Holiday Party and Art Open House
Sunday, Dec. 22 4 – 7 PM
Piedmont, California
Hello Art Patrons,
I’ve finally hung most of my botanicals throughout the house and I’d like you to see them. I’m having an art Open House and Holiday Party next Sunday from 4-7 pm. Besides the art, there will be Grandma’s fudge and homemade cookies. There will certainly be cocktails, beer and wine for the holiday weary. My studio table will be full of botanical gifts: aprons, wrapping paper, playing cards, note cards–our newest group project is a floral tote bag on black background. Stunning! I have a half-dozen Bug Hotels looking for a home plus framed or unframed prints for those who like to frame their own. Please join me and bring your friends and relatives.
Many of you ask about the evolution of a painting. It’s always in flux. My Coastal Redwood project has been evolving since June when my friend gave me a Turkey Tail Mushroom embedded with redwood twigs from her garden in Ben Lomand. I drew the mushroom on tracing paper, then began the watercolor on paper of a redwood branch with small green pinecones because the background was to be red bark. One pinecone from a neighboring tree was not a Coast Redwood after-all, rather a deciduous Dawn Redwood. I had to scrub that perfect green cone from the paper and paint a botanically correct Coast Redwood cone over it. At that point, I decided against using a bark background after discovering a ‘tree ring ink print’ video on YouTube. Smitten, I bought a few redwood trunk slices from a firewood source and borrowed a sander and blowtorch from the Tool Library. My teacher and classmates stopped me after sanding but before a blowtorch fiasco (meant to burn the softwood and raise the rings). They convinced me to try colored pencil and make a rubbing instead, painting around the redwood branch. I had to trace all the rings three times, and my tree was 52 rings old—but who’s counting? It turns out a colored pencil is fun and quite versatile. Then I decided to transfer the mushroom only using shades of graphite. New to me as well, graphite was the most fun of all. So this piece has overlapping watercolor, colored pencil and graphite as its medium. To see the final work you’ll have to come to my Open House next Sunday because it’s currently getting scanned by my fine art printer. I hope it will also be juried into the Golden Gate Park 150 Year Celebration exhibit in Spring, and the Mt.Tamalpias Florilegium project in Fall. Meanwhile, the work will be shown at Berkeley Botanical Garden’s Rare and Endangered exhibit Jan 17- Feb 5.
11th Annual Plants Illustrated
“Rare and Endangered Plants of the World”
Berkeley Botanical Gardens
200 Centennial Dr.
Berkeley, CA
www.botanicalgarden.berkeley.edu
Jan 17- Feb 5 2019 (closed Jan 20-21, Feb 4)
Artists’ Reception Jan 18, 4-6 pm (RSVP for Free Garden Entry)
Garden Club of America Flower Show
Claremont Country Club on April 15-17.
Piedmont Garden Club is hosting this 201 club national event and I’ve been asked to share my Bug Hotels and Botanical Art.
It is free and open to the public.
Be sure to visit Rocky’s Market in Leimert off Park Blvd in Oakland to see my botanicals hung on the wall and pick up last-minute note cards. And I still plan to blowtorch that redwood slice and make ink prints. I’ll let you know.
Yours,
Bonnie Bonner
a.k.a. Joanne Palamountain