Silhouette Girl: Sheltering Rabbits

"Sheltering Girl," 2020. Acrylic, tissue paper, mulberry paper, sheet music, modeling paste, ink, and glue on canvas, 24"x36". Inspired by "Field of Sunflowers" by Christine Sarjan Cohen, 1996. 

Today I'm sharing one of the pieces I made last year that, after beginning with a slow burn, very quickly burst into a fire of inspiration. In March 2020 I shared a bunch of progress photos of this piece, with my thoughts on fear and Covid-19. I promised an update on this piece and this post has been chilling in my blog drafts for waaaay too long. Wait no more, my friends!

For a long time, every time I chatted with my work friend, LT, I found myself studying this old art print hanging in her office. It was probably hanging there for at least a decade, long before that office became hers. It didn’t belong to her and she didn’t care for it, she just never bothered to take it down. 

It was this innocuous print of a 1996 painting called Field of Sunflowers by Christine Sarjan Cohen. Unfortunately I couldn't find her or the painting online, so I don't have anything more to share about her, but she deserves loads of credit for the collage I'm about to share with you. If you know anything about her or this painting, please comment and share what you know!

The more I looked at that faded old print, the more I felt it—the dreamlike intertwining of flowers and rabbits, the feeling of a windy spring day, the watercolor-softness...

One day another coworker brought in some colorful abstract paintings to brighten things up in the office. As we talked about the art, I glanced over at the flowers and bunnies on Lt’s wall and asked if I could take it for a collage. She was all for it.

I lifted the 24”x36” poster frame from the wall and felt a rushing spring wind in my hands—this would finally become the collage I’d had slowly building in my mind for months.

Less than a week later, on the Monday after the Super Bowl, I was at work again and the full image came to me—the sunflowers and bunnies, the rushing wind, and my personal favorite touch—Silhouette Girl. The rest of that morning I brainstormed poses for Silhouette Girl, envisioned the size of the canvas, and made mental lists of the media I’d use in this collage… paint, pen and ink, different kinds of paper, maybe even oil pastels… I’d been looking for the right piece to bring Silhouette Girl into a collage, but it never quite felt right… This one felt exactly right. During my lunch break I rushed off to buy a big ol' canvas.

Detail from my collage, showing my tiny rabbits
at the bottom of the painting. On a collage this
big, these little guys are just an inch or so tall!

Recently a friend and I had gone to an art gallery and were interested by a wall covered in a series of multicolored abstract 8x10 rabbit paintings. (Spoiler alert: that "friend" became my husband! That visit to the gallery was our first date!). The gallery director came over and told us more about Hunt Slonem, a super-successful contemporary artist, and his many bunny paintings.

Between Slonem’s colorful rabbits and the dreamy rabbits racing through the Cohen print, I guess I had rabbits on my mind. I don’t have any strong feelings for rabbits; I don’t love them and I don’t hate them. I had a couple of pet rabbits as a child, but I’ve always preferred horses and dogs. However, I do love what rabbits commonly represent: peace and innocence.

I had been working on a writing project (more on that later!) focusing on the value and delicacy of innocence. I've long felt like the media and internet are constantly inundating me with calls to fight, to clapback, to rant and rage, to post snarky comments and retweet angry woke threads. I feel as if society wants me to be prickly and harsh and cleverly destructive. 

I don't like that. 

In Beyond Good and Evil, Friedrich Nietzsche writes, "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster." That quote often comes to my mind. It's impossible to make the world a better place through nastiness, rage, and destruction. You'll just become a part of the very thing you were against. 

Don’t get me wrong—I have a temper! I get angry, I rant and rage. Just ask my parents! But after a childhood of fighting tooth and nail when I didn’t like something, I eventually learned that outward-facing anger isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Sometimes quiet anger is better. Sometimes—maybe most times—it’s better to channel anger into kindness.

My friend Hannah sent me this screengrab of a tumblr post a while back which said being kind is an act of rebellion, of subverting the prevailing culture… being kind is punk. 

As a fan of punk-rock and emo music, I loved this idea a lot. I loved it so much I still think about it several years later. I loved it so much I made a cross-stitch that reads “kindness is punk,” in fierce red and white thread on black cloth.

I think the most important lesson I’ve learned in my 26 years of life is that you can be both strong and gentle, angry and kind, powerful and peaceful, furious and hopeful. This is the message I’m trying to shape myself around, and the theme I’ve tried to cultivate throughout my work, especially with Silhouette Girl. Which brings me back to the Cohen print and the collage...

Of course, I couldn’t help thinking of innocence when I looked at Slonem’s colorful bunnies in that gallery. They're cute little colorful rabbits, after all. 

]It felt so natural to take these thoughts of peace and kindness, embrace the rabbits in the Cohen print and the Slonem bunnies I'd so enjoyed at the gallery, and then place my Silhouette Girl in the middle of everything. Silhouette Girl is our reigning champion of innocence and peace, after all!

This was taken after gluing down the first few couple layers
of paper. Recognize the pieces I cut from the art print?

I started my work by examining the soft watercolor shapes in Field of Sunflowers and finding some of the natural lines along which I could cut. 

When I had a basic plan, I set to work with my scissors! For the main flowers and rabbits I followed the existing lines of petals and stems and bodies, but I went a little more loosely with the abstract bits, cutting along changes in color or vague lines to create irregular pieces. 

Continuing to build up layers of paint and paper... 

Once done, I rearranged the flowers and rabbits where I wanted them and placed the irregular bits like puzzle pieces to hold everything together.

As a kid I used to be obsessed with jigsaw puzzles. Not to brag, but I’m still really good at them, I just don’t have the time anymore. Instead of piecing together the edges first, I’ve always liked to work in sections by color and pattern. 

Arranging a collage is a lot like piecing together a puzzle, but instead of a box lid with the picture, I figure out in my mind what I hope to end up with. 

Hope is the key word there—there’s no guarantee that the final artwork will look how I planned! The way the materials interact with one another and with the glue, the varying opaqueness of different materials, and how the precise arrangements come together always affect the result.

By the end, what I’ve made is usually pretty different from what I’d envisioned, but I’m almost always happier with the actual result. If I’m not, it just means the piece isn’t finished.

In this collage, I definitely wanted to broaden the values found in Field of Sunflowers. I’m a fan of high-contrast images; scenes with dark shadows and bright lights. Field of Sunflowers is soft and contains mostly light and medium values. I want my work to better reflect life, with its deep shadows accentuating wonderful highlights.

Almost done... 

With all the cut-paper in place, I went in with my additions—lots of dark red and navy blue, and some pastel pink, blue, and yellow. To these I added torn sheet music in white and off-white.

The result after my first session of work was a rather chaotic and disjointed beginning. I was eager to bring in more paper, some paint, and other materials to start turning this into a cohesive image that looked like it all belonged together! I love that about collage—the process of taking all these separate pieces and combining them into one beautiful image.

Check out that modeling paste in action!

I had been learning a lot about accessibility in art and design, especially tactile art, and wanted to make something super-textural, so I bought a big tube of modeling paste, a painting material that's sort of paint-meets-clay. It's thick and holds whatever shape or texture give it, so it was perfect for painting over the flower petals and stalks so that the flowers were literally stand out from the canvas. It was my goal that if a blind person were to touch the collage, they could identify the flower shapes. 

My final challenge was figuring out what Silhouette Girl would be doing.

In keeping with the accessibility of the tactile flowers, I also wanted a nod to my beloved Deaf community. I considered different signs she could be making... protect, peace, hope, kindness...

The brainstorm Post-its I made while at work...

Of course, it's impossible to capture most signs in a single image. Sign language is about movement! But there are a few signs that can be captured in a still. The well-known "I love you" handshape is one of them. "Shelter" is another. The sign is made by holding one hand flat and moving your other hand downward from your mouth to "take shelter" under the flat hand. 

So I painted Silhouette Girl signing "shelter" above her head, loud and proud, defending the innocent bunnies at her feet from the big, turbulent, bad world around them. 

Maybe I was also a bit inspired by the shelter-in-place orders beginning to take effect around the world, as Covid-19 swept through and totally altered life as we know it. We all wished for some sort of shelter safe from the virus, the chaos, and the uncertainty. A shelter fully stocked with toilet paper, of course. A shelter from the social and political unrest, the police brutality, the misinformation and selfishness.

The final collage is hanging on the wall by my dining table. It was the first piece I hung in my apartment. I want this collage, with its themes of kindness, innocence, and shelter from the world's brutality, accessible and welcoming to all, to set the tone for my daily life. Of course I mess up... I'm often unkind, brusque, or unwelcoming. I yell at other drivers and get annoyed with my siblings and get impatient with my husband. But this collage has become my prayer and my goal. I hope it becomes your goal, as well. 

-Cailey

Franz Marc, Laurel Burch, and Me

Franz Marc, Blaues Pferd I (Blue Horse I ), 1911

Another blog post, another note about forgetting to publish this when I drafted it, almost a year ago... I know, my blunder is old news.

Don't worry, we're almost through this old batch about last year's Silhouette Girl and the Moonhorse project. I just couldn't allow myself to trash all this content, even if it's old. I really love sharing my inspiration with you. Please stay with me just a little longer?

I'm still embarrassed, but I take great comfort in the fact that you're still here, reading all this. I appreciate the support, more than you know!

I promise, new content will come soon. I've got some really exciting things headed your way... more art, more poetry, more everything. In the meantime...

Franz Marc rocks.

Not sure who he is? No worries! I'm going to talking about him today so if you're curious, keep reading. If you're not curious, well... I really hope you keep reading anyway?

Laurel Burch, "Indigo Mares"

Okay, back to Franz Marc. Franz Marc painted lots of subjects, but he was especially fond of animals, and of all the animals, he painted horses the most. As one who has grown up with a love for horses, I can't help thinking of Franz Marc as "the blue horse guy".

Growing up, I tended to prefer realism. As my appreciation for expressionism has grown, so has my enjoyment of Marc and his colorful cubist critters.

Nevertheless, there's a connection which didn't occur to me until I opened this old blog draft. I was preparing a basic piece on Marc and his animals, but I realized that Marc and I seem to have something in common... And we're not alone.

