that they've become a part of us.

Icarus Reborn

This is a piece that I finally finished after several re-workings. I think I washed the figure off and started over at least 3 times; hence, the title. I probably should have just given up, but I guess I'm not made that way. I'm very stubborn about certain things, which can be good or bad, depending on the timing and circumstances. I always tell my students, though, that perseverance is the key to success. As Einstein said, "Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration." There's a lot of perspiration in this piece, and I'm NOT re-working it again! (Even I have my limits.)

I think it has a very 'fairy tale' kind of feeling. Fairy tales were a favorite reading matter for me as a child, and the illustrations from those stories have had a substantial influence on my artistic expression. When I was growing up, I often drew princesses, knights, horses, and dragons, which I would then cut out and play with, creating my own imaginary world.

The story of Icarus has always fascinated me. Of course, you could get into some really deep and complicated psychological and archetypal analysis here, but I'll leave that to Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell. In many paintings of this subject, Icarus is seen falling into the ocean after flying too close to the sun, and my first version of this piece focused on that moment as well. But then I thought, why not go back to the point BEFORE he took flight, when any outcome was still possible? Why not; it's my imaginary world, isn't it? And so, Icarus is reborn, just at the moment of hope.