~KOS Art Expo:
A Labor Day Museum of the Beautiful
and the Curious~
'As imperceptibly as Grief
The Summer lapsed away'
—Emily Dickinson
When The Hawk Has Finished
l love to see them by the Lake, on my daily walks.
But I don’t want them in my backyard, anymore, the relentless hawks.
The little birds eat bugs; some even eat slugs!
The hawk consumes the helpless, a raptor obsessed
The yard size has not changed, but has diminished.
When the hawk has finished.
I’d seen the flickering shadow on the ground
As it circled around,
backlit by a summer sun,
every afternoon, as predictable as the moon.
It always watched. Some times I saw it, sometimes not,
Peering down from on top a Pine knot.
Red-Tail? Sharp shinned? Cooper’s? I don’t care.
They didn’t fight fair.
-6412093
"The sun shown through the russet and tawny and cream of what seemed to be a feathered explosion in the robin’s nest. I watched from a few feet away, with only enough time to lift a hand.
Two Robin sentinels sped to the scene but the hawk’s powerful wingstrokes carried it, with two baby robins, into the sanctuary of a nearby giant Sequoia Redwood, where the progeny of the robin became biomass for the hawk’s own chicks"
Hearing aids cost more than fine jewelry-
I'm too afraid to lose them to wear them
I could wear emeralds and be half deaf.
I lost a phone permanently
I kept calling it hoping to hear it ring under the car seat,
and it finally faded-
like a stranded astronaut
-6412093
'As the Days get shorter'
"Who killed Cock Robin?"
According to Celtic traditions, Lugh, the sun god who dies as the nights get longer after the summer solstice
is marked in the old Celtic pictographic calendar with a bow-and-arrow shape. Lugh was the primary god representing the red sun and was also known in Welsh as “Coch Rhi Ben,” anglicised to “Cock Robin” (coch meaning red and ben meaning leader – a nod to the belief that souls became birds after death). The sparrow who kills him with “my bow and arrow” represents Brân the Blessed – the god of winter in the form of a raven.en.m.wikipedia.org/...
Old British folk song "Who killed Cock Robin?"
The Bats
Dusk floats softly, down from somewhere....
Shadows begin
They drift from the day-trees
Rising higher, over the fields
Bats- like thoughts, pour by above me
Hunting like a cloud
A perfect storm of darkness,
winging by upon my sight
(For Lori)
-Angmar
A PAINTING BY TROT
Title: Church and Courthouse, 8 x 10, Oil on Canvas
This small oil is of the view from a Sedona, Arizona church courtyard of the massive rock formation known as Courthouse Butte. Sedona is a mecca for artists. Small wonder with such natural inspiration everywhere.
A POEM AND IMAGE BY michelewln:
Reflections of a Clown
I've seen them happy and sad,
Some joyful, some mad,
Riding the carousel horse to the moon.
As the calliope sings,
Some reach for the rings,
While others cry it is over too soon.
Some people laugh at the clowns,
And some people frown,
Waiting for the entertainment to begin.
Some people go on the rides,
And others will hide,
Missing all the happiness they bring.
Behind my painted smile
Sometimes there lurks a tear.
I see them for a while
And want to ease their fears.
I want them happy as can be,
With their hearts soaring free.
Away among the clouds,
Joyful and proud,
For a moment to be
A clown like me.
I watch the children's faces,
As the lion paces,
Wishing they could be in the cage with him.
I watch some parent's faces,
Frowning without grace,
Too impatient for the show to begin.
When I see a child cry,
Something inside dies,
And I want to make their tears go away.
When I see a grownup scowl,
I give them my smiles,
To try & make them laugh their cares away.
Behind my painted smile
Sometimes there lurks a tear.
I see them for a while
And want to ease their fears.
I want them happy as can be,
With their hearts soaring free.
Away among the clouds,
Joyful and proud,
For a moment to be
A clown like me.
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Colored Pencil Drawings by composernan
In Santa Fe, NM, I began a course called "Drawing On The Right Side Of The Brain," which uses neurological research to discover how the brain of an artist "sees." My first efforts were childlike, clumsy -- "stick figures." After 16 weeks, it got better. I found, as instructed, that layering the colors made sections deeper and more like oil-paintings.
My first still-life of the egg, bowl and pitcher drew on my desire to draw "cloth" as realistically as I could. Our teacher insisted on our drawing eggs to capture the tactile sense of light and shadow. Same for the pitcher and bowl. We were to use two opposing pastel colors. The second still-life of pears and pomegranate seeds was a copy of a magazine illustration. The most intriguing part was drawing all the seeds, but also making the pears look inviting and edible.