Enter Laurel Burch!

In one fell 16-page swoop starring a blue horse, I managed to accidentally echo both Franz Marc and Laurel Burch.

I would be mad if they both weren't so great!

Detail, "Meeting," Silhouette Girl and the Moonhorse.
Watercolor, gouache, ink, and mulberry paper on paper
cloth. March 2019.

Oops, did I say that? Yes, I'm also a Laurel Burch fan! Not the cats; I'm not a cat person, but I'm all over her horses. Her use of colors and shapes is gorgeous.

Between the two of them, Marc and Burch managed to capture animals in entirely new ways, using vibrant colors, shapes, and patterns. They both favored cats and horses and created dynamic compositions with them.

They also both felt strongly about the meaning of art and the feelings they could evoke with their paintings.

"Today we are searching for things in nature that are hidden behind the veil of appearance... We look for and paint this inner, spiritual side of nature."
- Franz Marc

Franz Marc, Wassily Kandinsky, and some of their avant-garde friends formed an organization called Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider) in 1911.

This group was deeply interested in spiritual meaning within art. Their mission was to get away from the long-standing art traditions and returning to a raw, primal, spiritually meaningful art. They were deeply invested in symbolism and spiritual representation in art. Kind of a kooky bunch in my opinion, but we all have different beliefs. I won't fault them for being a little kooky.

Cover of Der Blaue Reiter. Design by Wassily 
Kandinsky, 1912.

In 1912 Der Blaue Reiter published a journal of essays by the artists and almost 150 reproductions of primitive, children's, and folk art.

Marc, like many influential artists, had some traditional art training early on. He fell in love with the work of Vincent van Gogh, and left art school in favor of developing his skills alongside other avant-garde artists.

As Der Blaue Reiter focused more and more on the spiritual meanings of color and form, their work continued to drift more and more toward cubism and the abstract, leaving their traditional art education behind.

The start of WWI brought an end to The Blue Rider organization and publication. Franz Marc was drafted into the German cavalry and killed in battle in 1916.

However, Marc and Kandinsky sparked something that lasted far longer. Der Blaue Reiter led the way for the Abstract Expressionists, 20th century "modern artists" like Jackson Pollock, Willem de Kooning, and Mark Rothko.

"My paintings are the most intimate portrayals of all that is precious to me, my greatest joy is to offer them in forms that enhance and brighten the lives of kindred spirits all around the globe."
- Laurel Burch

Like Franz Marc, Laurel Burch felt strongly about the meaning in her art. She used color and form as tools for spreading joy, building her career on that mission. Whereas Marc and Kandinsky were focused on the spiritual and mystical, Burch's focus was on the mythical and fantastical, creating images of cats, butterflies, horses, and other animals in sparkling jewel tones and geometric designs, ignoring fashion trends and instead drawing influences from folk art and her imagination.

Laurel Burch started out as a young single mother making jewelry to sell in shops in San Francisco, but quickly outgrew her humble beginning. She made jewelry, painted, and experimented with many art and craft techniques.

Laurel Burch with one her numerous cat paintings

Burch had a bone disease, osteopetrosis ("stone bone") and passed away in 2007 due to complications from that. Her bones were very hard and brittle, and she broke over 100 bones in her life. She knew pain, and strove to outweigh her pain with vibrant, joyful art.

Like Marc and the artists of Der Blaue Reiter, Laurel Burch's influence went beyond simply painting. Burch was something of a pioneer— she was one of the first Americans to partner with Chinese manufacturers, in the early 70s when China was generally considered a closed market. Burch stood up for the integrity of her work, politely but firmly insisting that every product reproduce her images exactly, with no change or interpretation.

Burch's colorful, fun-loving art and her mind for business led to a worldwide market, expanding to license numerous companies to create products using her original artwork. She made her art accessible to all, with everyday products like jewelry, accessories, and clothing, sold at inexpensive prices. Laurel Burch, Inc. virtually exploded in the 80s and 90s, and is still known and loved today, especially among cat-lovers.

Am I breaking some rule by comparing Franz Marc and Laurel Burch?

Did an art critic somewhere in New York, London, or Paris just start inexplicably crying?

I really don't know, and that's the thing about the art world. I've barely dipped my toe in with a few art shows and that awesome RAW: Columbus experience, but from the outside I see so many unspoken, unwritten rules. So many "shoulds."

As a child I fell in love with Norman Rockwell's paintings, and as a teen I discovered that many artists and critics claim he was "only an illustrator" or "only a cover designer." Apparently he didn't count as a a "real artist"...whatever that means.

Detail, "The Dance," from Silhouette Girl and the
Moonhorse. Watercolor, gouache, ink, and mulberry
paper on paper cloth. March 2019.

As if being an illustrator or a designer is somehow not being an artist? Somehow, I don't see the logic there...

For a long time I grudgingly believed that pretentious, long-held, harmful idea that if an artist is not devoted to making it in the fine art world of galleries and agents, cocktail dresses and auctions, they don't belong. Grudgingly, because I don't like the idea of being boxed into that role.

Finally I found my mistake, and suddenly I felt free to have an Etsy shop and design on Redbubble, and still call myself a serious artist.

I had spent so long wanting to "be an artist" as if that were a dream job to work toward, not realizing that I was an artist simply because I made art!

I now believe the purpose of art is to build bridges and bring people together, not divide them. Art is meant to open the eyes of those who cause hurt, and to heal those who are hurting.

Whether the artist is Franz Marc, Laurel Burch, Norman Rockwell, Leonard da Vinci, whoever - our art exists to try to bridge the gaps between all of us.

I believe that when two people who are otherwise opposite—upbringing, nationality, age, religion, class, education, values—become lost in the same painting, feeling the same emotions, longing for the same things, utterly eclipsed by a single painting, song, book, or movie... that is why we make art.

-Cailey

Some sources on Franz Marc, Der Blaue Reiter, and Laurel Burch:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Marc

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_Blaue_Reiter

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Der-Blaue-Reiter

https://www.theartstory.org/movement-der-blaue-reiter-history-and-concepts.htm
https://www.nytimes.com/2007/09/20/arts/20burch.html

https://colorfulcritters.com/whowaslaurelburch.aspx

https://www.wikiart.org/en/laurel-burch

Silhouette Girl and the Moonhorse, Part 2: The Finished Sketchbook

Silhouette Girl and the Moonhorse Cover

Hey all. Last week I finished a book for The Sketchbook Project!

The Sketchbook Project is a collection of mini sketchbooks housed in the Brooklyn Art Library. Artists from all over the world can order a sketchbook, fill it with art, and mail it back to join the permanent collection.

I was just notified that my sketchbook has been delivered safe and sound in Brooklyn! Thank you, USPS, for taking care of my baby. Pretty soon it will go on a short tour around the country with the other 2019 sketchbooks before returning to its new home on the shelves of the art library.

In my previous post, I walked you all through some of the decisions and artistic process for my sketchbook.

What started as a plan for 16 pages of black and white ink drawings turned into a book of 8 full-color watercolor and ink illustrations. Each page also has includes a stanza of a poem telling the story.

Today I'll finally show you the finished product! The large-text portions below are each stanza of the full-text poem found in Silhouette Girl and the Moonhorse, so you don't have to strain to read my tiny handwriting on each page. The regular text is my notes and commentary, not included in the actual book. Enjoy!

Silhouette Girl and the Moonhorse by Cailey Blair

On a night long ago, I flew to the moon—
taking off from the highest hillside

in a steam-powered shuttle, 

—all clockwork and gears and dream-stuff—
with a clank and a buzz and a cloud of smoke

I left the earth’s atmosphere.

Page 1 - Flight to the Moon

watercolor, gouache, ink, and mulberry paper 

on paper cloth

One of my favorite parts of the brainstorming process was crowd-sourcing ideas for the girl's transportation. I hopped on Twitter and Facebook to ask for ideas, and the responses were amazing. It's been a while since I crowd-sourced like that, but I love doing it. People can be so creative!

Several friends said the girl should travel by unicorn, one said a space segway, another said a dragon covered in feathers. My brothers suggested an iPod, traveling by the magic of music, or an imperial star destroyer from Star Wars. One friend suggested a book, because that's how she travels the universe.

With so many great ideas, I actually picked two modes of transportation. The second one in particular quickly became an integral part of the story.

The girl would fly to the moon on a "steampunk" space shuttle, but on the moon she would meet a magical moon-horse with whom she'd travel across the moon and all the way to Mars.

As a kid and teenager, I was obsessed with horses. That's right, I was a "horse girl." I still love them, though I haven't ridden since high school. I felt that having the girl travel by horseback through space would make this sketchbook more personal, a nod back to my own childhood and my longing to travel the world on horseback. In recent years my fascination with space-travel has grown a lot, so combining the two felt very natural to me.

Spread 2 - Meeting

watercolor, ink, gouache, and mulberry paper on paper cloth

I landed on the shore of the Mare Desiderii, 
silver dust in my eyes, on my ragged old hat—
I found myself face to face with a blue Moonhorse, 
leader of the Lunar herds.
We bowed in greeting—manners are important 
even on the Moon—
in his bold eyes I saw a distant dance I 
longed to join.
He invited me to go with him
with a flick of his flowing tail.

From here, the girl and the horse travel beyond that unique balancing rock formation in the distance to take off at the highest point on the moon—the Selenian summit.

Spread 3 - Balancing Rock, Earth and Mars

watercolor, ink, gouache, and mulberry paper on paper cloth

We rode far across the moon, far and farther still,
to reach that Selenian summit where surface and 
crater kiss—
higher than Everest or K2 could dream,
where space meets breccia. I thought we'd arrived,
but to my—shock—terror—delight—
the Moonhorse gathered his great legs under him,
galloped to the point of the summit,
and took off into the night—a capriole 
unlike any other,
his airs above the moon—we flew.

This is where it began to change a lot between the original intent and the finished product.

In my original 16-page sketches, I had a close-up illustration of the distant lunar rover, and an image of the girl and the moon horse taking off at the selenian summit.

I had to cut these and some other illustrations to lower the page count and compensate for the thick, stiff paper cloth.

