caballo del mar

Caballo del Mar is Spanish for Seahorse.

A student gives me this small seahorse that once belonged to her grandmother. She gives it to me because she says she knows I’ll paint it. Aimee is correct. I accept the precious object knowing I will complete an anatomy study.

The seahorse is a marine fish in the genus Hippocampus. Hippocampus comes from the Ancient Greek, hippo meaning horse and kampos meaning sea monster.

A few facts:

• These creatures have independently moving eyes.
• Their body is covered with consecutive rings of bony plates.
• Seahorses are fish. They use gills to breathe and have a swim bladder to help regulate their buoyancy. Note: they are not very good swimmers.
• They have no teeth and no stomach. Food moves through their digestive system quickly; they eat almost constantly to stay alive.
• The male gives birth, he carries the brood pouch.
• I believe, when I begin the composition, seahorses mate for life (which is why I paint two), and though they do form a bond, I learn for most, it is usually only through breeding season.

Seahorses were given international protection on May 15, 2004 (under CITES). Millions are now being traded around the world for many reasons including for their use in traditional Chinese medicine. There is also deterioration occurring in the Coral reefs and seagrass were they make their home. Learning this, I have to say, I’d feel even more saddness for them if they did mate for life.

I wish we could be better caretakers of all of life.

Here is the finished anatomy study of a female (facing left) and male (at bottom) seahorse. I place them in the Pacific Ocean, because they are found in warmer waters.

Thanks Aimee.

Caballos del Mar, Mixed Media collage, 12 x 12″

Seahorse’s symbolize:

• Patience
• Friendliness
• Protection
• Inflexibility
• Persistence
• Contentment

animal study / animal medicine

detail

Here are the last two small studies of an animal series, a vertebrate and an invertebrate.

The hummingbird is an animal with a backbone – more accurate – it has a well-developed internal skeleton.  Vertebrates have a complex body and for my work – make for an opaque focal point. The red In above detail represents muscle tissue, the white is bone.

The butterfly below – an invertebrate – has no back bone. Compared to my other work it seems more transparent. I’m surprised to learn 98% of animals are invertebrates. Other attributes: small and slow-moving, no back bone (no internal skeleton at all), and no cell walls.

…no cell walls!?

detail

This series of 4 (I’ve shown you 2 details in earlier posts)  are on panel. I laid in collage and carefully rendered shapes with graphite and casein. All these creatures are found in Arizona. And as the earlier post suggests, could have been found in my studio.  Each painting is finished with several coats of varnish.

These are for an invitational exhibition at Shemer – AZ MicroArt to coincIde with AZ MicroDwell (alternative spaces for simple living).

… now think animal medicine …
The hummingbird associated with guidance – is a light in the darkness. The butterfly supports transformation. Both connect to joy. The bee symbolizes work, community and communication. And the beetle surrenders to change, and is known for its adaptability.

Studying a Hercules Beetle
Bee Study

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3 sheets of prepared paper, 2 sides to each sheet – 1 bird, 4 cats and 1 rodent

“For thirty years people have been asking me how I reconcile X with Y! The truthful answer is that I don’t. Everything about me is a contradiction and so is everything about everybody else. We are made out of oppositions; we live between two poles. There is a philistine and an aesthete in all of us, and a murderer and a saint. You don’t reconcile the poles. You just recognize them.”    – Orson Welles (1915 – 1985)

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I never liked this first set of 2 cats that I painted. I thought them too sweet. Yesterday I was talking to a friend about polarities, after that conversation I knew exactly what I wanted to do to these small compositions that I was struggling with. It’s the same cat on the front and on the back, taking up the same area on the paper. Maybe I call it Two Sides to Every Story.

As of now, this first one is my favorite. It’s organic. It came to be, out of uncertainty. The cat itself is somewhat modeled after ROA’s work. I set up the skeleton in egg tempera and the cat in graphite, underneath is casein muscle structure. The background came about while I was trying to obliterate it.

mixed media – casein, graphite, gesso, egg tempera

early stage, casein under-paint

early stage, egg tempera

egg tempera

I guess I let go of the self-imposed set up, the idea of one side in pure casein and one side in pure egg tempera wasn’t working. I got another set of designs (below) and reworked them too. The graphite took so well to the prepared paper, how could I not use it. I brought in hard and soft pencils, an eraser, sand paper, a scratching tool, and gesso. And I mixed the casein and egg yolk. The cat above and the rat below, are pure and painterly egg temperas. But their other sides – mixed-media.

egg tempera

mixed media – casein, egg tempera, gesso and graphite

I began all this the first week of May after Carolyn brought me a sheet of prepared paper. The first 2 images in this post are that sheet, it’s the lightest in weight and the most flexible and was the most precious. I was going to paint cats – for the fun of it. Obviously I enjoyed the surface of the paper, and all the mediums. I pulled out all my longer and softer paintbrushes. I painted.

3 sheets of prepared paper – 1 bird, 4 cats and 1 rodent later, my studio is a mess. It’s too hot to have egg yolk lying around, it smells. I’m done for now with the experimenting, drawing a day or a week, thing. Time to pause, look – and reorganize.