The copy of Renoir's "Mademoiselle Romaine Lacaux" came from my long-held admiration for this portrait, which I first viewed at the age of 10 at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Every visit there drew me to this portrait of a young girl's calm self-possession and steady gaze. (My version makes her look more mature. The original portrays someone who looks to be around 9 or 10 years of age.)
A new portrait by GlastoSara
This portrait was a challenge for me in a lot of ways: I'd only ever done portraits of mythical and historical characters, usually working from ancient sources & my imagination. I'd occasionally had suggestions for further historical ones, but (except for the odd sketch) I'd never done a portrait of a living person, let alone been "commissioned" to do one by someone who knew them. I'd never done a portrait of a person of color, and needed to get that right.
I chose to work from this photo:
because I liked the expression and because, frankly, I've always found full-frontal wide smiles with lots of teeth too difficult! As always, I printed it in black & white to work from. It wasn't easy, and I almost gave up on it after the first session, but then he started looking back at me & his smile broadened a bit, and after that it was OK! (so I'm told). Portraits are like that.
Pen and Ink, and a Watercolor, by Nolana
First, apologies for the quality of the photographs.
The first is a P&I titled Standing Stones, which I did in 2002. My source was a photo in a newspaper article about the small ring of standing stones on a hilltop in Heath, Massachusetts. I used a Koh-i-Noor Rapidograph technical pen with 2 nibs — a .25mm and a .18mm. This took me about two months to complete.
Here a couple of close-ups, as the detail is not apparent in the photo above:
Another kind of P&I that I do is more whimsical, but I think they’re pretty cool, all the same. These drawing started out as doodles in a sketch book, but I refined them into actual artworks into which I put a lot of effort. I call them “E Pluribus” drawings, and I have done E Pluribus Fish and E Pluribus Butterfly and E Pluribus Rudbeckia, among others, using various size nibs of my favorite Rapidograph pens. The example here is E Pluribus Still Life.
Here’s a detail:
I like doing these. I never quite know what they will turn out to look like when I am starting one.
My last contribution is a watercolor, Thornapples and Crabapples. There’s nothing much else to say about it… I liked the colors and patterns on the fruits. The most difficult part of creating this is that my models kept rolling away on my tilted drawing table.
A Compendium of Coasters by MEL in PGH
Here is a delightful collection of porcelain tile coasters using several different design techniques and glaze combinations. I often make coaster sets as “testers” for new glazing and finishing ideas. I have produced several different coaster sets with many different glaze and recycled colored glass combinations. Three of them are featured here. All coaster sets are available for purchase and come with either a wood or metal (exchangeable) holder.
Photography
The Olympic Peninsula wilderness beaches in the Pacific Northwest have always been an annual treat for us, an immersion into wild and peaceful nature. The ocean shore is a dynamic meeting of land and sea and life and sky, different every time. This year we can’t go, due to Covid restrictions. These are a few photos I took on previous visits, where nature was my aesthetic inspiration. — OceanDiver
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Music as Fine Art by GAS
In 2000 while on a national tour with a broadway musical for three years, I started a series of multi-track recordings later titled Pronography of which “Prono” is the title track. It began its production on a four track cassette and was transferred to ProTools for additional tracks, The French horns were added in Charleston, SC, the other tracks were added with the assistance of my “band mates” the harmon mute trumpet in Providence, RI, and the soprano sax in Louisville, KY.
Title: Prono, (with James de la Garza, trumpet, Dan Heasley, soprano sax, GAS on horns, guitars, bass and drum machine)
A Liner Pen Sketch by Marko the Werelynx
Finally had a chance to sit down in a park a week or so ago and draw something. The park surrounded the chateau at Valeč, a town in the Czech Republic and the subject matter of my scribbling were several statues by Baroque master Matyáš Bernard Braun. There are pieces from his studio all over this country. I try to carry at least a small sketchbook and a pen with me wherever I go, but rarely do I actually sketch anything these days. It’s so easy to fall out of the routine, stop practicing, and I’m often amazed at how quickly my skills deteriorate from neglect. — MtW
Toad Season
Toad season is here
Late August nights-
Humidity hangs like a cloud, damp and thick
Distant thunderstorms blow by,
Leaving puddles and pools
Toads pop out in darkness, jumping everywhere
Then hop off
On toady business
-Angmar
"And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun."