Drawing Trees

DRAWING TREES    

(PART ONE)

Catatonic Ode, from the Fan Free Funnies

Back in art school, I was enamored of artists such as Winsor McKay, Heinrich Kley, and Walt Kelly. One of my earliest art memories was watching my dad draw characters for me from an evening newspaper Pogo strip as I curled up beside in my pajamas. I was especially fond of Kelly’s trees. 

Here’s an example of my work for the Fan Free Funnies back in Richmond, Virginia in the early ’70s. That's me in Little Nemo's bed (Winsor McKay) in the final panel. The tree with a door is heavily influenced by, if not drawn directly from Walt Kelly.

It is highly appropriate that I am dreaming of trees in Nemo's bed. I grew up wandering through Jefferson National Forest which was just over golf course hill by our house. I've lived for a time in cities but always return to the woods. I live now surrounded by a California Coast Oak forest nestled on hills above the beautiful Elkhorn Slough. I've always gotten a straight answer from a tree.

Here's the trees of Pogo's Okefenokee Swamp from Walt Kelly:

 

Mickey's Tree Acrylic and Ink on Bristol Board

In the sixties and seventies there were a number of artists who used cartoon and graphic illustration in their art & as inspiration, centered around the art school of Richmond Professional Institute which became Virginia Commonwealth University. Many have gone on to great things: Phil Trumbo (who won an emmy for Pee Wee's Playhouse), Charlie Vess, who is a renowned fantasy book illustrator (and draws great trees), Michael J. Kaluta who drew The Shadow and Starstruck comics, among others. I worked in a similar vein for a time but moved into a more fine arts/painting direction than graphics. Here's another tree from that period.

Here's a penciled illustration from a couple years later. Don't know why that pencil lady is planting rows of pencils. I recognize the character's pose from a large 1930's era poster that I bought around 1975:

Pencil Lady, graphite on Reeves BFK

Untitled, undated Tree, Ink

In the 80s I went back to school to study Architecture and went to work for the Virginia Department of Parks and Recreation, then Baskervill and Son, the oldest architectural firm in Virginia. But on a weekend gig as an extra on a film being shot in Richmond, I caught the movie bug. I worked a few productions in Virginia, then moved to L.A., working as mainly a Propmaster but also as a Scenic Designer for the better part of the decade following. 
 

Malibu State Park on the set of 50 Simple Things. ink

Most of my creative energy was swallowed up by the industry but occasionally I picked up a pencil for my own art. And unsurprisingly, trees were my subject matter. A few from a sketchbook of that period.

     

Tree, Zen Center of Los Angeles, Ink with white highlights

While trimming a tree (!) at ZCLA, I fell off the edge of a roof and landed on cement, shattering my right foot, effectively ending my Propmaster career. In a way it was good: I was ready to leave propping as a career, but probably would have continued since the money was so good and the job so involving. 

Walter White, Architect, Pastel

Not being able to touch my foot to the ground for eleven months confined me pretty much to my little monk's apartment. But it renewed my art. I mostly worked figures, hiring models or imposing upon friends to sit for me. Drawing the human figure has always been my joy. I have taught and drawn figure drawing and painting for the past 40 years, no matter what other art I was working on or what job I held. Here's examples of what I did while laid up:
  

Pastel Demo

These two were done as demos in a Pastel Portraiture class in the extension of Santa Monica College while I was on crutches. The reason I mention figurative work in a blog about trees is that the drawing and painting of the human body and tree forms have a lot in common. It is not for naught that arms are called limbs and our torso is a trunk. Moreover, the rounding of limbs and branches are the same in tree or human. The lessons of delineation of form through shadow and shading, of proportion and scale are the same for both, and from drawing one, we learn to better draw the other.

Royal Oaks Park, 2013

The rounding of human forms and trees have similarities that are quite apparent. 
Here are some examples from over the years of both:

Ormont Oaks, circa 2009

George's Back, 1989, Pastel

Huntington Gardens, watercolor, 80s

Vase, watercolor, 90s

Sycamore, 1998

Bull and tree, 2005

End of Part One. Next: 

Painting Trees and Using Drawings as Preparation

THE BIG AND THE SMALL

Warning to those who do not like animal posts. This is one:

Here’s to all the animals I have known and loved. Here’s to Maggie and Joe and Henri; to Blackeye and Dali, the twins, Moji and Jack-Jack; to Pumpkin, our orange kitty who was left in a box on our doorstep one soft October night before Halloween. Here’s to foul-smelling Mr. Gray, who was born with a deformity that causes the pads of his feet to slip and burst, sending a noxious odor out wherever he treads, and causing him such pain that he often walks on the backs of his paws (with his paw turned back at the joint). Here’s to Dalai, our first cat in California, who is old and maybe on her last legs-- a seal-point Siamese with an obnoxious meow. And to Tyger, our striped cat, who freeloaded at every house in the neighborhood, but finally settled down with us. (Mr. Gray and Dalai have since passed on...Jack-Jack lost, we assume, to coyotes...)

Dalai

Dalai, named after the Dalai Lama, came to us from Sharon’s house over the hill where, before the coyotes diminished the numbers, many stray cats resided. Mr. Gray was a feral cat who understandably, nobody wanted. Tyger was a stray & Pumpkin arrived unbidden. Blackeye and the twin black cats were born to our Little One, another Seal Point, who was probably purloined by coyotes. She lived out in the bushes and had several litters before we could catch her and get her fixed. Blackeye is the older brother and was born in the same litter with Bob-Bob, who disappeared one day and whom we still mourn. 

Bob-Bob & Monster

In our little pet graveyard on the side of the hill under the oaks, watched over by a statue of Buddha, are: Brando, the only longhair we every owned; Pretty-Pretty, a feral/stray who was the father of Monster, buried beside him. Monster was my wife’s cat and never grew old or big. He went through and amazingly passed a bout with FIP, but his kidneys were so damaged, he could not go on. Pretty/Pretty was killed by a speeding car on Christmas day on our little farm road. If you know where we reside, you’d know that it’s a narrow pot-marked dusty track through a farmer’s property to get to us. Only someone with mal-intent would have run him down.

Joe

Brando died of cancer as did Joe, our beloved first pit bull who is buried on the other side of the house, on the backyard hillside where he spent most of his day. His passing a year ago left Maggie our Kelpie all alone and an empty spot in our hearts, so we found Henri, our second pit. We introduced Maggie to many possible adoptee dogs at several pounds and the SPCA, but Henri had the most infectious personality. If you are counting, we presently have seven cats (now four) and two dogs, unless Bucket, a feral cat I was enticing to join us, comes back. I've lived with animals all my life and find living with other species a joy.

So here’s to them all, the long and short and tall. To Rufus and Daniel and Buttercup and Gracie, all dogs I lived with on an 1820 farm in Upright, Virginia—along with Apricot Rabbit, Simma the Goat, Morgan the duck and Mud-Slide Slim, a steeplechaser. Here’s to my first dogs as a boy, Laddie and Sparky—and even to my parakeet Pretty Boy. To my cat George, who followed me from hole to hole on the golf course when I was a teenager. Here’s to Sarah, an African barkless Basenji, perhaps the most intelligent dog I have known—she and Maggie and Gracie all had the same gentleness of spirit that especially endeared them to me. I still miss bouncy Abby, a Malamute who was my last dog in Virginia before I moved west. And here’s to all the rest—the ones who were fostered, or boarded for a while; those who I only knew for a short while—all too numerous in my memories. 

In my mind’s eye and in the dreams of my heart, nothing is more wonderful and more wished for than a boundless walk on a crisp, clear day and my dogs, boon companions all, running free through golden fields.

Anton Mauve

Remember Anton Mauve?

I thought of Anton Mauve recently because of a student in my Pastel Figure class at the League. This woman, untrained as she is, is the best artist in the class, indeed one of the best I have taught. I can take little or no credit- she came to me that way. She says I helped her loosen up and be freer.  Perhaps I did—loosening up is a mantra I chant in all my classes. 

I give a demo of whatever method or material we are covering, then the students work on their own art. On this particular day, Crow X was our model and we talked about how to achieve realistic tones of dark-skinned folk. I did my usual quick and easy capture of Crow’s head, showing how to layer the various underhues (see pic). Demo over, the students worked at their boards and I worked on my  piece for a while.

Then I got up and walked around to check everyone’s work-in-progress. What this woman had done in a brief few minutes knocked my socks off. With a few deft, free strokes of vivid color she had knocked down the very essence of Crow and his skin tones. She paid little homage to the layering or blending I so assiduously teach but slapped the colors on in broad strokes.

If truth be told, she worked in a way I have always coveted to obtain, and only seldom achieved. I work in a technically skillful way with a great deal of speed, and no doubt my work is capable, competent. But her work soars while mine sits. Her art is fluid, dynamic, lyrical. And yet she thinks that I, the teacher, am better and she judges her own work to be inept and weak. I try to disabuse her of that notion, praising her art and pointing out to her those treasures that flow through her fingertips.

Anton Mauve was a competent, very good painter in his day and one of the founders of a school art in the Hague. He made a very good living at his art—it was highly sought after—and was considered a fine colorist. However, outside of Museum staffs and the Netherlands, who speaks of Anton Mauve today? If he is cited at all, it is not for his artwork, but the fact that he was Van Gogh’s cousin by marriage and that, for a brief few months, he taught Van Gogh the rudiments and fundamentals of oil painting. Van Gogh considered Mauve a major influence on his art, second only to Millet. Indeed, the one of the few paintings Van Gogh inscribed/dedicated to someone besides his brother Theo was to Mauve. 

Did Mauve know how good Van Gogh was, or at least, did he recognize that his young cousin eclipsed (or would one day eclipse) him in creative wherewithal and artistic power? Did he wonder, as I did when confronted with my student’s art, how almost pedestrian his capable work was next to an artist of force and power?

