RAVENS MATE FOR LIFE – or – THE STORY OF ED AND LENORE

For fabulous facts about ravens please click on this link:  http://www.whitewolfpack.com/2014/12/10-fascinating-facts-about-ravens.html

The comments at the end of that article are also fascinating.

In February I had a visitor named Victor Jacinto Cano from Bellingham, WA. He arrived in his small motor home with his small and altogether adorable Havanese doggie named Lola. While Victor and I have nine mutual friends in Bellingham, we had never met. He and Lola found a mostly level spot to park the RV and stayed two nights. We had a nice time and Sudsie liked having Lola around as we drove to sights on the Grand Staircase.

Vic and Lola at Devil's Garden

Sudsie and Lola

Prior to Vic’s arrival, he had posted photos of his travels on Facebook – including several pics of two ravens.  He had taken these photos while camping in Northern Arizona. With Victor’s permission, I set about painting the ravens in various poses using mixed media techniques with acrylic paint.  After learning that ravens mate for life, I decided this particular raven couple had relationship issues. My friend Howard Hutchison, a world famous paleontologist and a very witty person, suggested I name the ravens Ed (for Edgar Allen Poe) and Lenore (for the woman EAP wrote about in his most famous poem).

The next thing you know, I started having “commercial” thoughts about my experiments with ravens in art. I would make prints of the three paintings as well as note cards. I gave the paintings titles – captions, really – of what Lenore might be saying to Ed, based on their “body language.” Remember, their relationship is troubled. It was great fun thinking up titles.Then an artist friend, whose opinion I value, suggested that I might sell more note cards if the titles were “friendlier.” She probably has a point.

Below are the images along with their current titles, which will be changed for the note cards. See what you think.

You Know I Love You Just the Way You Are **SOLD**
Mixed Media, Acrylic, 12" x 12"
by Rae Ellen Lee

Ed, look! It's Your Higher Power!  ** SOLD **
Mixed Media, Acrylic, 12" x 12"
by Rae Ellen Lee

We Could Just Ask For Directions! **SOLD**.
Mixed Media, Acrylic, 12" x 12"
by Rae Ellen Lee

PEEK-A-BOO SLOT CANYON

East and south of Escalante, 26 miles down the Hole in the Rock Road, are two slot canyons in close proximity -- Spooky and Peek-a-Boo. I had struck up an acquaintance at the gym named Jared Nixon, a friendly young man who happens to be a guide. Since it was off-season -- November -- he offered to take me and another woman named Marcie through these slot canyons. He brought his cousin, Darrell, as they often hike together. All I can say is WOW!!!  These two slot canyons live up to their names. Jared and Darrell were kind, generous and helpful to us as we attempted to "chimney up" one area, and descend 10-foot drops. Jared said 85 per cent of people he leads in Spooky don't make it, and I can see why. At one point I had to step into his cupped hands, then onto his back to get up the "chimney" area. Good thing he is so big and strong. I would highly recommend you contact Jared if you need a guide. He knows the area better than anyone else I've met, and he's a nice and fun guy to hang out with. You can catch him at www.indigodayhikes.com or call 435-676-3121. 

Anyway, there was no way for me to make a piece of art that does justice to either slot canyon, so I messed around with drips of paint and came up with this small piece that captures it as well as anything.  Using a watery drip method to capture the essence of a slot canyon is appropriate, since water has carved them.

Pee-a-Boo Slot Canyon
4" x 12" Acrylic on wood panel

THE WATCHER, LITTLE SPENCER FLAT

As a hiker living in a town surrounded by the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, I’ve wandered for miles with friends on Spencer Flat east of Escalante, UT. The little painting below is from a sketch of the curious hoodoo that is strikingly evident as you drive the Old Sheffield Road (which most call the Spencer Flat Road). On an outing with Sudsie, I sketched the hoodoo from the north, where it appears to be watching the whole vast area. Most people view the feature from the road – a viewpoint that usually elicits comments about condoms. For texture, I adhered crumpled tissue to the rock formations with acrylic medium. After that dried, I wielded a small palette knife to brush on paint colors – striving for bursts of color harmony using complimentaries. By experimenting, maybe I’ll discover my painting voice. Now to work on the other 12 paintings I’ve started!

4.5" x 4.5" Acrylic on Wood Panel

ONE WOMAN PAINTS HER LIFE

One way to tell if you’re an artist is to ask yourself this: Do you actually make art or do you just buy art materials and wait until you find your quote painting voice? Do you start paintings and never finishing them? For instance, with six unfinished canvases leaning on each other in the corner, I started a trip-tick and splashed gaudy-colors on each large canvas, having decided that was my new style. Anyway, the instructor had said, Just cover the canvas quick, so you can get over the Blank Canvas Syndrome. After that workshop I added those unfinished paintings to the pile because I had discovered a new style that struck me as quote the one for me. Which required that I buy several palette knives and a trowel, and not those cheap plastic ones, either, because you can’t make good art with inferior materials. That was six years and eight painting styles ago.

To regain some self-respect, I scanned my years of sketches on flickr.com, only to later read a comment that said they were “tighty-assed,” if you can you believe that. So I started painting a giant ghost crab to show them, whoever it was, that I can too paint loose and fresh yet intriguing stuff, and there it sits in the corner -- the only readable thing being the creature’s eyestalks watching my back all the time as I sit at the computer studying the works of other artists and making lists of new materials to add to my collection of oil pastels, soft pastels, guoache, water colors, acrylics and every medium Golden promotes at those demonstrations, as well as glass for making monoprints on rice paper not to mention tools to carve images in linoleum to make one-of-a-kind linocuts in black and white, and new canvases of varying sizes, now that I own a new French easel. Then last fall my artist friend, Lorna Libert, suggested that I might like to paint with oil paints. So I showed up at one of her workshops in Bellingham, Washington, with a bag of oil paints and I’ll be darned if I didn’t complete three small paintings. Just like that. And I haven’t stopped painting since. No more excuses. 

To celebrate turning seventy, in 2015 I vow to paint seventy paintings of places I’ve been and things I’ve done. I will finally use up all those art materials. 

I'll be painting 70 images from the past 70 years (1945 - 2015), but they won't be done in
chronological order. My first posting is from a fave set of hoodoos out on the Grand Staircase-Escalante
National Monument, east of Escalante, UT, where I live. After loosely sketching the forms,
I used acrylic medium to adhere crumpled tissue to add texture.

The first colors were jarring and one of my artist friends suggested I tone things down a bit,
so I did that and added foreground interest.

The Doll Men, 18" x 24", Acrylic on Canvas

 In this photo of the finished project, the colors appear slightly duller than they actually are. My to-do list includes mastering the art of photographing my paintings.