Waiting for the Thaw

"Passing Don's Old Place at First Light - Study"

oil painting - © Bruce A. Morrison

(click on image for a larger view) 

 

What does a person do around NW Iowa with 2-3 foot drifts still in the garden and throughout the back yard and pasture?  Work inside the studio!  And what kind of work seems best for this cold old duffer while waiting for the thaw?  Summer landscapes! 

 

This is a gravel road about 4 miles south of us as the crow flies...you'd have to be a crow to get there in just 4 miles because the road passing our place stops - hits a "T" intersection 3 miles south of us.  Evidently the valley and creek bottoms there dissuaded road construction straight through back then.

This is actually a small oil painting "study".  I have an idea for a much more elongated painting in the future of this same location but wanted to do a smaller work-up of it to judge just how I'd approach the palette for this piece, and to just see if it might be worthy of a try.

This depicts an old farmstead and home of a gentleman I never met...he was using the small home off behind the trees on the left for a summer residence while, as I understood it, living with a daughter during the winter months.  His family also had a farm and home place a mile north, of which the house no longer stands.  Don passed away 3-4 years back and the small house now belongs to someone else.  

 

The trees along the road create a nice "tunnel-effect" and one morning last summer I was heading out to another location when I passed through and thought it would make for a nice painting "some day"!  Now I need to find the time to do it!  (The bigger version that is.)

Meanwhile I'm still in the studio - picking up things I meant to be getting to for what seems like a long time...and waiting for the thaw!

Print of the Week

"Summer Memories" 

- signed open edition print from the original oil painting 

- © Bruce A. Morrison

(click on image for a larger view) 

I have print sales from different sources during the month and probably rarely mention the "sales" side of my art business.  Yes, I tell people I'm an artist, but most of the time people don't equate "Art" to business.  If you are doing art to support the art and pay your bills, and that is what you do 24/7 - then art is a business, believe me!

The fun thing about the open edition prints I produce is they sell from many different sources...I have artwork and prints in several galleries throughout the state and area (as well as a few online galleries) - and here at the studio gallery.  Its always fun to get sales from other sources because I'm unaware of the sales until I find out in the mail (many times e-mail)...its like a pleasant surprise to bring an upbeat to the day! 

I just got a check in the mail for a print yesterday "Summer Memories".  This image has a story and has morphed more than most artwork I've done in recent years.  After thinking about the original oil painting, I thought maybe doing a "print of the week" for the blog would be a neat idea(?)...we'll give it a try!

"Summer Memories" has had other names...titles are kind of iffy at times, I usually go with whatever hits me first.  But after a period of time I reflected on what this painting was really about.

This painting is a "memory" - 99% of what I usually paint or draw, is done from the original subject, like a photograph I took or a place drawn or painted on site.  This painting is more from memories of summers on my grandfather's farm down by Madrid, Iowa.  My brother and I would spend 2 or 3 weeks with grandparents each summer, this went on from a very young age - around 6 or 7 through our mid teens.  (My sister would too but we were split up so one set of grandparents would have us boys and the other had our sister).

This became a dominant summer memory for me - spending time at the farm was an adventure...things that happened or that we did there have become bigger than life in my mind.  These summer memories prompted the painting.  But it doesn't end there.

Every artist has their quirks...hmm, maybe I have several - but never mind!  One quirk I do have is I find my best comfort zone is "when I can lay eyes on it"!  Painting a memory wasn't my strong suit and I made the mistake of asking a friend what they thought of the painting.  Mistake.  I repainted it 3 more times.  Not a good experience!

The "Summer Memories" that I was the happiest with was the first one - go with your first gut feeling is now my mantra!  The painting you see at the top of this blog is that painting - the prints I offer of "Summer Memories" is also that same first painting.

I kept the oil painting "Summer Memories" for my private collection, and even though it is now a somewhat different version of the above painting - it still brings back those memories of carefree summer days on the farm...the water pump in the kitchen (no faucets), sleeping above the machine shed in the hired man quarters - on an old spring mattress bed, no TV back then - just an old tube radio, climbing through the hayloft of the barn, walking around with the chickens in the farmyard, taking baths in big galvanized tubs out in the farmyard "in broad daylight"(!), being pulled from the pig pen after dropping a brand new toy in with the hogs (hey there was some "real" excitement too!)

"Summer Memories" - signed open edition print from the original oil painting - © Bruce A. Morrison - available from the studio here or other galleries listed on my web site - www.morrisons-studio.com

 

Ode to July

"Morning Beatitude"

photograph © Bruce A. Morrison

(click on image for a larger view) 

 

July...when I was much, much younger "July" meant the middle of summer vacation.  It meant there was a whole month "after this one" before school began again!  It was a month of wandering, like June and August, but there was something else about July; it was ephemeral...you lived it, breathed the essence of it, held it close and then it was gone.

 

June seemed like a dream when it arrived; summer was here!  We languished in the

thought of it, but as it gained momentum and you grasped the opportunity - it was finished.  We had "wised up" by July; it needed to be savored.

 

When August came, the sense of well being was shaken...summer's end was near.

 

Now that I am older, I pay more attention to the calendar. Summer is no longer finished in August - there's September to look forward to...its not until the equinox that the end is true.  But this old duffer still remembers saying goodbye to July all those years ago; its not over yet but I'll still wish it back.

 

I know its cheating, but stepping back and savoring a "time and place" in my paintings or, as in this case, my photographs - can be a nice respite.  I hope you enjoy "July" in my work.

Trying to Keep Up!

"Little Sioux River Valley Sunrise"

photograph - © Bruce A. Morrison

(click on image for a larger view) 

Its been very hard keeping up with everything lately!  Life is more complicated than we give it at face value, isn't it!?  The work in the studio and around the acreage is keeping us on our toes lately...this is always a busy time of year.

 

I've also been trying to keep an eye on our pasture here because I often can use it as a gauge as to when things might be at their best on the prairies nearby.  I had been noticing our Dotted Liatris (Liatris punctata) and Rough Blazing Star (Liatris aspera) beginning to look pretty good, so I thought I'd run off to Waterman Prairie this morning where I know these things are in good number...see if I could catch them before they get past their prime.

 

When I got up everything was really socked in outside; I actually woke a few minutes before the alarm rang - a Coyote out front of our place woke me with its yowling; sounded like it was missing someone or feeling left out!

 

I procrastinated a bit, not sure if the fog would lift enough for some decent images, but eventually talked myself into getting in gear and heading down the road.  I went to the O'Brien No.1 site again; this is where I'd been watching some decent locations for late summer prairie blooms.

 

When I arrived it was so thick I decided to just walk to the ridges above the Little Sioux River, figuring I could scout some along the way.  There's a hanging valley there...I'm sure I've talked of it in the past.  The farmers who access fields down below the prairie there use it as an access road...its actually an ancient river bed left hanging along the edge of the hillside.

 

No sooner had I reached the ridge top the sun popped out of the fog and the curtains down below me were opening to expose the river below.  I scrambled and got a few shots before the river and valley below were gone again...if I'd been a couple minutes or more later I would have simply missed out!  It was truly a "WOW" moment! Serendipity?

 

I walked around checking for late summer liatris but the majority were still in tight bud...some years you get lucky and they all go at once - that would be nice!  But no such luck this morning. 

 

 "O'Brien No. 1 Sunflowers and Big Bluestem"

photograph - © Bruce A. Morrison

(click on image for a larger view)

 

I kind of did a mental inventory of plants as I slowly walked back to the road and did see some surprises; for one there was still Spiked Lobelia (Lobelia spicata) in bloom!  That's nearly always done by early August in my own pasture, and this year I couldn't find it; I suspected because of the drought we'd been experiencing again.

 

The Sunflowers were way ahead of our pasture here as well, but the stand I stopped to photograph is in a low lying wet area so that may be the reason.  I was seeing three varieties, may even have missed one.  there was Maximilian (Helianthus maximiliani), Sawtooth (Helianthus grosseserratus) and Showy Sunflower (Helianthus laetiflorus) in bloom intermixed with some good clumps of Big Bluestem (Andropogon gerardii) also in bloom!

 

A good morning for a wet walk, ya the air was 100% humidity - even my glasses kept fogging over trying to look through the camera's viewfinder.  But a beautiful morning on the prairie!

