This is a Great Time for Coloring Books!

      Have you finished all the puzzles in the house? If you have a garden, it's time to get out and do the spring yard and garden work, but there are still long evenings and rainy days inside while Covid19 prevention distancing is in place. If you don't have a garden, and can't face re-doing all those puzzles again, maybe this is a good time to try something new. Coloring books re-appeared in the past few years, adults realizing they could have more fun with them than they had as children.

          Coloring books are, to me, art for those who think they are not artists. Coloring books give you the opportunity to play with one part of a picture-the colors, without having to think about design or drawing skills. There is no wrong way to color. Just look at children's work; each child's art is different. Look at art in a gallery or museum; the variety of art is endless, different people like one style or another and it is hard to say one type of art is 'better' than another. Each is good enough in its own way. 

      Once in a while someone has said to me, "I don't know how to color". That may  be true, and that is a good place to start. Many artists struggle to find the spontaneous, unconscious play with color that they had as a child. If you are in that state, with a coloring book in hand, you can consider yourself lucky! Picasso said, "It took me.....a lifetime to paint like a child." He was speaking of the sense of exploration and play a child has making 'art'.

Sandhill Cranes drawing from Nature's Colors

     Coloring books are for children, so when adults use them we are doing something child-like.

Coloring books free us from needing technical skills that take time and effort to develop, and give us the opportunity to play with color within a form we recognize.

Sandhill Cranes experiment with watercolor pencils and markers-unfinished

          In the above image, I've partially complete coloring the picture with watercolor pencils and fine point markers. Pick a color, any color! and start putting color on the page, anywhere. If you've put color on the grass, make at least half the grass that color. Then, pick another color and color the rest of the grass. Any color will do. Continue doing this until all the page is colored. That's one way to get the color on the page. Make no judgement until the page is completely colored. Then, the only question is: do I like this? If yes, or not sure, that's great! If you don't like it, start the next page by choosing all warm or all cool colors and use only those colors. Warm colors are red, yellow, orange, browns. Cool colors are blues and greens. Decide when the page is colored if you like the way it looks. The fun of it is, it is all learning and, as children know, it doesn't matter what happens with one picture, you are on to the next, just to see what happens.

   Here is something different to try in a coloring book; a pen and ink drawing.

     Do you doodle or scribble? That's really what this is. Follow the lines for each shape. Use one ink pen, any color ink.

The next page, ready to work on

Nature's Colors page done in pen and ink

     So remember, any colors are ok; markers, pencils, ink. Any combination of colors is ok too.

These coloring books are printed on heavy stock meant to be used for any medium that isn't too wet.

    Need a coloring book? Check out my etsy site for coloring books with hand drawn illustrations.

No computer generated image here! Scenes of plants, animals and scenery from the hills of the midwest, and some interesting information about each drawing. If you like horses, you'll love

A Day With the Horses, my coloring book illustrating some of the horses I have known, pictured in the places they live. This book has information about how horses live in a natural state, and what they do with their days and nights. And, coloring books are specially priced for social isolating times!

    Thanks for stopping by this blog. Please share with your friends.

      

Painting and Paddling the Kickapoo River

   Now that the flood waters have receded and the mud has settled, the Kickapoo runs clear. A few days ago I was thinking that there was only one day of paddling for me this year. Thinking of paddling inspired a look at photos I'd taken of the river, between Bridges 8 and 14. Each time the river is different. My favorite time to be on the water is just at daylight or as twilight turns to night.

Moonlight on the Kickapoo

   My favorite paddling trips were done for 'bat monitoring'. A full moon night, a flat bottom boat, the amazing and wonderful Bat Monitor ( which gives us both the bat calls in a frequency humans can hear, and a visual pattern of their calls) and a few friends with canoes floating into the magical dark tunnel carried us into a river journey hard to imagine during daylight hours.

   The water was dark, the banks were black, the cliffs were empty vaults of anything we could imagine. Then we would round a bend in the river and the rising moon poured liquid white light into everything that was a moment ago invisible in darkness. One moment we could see nothing but blackness, the next, nothing but light.

   Each time we followed the river's bends into and away from the direction of the moon, we glided from total dark to blinding light.

   During the day, light and how it plays on water and rock, leaf and sand, is much of what I notice when on the river. But color instead of dark and light contrast are daytime's priorities. The cliffs along the river are amazing for the variations in color. Moss and lichen are the most of the source of colors, and they change all the time. One day brilliant red and green covers a large flat cliff close to the water, but later that will be all gone. The colors will be muted greys, browns and greens.

   Here is my November meditation on our beautiful Kickapoo river cliffs. The blues are lichen on the rock; that's really their color.

Near Bridge 8  Acrylic on canvas 9" x 12"

   Now that winter is here, the ice caves are forming and the valley's water puts on a different display, silver, white, grey, making a different world than water makes in the summer. It's fun to go outside and watch the ice form, then come inside and paint the greens, blues and reds of summer.

   Please share this blog if you've enjoyed visiting. Thanks!

   Wishing you happy trails in the Kickapoo Valley Reserve, all year round.

Susan

The Old Road - A Last Look

   The Old Road-Walking Into Beauty will be on display at the Kickapoo Valley Reserve through Friday, May 4th.  Take a leisurely walk through the exhibit to see the paintings and poetry, (and don't forget to check out The Old Road book, in the gift shop) then enjoy the burst of spring flowers along The Old Road itself (Old 131 Trail). This trail is always open, so even if the other trails are too wet from all the rain this week, the birds and flowers and more will be easy to see along this paved trail.

Map of The Old Road

   Many birds are here now, and every day more are coming in for a rest or to stay for the summer. The Old Road takes you to the ponds, marshes, fields and woodlands of the KVR. This may be the best place to see the most variety of birds.

A Morning Walk

   After our exhibit leaves the KVR, it will be shown again later in the summer and fall in La Crosse,

West Salem and Viroqua. We hope to see you again!

Susan and Joanne

Warner Creek Winter Reflections

   Warner Creek flows south along a rock wall that catches light only in the mornings. The low angle of winter light makes beautiful reflections along the cliff at this time of year. When the trees are leafy, the area is very shady but in winter it is bright and full of color.
   This pastel was started a while ago but I knew it had some problems. After Christmas several unfinished pastels, or ones that I was just not happy with, were taken out, set up where I could look them over and get comments from others as they walked by, and maybe finish. This was one of them.

   The dark areas need some softening. The reflections in the water and beautiful colors in the snow shadows were the reasons I was interested in the scene. The dark cliffs were distracting and the trees were a bit stark. A few careful changes brought it to a place I'm more happy with.

The trees, cliff and bridge are not competing with the water at this point. I might try this scene in oils and see what happens. The exposure on each of these photos is slightly different. Improving my photography skills is on the 'to do' list!