Wishful thinking...

Bailey Harberg, Spring, 2013. Watercolor, gouache and pen and ink on paper, 5 1/2 x 7 1/2 in. 

This spring Denver has been a real bummer; we've had pretty ridiculous snowstorms every week since the beginning of April and I am ready to see some spring color out there! This morning I decided to put my frustration to paper. This was originally inspired by a watercolor painting by 19-20th-century Scottish artist/designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh who was a prominent figure in the Arts and Crafts movement and kind of the face of Art Nouveau in the UK. I love the quirky, organic feeling of his flower watercolors (probably because I'm a huge fan of Art Nouveau) and the fact that he leaves some areas unfinished. Definitely someone to keep in my inspiration boards...

Charles Rennie Mackintosh, Spurge, 1909. Watercolor and ink on paper. 

Pigeon 

Bailey Harberg, Street Species, 2013. Gouache and watercolor on paper, 24 x 18 in.

I had a lot of people asking me "Why are you drawing a pigeon?" when I started this. My response was, "Why not?" In my opinion, one of art's most important roles in society is to make people happy, and every time I look at this it makes me smile. After I finished it, as a trained art historian I realized that it probably has all sorts of other twenty-first century environmental and societal implications and that's all fine and good; I probably wouldn't disagree with any of those readings. What this really came down to for me was irony, flipping people's expectations about art upside down, and fun. The idea of glorifying such an everyday, mundane bird that no one normally looks twice at also appealed to me.  Still, I'm mainly putting this out into the world this morning because I want people to look at it and smirk because this little guy is pretty cute. 

Livin' life on the edge...

I got some great new watercolor paper that seemed like it was just blankly staring at me for awhile before I finally got up the courage to do something with it (click on the images below to enlarge) More on creative fears later...

Bailey Harberg, Life on the Edge, 2012. Acrylic and ink on paper, 30 x 22 1/4 in.

   

Life on the Edge detail

 

Life on the Edge detail