 

 

Still August...Still Hanging In There!

"Sunrise at O'Brien No.1"

photograph - © Bruce A. Morrison

(click on image for a larger view) 

Its surprising how quickly this summer is flying by...but August has been different in some ways.  Kind of like slow motion, yet at the speed of "life" if-you-will.  We've had events of great joy, some not and some yet to happen, it makes for a suppressed level of creativity...I talked sparingly about this in my last blog.  But I have been tending to business and yesterday morning (Saturday) I kicked myself out of bed early and drove down to a spot I hadn't visited for some time.  The sunrise wasn't overly spectacular but very pleasant; a quiet/still dew laden morning with low lying fog in the valley below.  I have talked about this area on occasion in the past; it is part of the Waterman Prairie complex but I refer to it as O'Brien No.1 because the person who first identified it as a prairie of importance gave it that identification in her report.  

Ada Hayden was the first woman botanist at Iowa State University, she has been credited with publishing the best native flora survey of any part of Iowa. And she campaigned for a system of prairie preserves, two of which were later named the Hayden and the Kalsow prairies.  

"Wild Rose hips from O'Brien No.1"

photograph - © Bruce A. Morrison

(click on image for a larger view)

Hayden received a grant one summer in the early 1940's to travel the state, make a census of remaining tallgrass prairies and make recommendations for preservation.  O'Brien No.1 was her identification for this site and she recommended its preservation to the state.  It took a while but in the mid 1990's the location was finally purchased by the state as part of the Waterman Prairie complex.  Ada is one of my heroes (OK "heroines") of our nearly vanished Tallgrass Prairie...I have several but she is definitely a kindred spirit at the top of the list.

 "Early Light on Dog Creek"

photograph - © Bruce A. Morrison

(click on image for a larger view)

Its getting into the later part of August and the landscape and plants are showing the signs...I'm beginning to see swelling flower buds of Liatris aspera, the Solidago sp., and the color of wild rose hips are taking on a bright red hue...the warm season grasses are in flower or finishing up.  There is even a hint of yellow in the Cottonwood leaves along the creeks and streams in the valley.

Here at the studio we are seeing more hummingbirds than just our resident nesting pair, the Red-headed Woodpecker's off-springs are sporting their strange black heads, and we're overrun with the fresh crop of youngster Orchard and Baltimore Orioles.  

The dawn chorus had changed permanently till fall; I do not like that.  I already miss the overlapping cacophony of bird song beginning at predawn.  I still catch the Song Sparrows, Sedge Wrens and Dickcissels in the early morning walks or evening respite, but its a sign of change from a season that is just too short even more so at this age...you youg'uns will understand clearly someday.

The other change I led into in the last blog has not changed.  The transmission line process will be a long one, it will shadow us for at least the next couple years.  I will speak more on it after the required "public meeting" next week.  Until then - savor each moment left of summer!

High Summer

August is here and it feels like it. The humidity is like a curtain of water and the heat has been as I remember as a kid during summer. I used to spend all my free time during the summer exploring the countryside along the Des Moines river valley in NW Iowa looking for critters to take pictures of with my camera. I guess the only thing that's really changed is now I drive and don't have as much to carry at one time...oh, and I'm not nearly in as good of shape as I once was :)

I've always been attracted to scenes that evoked some sense of place or of unique design. Agricultural related scenes are always interesting. I've been trying to find some locations in the area to do some plein air paintings of for an upcoming plein air invitational, and one scene I'm really searching out is of summer bales. I'm a sucker for hay bales...not sure why. I was never very good at throwing bales onto the wagon as a kid. It was good short term money for doing it though and I did enjoy climbing around in haylofts! Most bales today are the "big" round ones and not so much like the old familiar rectangle bales I remember best.

July Bales, Evening Light - photograph
34X8" images size
Purchase

I got lucky a couple summers back and saw the perfect picture of a baling scene as I was driving home from the prairie south of here. It's pictured above. It reminded me so much of 40 some years ago, it was a great moment to find and a pleasure to revisit.

I wonder how Monet would have painted rectangular or round bales today, versus hay stacks?