I miss some of these illustrations, and I may still draw them one day, but the scenes I did include are much more intentional. Like a carefully edited book, the remaining content is made stronger by cutting out all unnecessary information.

Spread 4 - Flight to Mars

watercolor, ink, gouache, and mulberry paper on paper cloth

We soared through space, and his coarse
mane whipped my bare arms and stung my eyes,
and his tail streamed behind 
—I now know the secret of the comets!—
we flew
      past Phobos and Deimos,
      past distant stars pulsing,
      past long-lost mysteries;
I marveled at blue dots and ancient suns—
and the red planet drew near.

Flight to Mars was heavily inspired by the famous Lipizzaner horses of Austria and their gravity-defying classical dressage. I've always wanted to see Lipizzaners in action, but have had to content myself with pictures and videos of those remarkable airs above the ground.

For this scene, I researched and sketched the capriole move for our moon-horse's long flight.

Spread 5 (center fold) - Landing on Mars

watercolor, ink, gouache, and mulberry paper on paper cloth, bound with purple thread

At last, with straining legs and quivering muscles, 
his hooves touched solid ground 
—racing—slowing—stopping—panting—
I slipped from his back - see my footprints on
sienna stepping stones?

Noses touching in kunik—eskimo kisses—we breathed 

great gasping breaths of the thin, icy Martian air

—air made for dancing— 

      I sensed it, 

      I knew it, 

      my bare toes felt it,

but the Moonhorse’s eyes told me this was 

not the place. We rode on, on, on until 

we reached the deepest crater, 

strung across with a tightrope. My hopes fell

—he still shook with exhaustion from his flight—

a tightrope? Could it be, could a horse— 

even a Moonhorse—walk a tightrope?

Originally, Silhouette Girl and Moon-horse's landing on Mars would only be implied—the first Mars scene was to be a close-up of the girl and the horse examining the red Martian dust. From there, they'd travel toward a Mars rover before arriving at Hellas Planitia, the deepest crater on Mars.

For the new version, however, I cut out the Mars rover entirely, and replaced the close-up with a wide-angle landing scene. I felt this would better tie the narrative together. I took the background from a scene in which our two characters are riding across the Martian plains, and replaced their simple ride with the more dynamic landing action that you see above.

Spread 6 - Hellas Planitia

watercolor, ink, gouache, and mulberry paper on paper cloth

Indeed—brave eyes sparkling—he nudged 
me on, and the dancing Martian atmosphere 
lifted my chin,
—and we stepped—onto—the rope—
to cross Hellas Planitia,
deeper yet than any Himalaya could fill.
The rope trembled under the Moonhorse's hooves,
and I clutched a long lock of his mane;
arms stretched wide for balance.

Like I said, I cut out a lot of planetary travel, but I couldn't bring myself to cut out the scene above! For a long time I've had a mental image of crossing the deepest Martian crater, Hellas Planitia, by tight-rope.

In reality the downward slope of the crater is much too subtle for a tight-rope, but the entire book is lodged firmly in the surreal—there's nothing realistic about it! Being fanciful to begin with, I indulged myself and stretched a rope across the crater.

Finally, after that long tight-rope crossing, our interplanetary travelers have reached their destination...

Spread 7 - Final Destination

watercolor, ink, gouache, and mulberry paper on paper cloth

At last on the far side of the crater we stopped, 
labored breaths clouding
like wisps of smoke in the frozen air—
the Moonhorse and I looked up.
We arrived—we arrived!—The Moonhorse
tossed his great mane, stamped his giant hooves,
and with a leap, abandoned gravity.
I, too, could ground myself no longer—
I gave in to the thin air of Mars;
gave in to the growing dance in my heart.

This scene was inspired by Bryce Canyon in Utah, where orange towers and columns ("hoodoos") rise from the ground, creating natural arches and spires like a princess's castle. This was one of the first sketches I made, and it changed the least over the whole process.

I read somewhere that since gravity is lower on Mars, there are rock formations there that would be impossible on Earth. I don't know if that's actually the case (it makes sense to me), but I definitely had that concept in mind when brainstorming Martian geography. While this particular scene is very reminiscent of Bryce Canyon, I still tried to imbue it with that mystical, low-gravity feeling!

However, this final scene is where weightlessness truly comes into play. The gravity on Mars is about 1/3 of what it is on earth, so in reality our beloved travelers would still be bound to the ground. Even the moon's gravity, 1/6 of our own, doesn't allow floating like this! But this is anything but realistic. They traveled all this way to dance, how could they not dance in mid-air?

Spread 8 - The Dance

watercolor, ink, gouache, and mulberry paper on paper cloth

The Moonhorse and I, 
we rose above the rock formations,
      dancing
      spinning
      floating
on cold beams from the distant sun.
We're all of star-stuff, dancing above the dark
slope streaks!
In the magic of Mars we danced forever...

Final page - Morning

watercolor, gouache, ink, and mulberry paper 

on paper cloth

...Or so I dreamed. 

