Print of the Week - "Yellow Coneflower - Ratibida pinnata"

"Yellow Coneflower - Ratibida pinnata"

print from the original color pencil drawing

© Bruce A. Morrison

(click on image for a larger view) 

I have a lot of smaller "decorator" type prints and this is a good example of one.  This is a native prairie flower, a very common one that most will recognize...I like to call it "Yellow Coneflower" but most will give the common name "Gray-headed Coneflower" to Ratibida pinnata.  I believe this is because the flowering head of this plant is initially light green to gray when it first appears and doesn't turn brown until the head fills with small florets.

 

I chose this for the print of the week because it is now blooming profusely here in our prairie pastures!  A beautiful sight in mass!

 

The original drawing that this print is published from was in color pencil...the background thrown out of focus by using different methods of dissolving the pencil's wax based pigment and creating a "wash" effect.

 

This print is available as an open edition/signed print here at the studio/gallery or from other dealers given on my web site at www.morrisons-studio.com.

 

Thank you for visiting - I hope your summer is full of beauty as well!

 

Got the Blues...

Great Lobelia (Lobelia siphilitica)

color pencil drawing -  © Bruce A. Morrison

(click on image for a larger view) 

My mother's favorite color was blue.  I remember all the things she decorated with; many things throughout the house favored blue. I think of her during the year when the few blue flowers of the prairie bloom.  In the spring it's Blue-eyed Grass, in the late summer its some of the asters, (like Sky Blue Aster)...in the early fall, for me its Great Lobelia!

I came across a large group of Great Lobelia this past September on a hillside seepage.  I took several photographs of the plants but none seemed to do them justice, like I feel they need...so I decided to make it a fall project to do a small color pencil of them instead.  I should probably title this piece something like "Great Lobelia Blues".

I've not had success getting this wildflower to grow in our pasture because we're fairly gravely here, and this flower really favors a wet location.  Now I have a small bouquet of them "growing" in a frame in my studio...a nice way to remember my mother, and a late September morning on the prairie.

 

Making Use of Time

"Ocheyedan Evening"

5X7" color pencil rendering

art work © Bruce A. Morrison

 

It's been cold and dreary in this neck of the prairie lately.  If we haven't been shoveling out the lane and around the buildings, we've been working - a lot!  But what can one do with this time; with temps well below zero fahrenheit and a constant biting wind?!  Why, make good use of it of course!  

 

While Georgie's been busy with projects in the house, I've been in the studio non-stop. I've finally finished up all commission work and have been busy starting new things and finishing old ones. 

 

I have a solo exhibit coming up this August at Arts on Grand in Spencer, IA.  The exhibit is to be recent work relating to the habitat and region I hold dear - the Tallgrass Prairie.   So the thrust of my time and aim is the subject matter that fits this goal.  But nothing has changed, that's been my focus for quite some years now anyway!

 

The piece at the blog's beginning is another small color pencil study; this one depicts a prairie stream in our area - the Ocheyedan River.  It was done from some images I took late one day last summer when Georgie and I were on an evening drive through the country side.  The Ocheyedan is a small river, a true prairie stream, and the evening light colors it almost as if it were still wild and unaffected by  the region's agriculture.

 

I like doing work I can get pensive about; that's a state of mind I can get into when traversing through a work.  What is around the next bend?  What was it like when the Native Americans first inhabited this place, or when the first settlers arrived?  

 

I consider this piece a "study" like most of my small works.  It may take on a life of it's own some day as a larger painting, who knows at this point in time?  I really kind of think it would make a nice reference for a painting...we'll see.

Keep busy!