I’m not fishing for compliments. I am confident enough in my own art and abilities. Yet I cannot help yearn for a bit more power, a bit more oomph, a bit more pizazz in my work. And isn’t that the creative drive calling? You will pardon me, but I need to get to my easel.

Mac's Plein Air Workshops / TREES- July 9 & 10, 2011

 July 9th and 10th, 2011 from 10am to 4pm.

A two-day Plein Air painting intensive with a focus on trees, from the fallen sycamores of old Fort Ord to great masses of Eukes, Oaks & Pine.  

One in a series of five (FOUR LEFT!) summer Plein Air Intensives offered by Mac McWilliams: Rocks & Sea; Trees; Boats & Water; Farms; Cityscapes.  

Each 2 day course: $175;  

all 4 for LESS THAN the cost of three: $475.

Click here for info, maps and directions.

Nearly a year since I first blogged. Nearly a year and 1/2 since I sold my bookstore. Thought that I would continue selling books afterwards (or afterwords, if you prefer). But beyond a few map sold on ebay the first month, I've hardly traded in books a-tall. Its amazing that a decade and a half of bookselling has no more hold on me than that. Even thou' it was mainly a way to make a living-- to support my painting habit, I always say-- I thoroughly enjoyed the biz and I loved, was passionate about old and rare books. The treasures that passed across the store counter were a joy to hold, to smell, to touch.

And yet, I've been a painter, an artist all my life. Always making, showing and selling my art in galleries across the US of A. I've always manged to teach an art course or two while still making a living doing something else. Now, to my pleasant surprise, I am managing to sell enough art and teach enough to get by. Here's what my artwork looks like:


To view more of my art go to www.maclanda.com and click on the galleries in the sidebar. The above image of Garapata Beach is in the gallery called, appropriately enough, the Garapata Series. Garapata is a state park with magnificent coast line, south of Carmel California ( on the way south to Big Sur).

DRAPER'S MEADOWS MASSACRE
AND VIRGINIA TECH

A gunman opened fire in a Virginia Tech dorm and then, two hours later,
in a classroom across campus Monday, killing at least 30 people in the
deadliest shooting rampage in U.S. history. The gunman was killed,
bringing the death toll to 31

Total is now 33 with 26 wounded.

I am just reeling.

This is my home town. Its where I grew up. I know the buildings where this happened. The campus was my playground. I practically lived in the library and gym. Even though I've been in California for decades, I am always a Virginian.

My brothers went to school there and a number of nieces and nephews. One is a student now and one is starting in summer. The nephew who is graduating happened to be off at a seminar in Lynchburg when this happened. My brother who has the son entering in the next term was there with his son in that very building taking some sort of placement test just two weeks back, and they had to vacate the building because of a bomb scare!

Blacksburg when I was growing up was a bucolic town in the Blueridge, with more people and more acreage at the campus than in the town. That has changed somewhat, but its still a great town, albeit larger. Now it will go down in our social consciousness as the largest mass shooting in history. Until, of course, another comes along.

One thing I have not seen mentioned by the press reports is that Blacksburg got its start in a massacre. The Draper Meadows Massacre was as much a cause celebre in its day as the Virginia Tech tragedy is today. In 1755, a band of settlers in Draper's Meadows were slain or captured by a band of Shawnee Indians raiding from Ohio, likely at the instigation of the French, since this was the time of the French & Indian War. Draper's Meadow Settlement was the first permanent English colony west of the Alleghenies.

The Wikipedia article says that four were slain and five were taken captive. I always heard, growing up, that four survived, five were captured and 21 slain. But the hew and cry about the massacre caused a influx of new settlers who grew into the town of Blacksburg. The small Methodist Seminary they started applied for a land grant from the federal government and amazing won out over larger more established schools. Virginia Tech is now one of the largest land grant universities in the US.

Drapers Meadows was situated nigh where the Duck Pond is on campus. The duck pond is where we teenagers used to go to park. It is notably in my personal history as the place I touched a woman's breast for the first time. It is also notable that I got the Catalina stuck in the mud by the pond that very night and had to call my Dad to come and tow us out. I was so embarrassed, even more so, since I had told my parents that we had gone to a movie. I tried to apologize to Dad on the way home, for the trouble I caused him, the movie fib, the fooling around in the dark with the opposite sex - I didn't know what. My Dad said, "Its about time. We were beginning to worry about you."

Last time I was back was 6 or 7 years ago, and I walked around the campus showing my wife where I grew up. Nearby on a back street was the bookstore where I hung out: Books, Strings and Things-- and where I first encountered the love of books, first dreamed of owning a bookstore. It was also a venue for great mountain music, bluegrass, and pickers of all stripes. I understand Books, Strings and Things had a long run but is no more. After a checkered career (teaching, movie Propmaster, cartographer, museum Director, etc.), I opened up a bookstore dealing in old and rare books in California. Only recently, after 15 years of bookselling, have I moved on, selling my shop and teaching art more full time now.

My hometown Blacksburg, born in blood and violence, now drenched in blood once again.

Sad Regards,
and hope you all are doing well.