This last page came about weeks after the rest of the images were complete. I kept this final page blank, unsure if I'd write the full-text poem on it, leave it blank, or add one last illustration. As you can see, I chose the latter! I only knew what I wanted to do with it when I started writing the poem and that last line, "or so I dreamed," came to mind.  

I hadn't intended for this adventure to be a dream, exactly, though it has all the characteristics of a dream. But when I had that line, that's what the story officially became. I envisioned the girl waking on a hillside, as if she fell asleep stargazing and woke with the sun. 

This project was both challenge and game for me. I indulged a lot of fancies in this book, and the result is everything I never knew I wanted. Magic and fantasy set in space... a simple but highly unlikely journey, to say the least!

For most of the creation process, I held off on painting the girl - I seriously considered whether she would be Silhouette Girl or someone else, someone with features and visible details. But I think in my gut I knew this would be Silhouette Girl. Who else could manage an adventure like this? It was truly made for the girl who holds the tail of a tornado, conducts wildebeests like an orchestra, and releases a cloud of butterflies from her hands!

I kept telling myself it could be anyone doing this - any little girl could dream this up. Why lock it down for only Silhouette Girl?

My two babies, Stars & Seas and Silhouette Girl and the Moonhorse, with a
delicious mocha from my favorite coffeeshop. This is the very mocha that
powered me through writing my previous blog post.

That's where my thinking has been skewed. For a long time, I've thought of Silhouette Girl as an individual. Where is she going next, what fanciful thing is she doing this time? 

However, she's not an individual. She's a concept. Any little girl can be "silhouette girl," because it isn't about the things she actually does. It's about the metaphors. The Silhouette Girl series started as a reaction to tragedy - innocence and weakness against one of the greatest forces on earth, a little girl holding the tail of a tornado. 

The series has grown and taken on new metaphors with each drawing and painting, but the core must remain the same - innocence overcoming the impossible. Weakness overpowering the greatest powers. Childhood and imagination conquering reality. If Silhouette Girl remains as she should be, a concept instead of an individual, then she really can be anyone.

Anyone who values innocence and imagination can be Silhouette Girl.

With that realization, I inked in the silhouettes, covering all the loosely-sketched details like facial expressions and folds in her clothing. Our favorite girl has a ragged top hat and her new friend from the moon... she has everything she needs.

With this blog post, I put a close to this brief project. I had a lot of fun with it, and I was a little sad to tape the mailer shut and send my baby off to New York... but I look forward to seeing it again someday! If you find yourself in NYC, be sure to stop at the Brooklyn Art Library and see my sketchbook for yourself. Silhouette Girl would love to have visitors!

-Cailey

Updated 2022: in the time since this posting, the Sketchbook Library moved to Florida, shortly after which it closed and the books were distributed for display in various institutions. Unfortunately, during the move to Florida the trailer caught fire and many books were damaged or destroyed. I'm utterly heartbroken to share that my own Silhouette Girl and the Moonhorse was among those lost in the fire. I'm thankful for emergency responders, the Sketchbook Library, and its volunteers who worked tirelessly to save as many sketchbooks as possible. I'm also forever thankful for the opportunity to have been a part of that amazing collection. Lastly, I'm thankful my work, though physically destroyed, still lives on in these photos. 

Silhouette Girl and the Moonhorse, Part 1: Creative Process

Wow guys, I've been so excited to share this with you...

For Christmas I received a sketchbook to send to the Sketchbook Project in Brooklyn!

What is that? Great question. At the time I was only vaguely familiar with it, myself, so I spent a few minutes on the google machine and checked out the details.

The Sketchbook Project is housed at the Brooklyn Art Library, an amazing library of sketchbooks from artists all over the world. You can purchase one of their blank sketchbooks (a little 5x7 blank book) and fill it however you like. When you send your sketchbook back to them, they add it to the permanent collection, and they'll alert you every time someone looks at it!

I heard about it a few years ago but never pursued information on how to join the project, and forgot about it pretty quickly, so it was a great surprise to open up the package and discover this awesome opportunity.

Coffee and sketching with my little brother!

Every year they have different themes/inspiration cues, but it's pretty open to interpretation. The few rules pertain only to size and a couple of paints (gesso and acrylic) that aren't allowed because they make the pages stick together.

I got started on January 3rd, brainstorming what I wanted to pour into the sketchbook.

As you know from this blog, I work with a lot of different materials and media. Charcoal, pen and ink, paint, collage. My first hazy visions of this book involved collages of texture, color, and folded paper.

Pretty soon I decided to make it a narrative. I took my cue from everything that's been inspiring me lately... Astronaut memoirs, sci-fi novels and short stories, and astrophysics-for-dummies books.

I recently read "Physics of the Impossible" by Michio Kaku, and I was fascinated by his explanations of the science behind some of the "impossible" technology in sci-fi books. Things like teleportation, hyperspeed, and time travel.

Another great book I read was "Riding Rockets: The Outrageous Tales of a Space Shuttle Astronaut" by Mike Mullane. It's a funny, brutally-honest peek into the NASA's space shuttle program. Mullane doesn't shy away from criticizing NASA management, but he also conveys his love for space-travel and gratitude for NASA and the chance he had to fulfill his lifelong dream. He's also very open about astronaut culture in the '80s, and his personal struggle with accepting feminism (working with the first American women astronauts was a big adjustment for a man who attended an all-boys school and went straight into the military after graduation!).

