Saturday, March 16, 2013

WALNUT INK AND WATERCOLOR


Instead of using the black India ink, I used Daniel Smith's Walnut ink.  It's not as waterproof but it worked out for this one.  Chose some different pictographs from postcards of the southwest rock art.  Had to add the bird - which I think it an owl?  Maybe.  The character on the bottom right seems to be a snake charmer - that's a snake above his head - but maybe he's just dreaming about a snake...

This will be the last one of these I do.  I may still do a few small landscape studies as I still need to learn how to manipulate the India ink (without it manipulating me!).

Have a great weekend.  It's going to be warm and rainy here.

7 comments:

Unknown said...

I admire your creativity and your adventurous attitude with the inks and the gesso. That's how new techniques are born, when brave artists like you start to experiment! These pieces are very intriguing and tell wonderful stories to ignite one's imagination!

Autumn Leaves said...

Nice work, Rhonda! All mediums manipulate me so you are a step ahead of me! LOL

RH Carpenter said...

Thanks so much, Katherine. You are giving me way too much credit for just playing with materials, though! ha ha

Sherry, thanks - and, yes, sometimes the materials manipulate us more than we'd like!

Laura said...

Rhonda you and Maggie are inspiring me to have a little go with ink. I love your confidence to try new things.

http://carolking.wordpress.com said...

I really like the walnut ink. And I'm with Crimson Leaves. All mediums manipulate me too. You're way ahead of all of us.

Watercolors by Susan Roper said...

Rhonda, I have painted many petroglyph and pictograph paintings without knowing exactly what I was painting. I painted this "snake charmer" glyph and had it in an art sale/show. A lady who had gone on many archeological digs in the Southwest stopped by and admired the glyph paintings. She told me of one of the digs where this snake charmer glyph was found. She said it is near Moab, UT and it was done by the Fremont people.

I asked her about the glyphs on either side of this guy, they looked like stringy things coming down off of circles. She said that they had done DNA testing of what was remaining in the cook pots at the site and the remains were human! So, this was a shaman and the circular things with the strings were heads! Who knew! I was just appalled and decided to not sell it to anyone.

This is probably TMI for you, but I thought you might be interested in this "snake charmer". As I paint these characters, I am now even more interested in what they mean after hearing this story.

RH Carpenter said...

Thanks, Laura :) Maggie inspired me, I pass it on! That's what this art journey is all about.

Thanks, Carol :)

Susan, not TMI - interesting stuff and this does come from the Moab, Utah area! So the Freemont people are cannibalistic - I wonder if that happened all the time or just in time of starvation (meaning, maybe they didn't actually kill their relations but they died and they used what they could to survive?) Kind of yucky but one never knows about the hardships of life in the past.