With the help of these and other inspiration-boosters, my little story grew as a series of images in my mind. I had a plan for the narrative. As I started the rough sketches, I scaled back my intense collage-pages and chose to make simple line drawings in ink. I wanted the images to shine, not the materials I made them with.

Whenever I begin a particular art project, I start with an exciting mental image of it, and work eagerly until I hit a roadblock or two and set it aside (for a week, a month, three years, it varies!). After some time stewing in my mind, the solution suddenly hits and then begins the feverish race to create.

The same process held true for this one.

Once the idea for this journey from Earth to Moon to Mars came to mind, I started sketching away, determining each scene and each step of the way.

The sketchbook had 16 pages, so I had 16 scenes to create. I was able to sketch most of these over the course of a few hours spent with my brother at my favorite coffee shop.

Later, I got out my transfer paper and transferred each image to the pages of the sketchbook, and started drawing with ink... and that's where the big roadblock appeared...

The paper was too thin. 

My ink lines showed right through the paper, and even bled through in a few spots! This was not going to work.

I considered my options. Glue pages together to make them thicker? Prime each page with thin layers of gesso for a more opaque surface?

Gesso was out, since it's frowned upon in the Sketchbook Project rules. Normally, gesso is an awesome primer for art surfaces, but in a booklet format, gesso could cause the pages to stick together. I wasn't going to risk that.

I knew rebinding the book with different paper was allowed, but I wasn't feeling it... I didn't know what paper I wanted, and I didn't know how to deal with the stiffness that comes with thicker, ink-friendlier paper. Inspiration fell away and quickly as it struck.

My Sketchbook drawings stopped in their tracks, I set the book aside and stewed over the paper problem for about a week... until one day I was at work and the solution hit me.

Paper cloth!

I first made this a few years ago, at the suggestion of my art teacher. I fell in love with the unique effects of drawing on tissue paper, stabilized by a layer of cotton fabric. It's awesome for wet media like watercolor, acrylic paint, and pen and ink, and you can glue or sew on other materials to create a collage! I immediately knew that's what I wanted.

So what is paper cloth?

It's regular ol' tissue paper glued onto cotton fabric. I use about equal parts water and mod podge, but you can play with that ratio for stiffer or more flexible results - more glue for stiffness, more water for flexibility.

The sketches are transferred onto the paper cloth, ready to be painted!

You can also layer in other paper, threads, lace, sequins, paint, or anything else you want between the tissue paper and the cloth. Here's a link to a blog post explaining how to make paper cloth and the world of possibilities for customizing it.

I don't quite know why, but I hadn't used paper-cloth since that one project in high school. I was pretty excited to try it out again, so the minute I got home from work I dug some tissue paper out of the gift-wrapping supplies, got a large scrap of cream-colored cotton fabric from my meager sewing stash, and got to work. Yes, I have a sewing stash - I mostly do clothing alterations, with the occasional pillow or baby quilt.

With my paper cloth dried and ready, it was finally time to cut it all to size and get drawing... and time for a serious overhaul in my vision.

For one thing, paper cloth is one-sided. I suppose you could glue tissue paper to both sides of the fabric, but at this point I lacked that kind of foresight. For a brief time I was all action and no thought.

It took mental gymnastics to do this! Each sheet had two
different half-scenes, except the centerfold page.

I had several large sheets of paper cloth, thick but flexible. Being one-sided, I'd have to use twice as much if I wanted to keep all 16 pages, and that was going to be one fat little book. I needed to pare things down to the most important images.

Chop, chop, chop - out went half of my carefully-crafted scenes! This was a tough process, but necessary if I wanted to use paper cloth and keep the book thin enough to be accepted by the Sketchbook Project.

After transferring the remaining scenes, it was finally time to get painting.

Wait... Painting? Wasn't this going to be simple, black-and-white line drawings?

That's where the second element of my overhaul came into play! When paper cloth came to mind, the project changed entirely.

My illustrations would no longer be simple pen and ink. These would be full watercolor paintings, with line details inked in at the end.

That's the thing with art - sometimes you've got to be fiercely loyal to the original concept. But sometimes, you fall in love with one element and the while thing morphs to fit. That's what happened here, and I love it!

All painted, ready for ink details

It's nothing like what I envisioned at the beginning, but this process of adjusting the vision along the way was a lot of fun and resulted in a more creative, organic book.

The end result? An eight-page full-color book, bound with purple thread and with the edges of each page hand-stitched (cloth sides together, painted tissue paper facing out).

Work-in-progress, stitching together the pages

Don't worry, I kept the original cover with its all-important Sketchbook Project bar-code!

Stay tuned for my next blog post, where I'll share shots of each finished page. I've taken copious amounts of pictures - full-page, detail, and process shots. I've also kept all the original pencil sketches, including the ones that didn't survive the big chop.

Since I'm mailing the finished book to Brooklyn in a few days, these pictures and sketches are very important to me. I have to capture it all before it leaves me!

I hope to see it in its new home at the Brooklyn Art Library one day, of course, and I'm excited to be a part of the Sketchbook Project, but I'm going to miss this little book. We've spent a lovely two months together.

-Cailey

Wildebeest Girl

Recently, I decided to make something super colorful, because it's been a difficult summer.

I was in a car wreck a couple months ago, and while I was uninjured, my mental health took a serious blow.

Every time I get behind the wheel now, I have to shove aside serious anxiety. Anxiety which, unfortunately, isn't limited to driving, or to the awkward social interactions it clung to before. That empty burning sensation fills my guts with just the slightest provocation now, and it's been pretty exhausting.

But when I think about it, I realize that everyone has gone through times when it feels like everything in the world is rushing at them, eager to trample.

Enter: Wildebeest Girl

Back in December, I sketched up this idea for the silhouette girl and posted it on Instagram, looking for ideas of what she could be "conducting". A couple of the possibilities I suggested included a swarm of bees, a herd of wildebeests, or a fireworks show. My faithful friends suggested ocean waves, mountains and rivers, emotions, and a thunderstorm. I couldn't decide, and soon the sketch was lost in the hubbub of the holidays.

I've only been working part-time recently, and I've had a lot of time to sort through my stuff and try to purge a lot of things I don't need. I've filled two trash bags full of clothes and shoes to donate, I've filled more bags full of other junk to throw out, and I've tried my best to organize my stuff.

In that process of organizing, I came across the conducting silhouette sketch again. I scrolled through my Instagram account to see what those suggestions were, and my own casual idea struck me - wildebeests.

Source: Disney Wiki

In truth, I loved the other suggestions and I think each of them would have made an awesome piece of art. Maybe I should make a series of just the conducting girl! But the wildebeests caught my imagination.

For those of you who, like me, associate wildebeests with Animal Planet and The Lion King, you know two things about them:

1. They're vulnerable on their own (we've all seen the images of a crocodile or lion munching on a live wildebeest that ventured on its own)

2. They're unstoppable as a herd (we've all cried as Mufasa tries to save little Simba but is trampled to death by a frightened herd of wildebeest)

Source: BioExpedition

These two attributes are what I wanted to explore in this piece.

I still might do some last touch-ups, especially on the main wildebeest. I spent several years drawing horses almost exclusively, and there's enough similarity that these raw, harsh, wild antelopes pull my hands into the familiar equine lines that became almost second-nature to me in middle school.

I actually considered making the scene with a herd of wild horses, but the raw power of a herd of wildebeests was irresistible.

I mean, we've all seen The Lion King. We know the power of that herd instinct. We know that even the fiercest lion can be overcome by the thundering hooves of antelope. And there's something so other about them. Not a hint of domestication. Wildebeests are no favorite among small children, they're not romantic or chivalrous. They're simply wild. They're thin and tough, with scraggly beards and knobby knees. They're sketchy characters.

Like I said earlier, I wanted to make something wild and colorful, against my drab, anxious summer.

Sharpie markers on canvas

Part of the fun of making this piece was trying a new medium. I'd seen plenty of online tutorials showing how to make a watercolor effect using sharpies and rubbing alcohol.

So, I gave that technique my own spin!

Here you can see the first drawing, using red, orange, purple, blue, yellow, and gold sharpies. With the help of  a few source photos from our friend Google, I soon had a scribbled version of what I was going for.

A paintbrush and alcohol gave me this rich "watercolor" version. The gold sharpie didn't blur much, but I actually like the effect.

"Painting" the permanent marker with alcohol

I especially wanted the main wildebeest to stand out really well, and I love how the orange, red, and purple sharpies blended into this fierce red.

I honestly thought about leaving it like this, without the silhouette girl, but she's the whole point of the piece. Without her, it's just a drawing of some animals in funky colors.

Adding the silhouette girl gave this piece its voice:

You may be facing a thundering, murderous herd of stress, anxiety, money problems, illness, broken relationships, and life circumstances. These "wildebeests" may be trampling everything in their path, a blur of raw, knobby-kneed power. A mass of pure wildness surging toward you. But if the silhouette girl can conduct this herd like a symphony, surely you and I can face our own problems, too.

Wildebeest Girl work-in-progress, detail showing the girl
and the red wildebeest facing off. Still needs some highlights
around the girl and the wildebeest's face. 

Keeping with the ongoing theme of innocence struggling against the impossible, the Wildebeest Girl is also something new and different. For once, she's using a tool for her purposes. Is it a conductor's stick, or a magic wand? Being a Potterhead myself, I can't help wondering what Hogwarts house she would be placed in! I've always tried to keep the silhouette girl a little ambiguous - is she facing the viewer, or the obstacle? Is she happy or sad? But for this one, I want to make it clear. There is no magic here, at least not in a "Harry Potter" sense. Wildebeest Girl could just as easily be called Orchestra Girl or Conducting Girl.

We can't solve our problems with magic wands. What we can do is choose to see our problems as something with which to make a beautiful song of bold perseverance.

Final Wildebeest Girl; August, 2017. Sharpie markers, alcohol, gouache, India ink, and acrylic on canvas. 12"x14". 

-Cailey