Filed under: Paintings -Inspiration, art, Landscape Ptgs, art Exhibits, Galleries | Tags: susan canavarro, art exhibits, watercolor, bodega bay, duncans mills
Bodega Buildings on the edge of Bodega Bay tidal flats. I painted this back in 1988. Recently, I found an ancient slide in my archives. Unbelievable! Scanned it. I wouldn’t take a magnifying glass to the image – probably covered in dirt specks from the old slide!
This is one of my favorite paintings from those days. My little sister Wendy bought it when I had a show at my step-sister Bobbie’s family gallery in Duncans Mills - a gallery started in 1988 which she still owns after all these years. Amazing that it has survived and stayed open since then, all due to Bobbi’s efforts to keep it going, arranging, hanging and hosting shows for local Sonoma County artists, throwing receptions and musical events. She always managed to come up with new ideas each year to keep it interesting.
There is a review of that show buried in my pages on my website FlorenceArtists.com.
1988 was the year I moved to Chico to go back to college as a reentry student. Five years later I earned my BFA in painting. When I graduated I was a different person.
Filed under: art, Fort Bragg paintings, Landscape Ptgs, Paintings -Inspiration, Paintings-stories | Tags: black and white paintings, gesso on paper, marion epting, Monterey pines painting, susan canavarro
The Senator's Stairs, Collograph print
In 1992, I was fortunate to be in a printmaking class where my teacher, Marion Epting, Professor of Art at California State University, Chico, encouraged me to experiment with black and white print images. With his encouragement to do as I pleased with the Intaglio (etching) plate, I discovered an appreciation for the spontaneity of monotypes and collographs and the inherent simplicity and unity of a black and white image. After I graduated, I continued with the black and white image making I had enjoyed while making prints, but instead, painted with black and white Gesso directly on printmaking paper.
The complexity of value changes in the interaction of black ink on white paper left so much to the imagination of the viewer, yet at the same time, because of its association with newspaper photographic images, black and white could carry the weight: the importance and truth of reality. It connotes a documentation of real life. Somebody once told me that photographs always tell the truth, but the truth is they don’t. From the beginning the photographer’s eye and mental process influences his/her process and product, just like painting a painting. The “manipulation” used to happen in a dark photo lab developing process with chemical solutions and expensive photo equipment, but today it happens in the camera with the artist’s ideas and touch, and on one’s home computer.
New Monterey Pines, CA - Painting
In the sense of black and white photos, my black and white Gesso landscapes of the Fort Bragg and Monterey Bay area document a local landscape as seen through my eyes and influenced by my moods and skills. I manipulated my images. They are not truth. They are illusions. They give a glimpse of a truth within me. I like the confluence of truth and illusion signified by the black and white in these paintings.
Guided by my penchant for simplicity and aversion to detail, I honed a landscape out of black and white Gesso and tried to express the image that first caught my eye, focusing on light and dark shapes, patterns, and large simple flat shapes juxtaposed against a sense of distance and atmosphere. I enjoyed the inherent contradiction of push/pull created by the flat shapes against deep space.
Black and white Gesso satisfied my need for simplicity: it was easy to manipulate and was transparent or opaque depending on how I applied it. It still entices me away from color. I use it on paper or canvas.
- Bixby Creek Bridge, Big Sur, CA painting
- Collograph print, Lighted Doorway
Filed under: art, dog paintings, Paintings -Inspiration, Paintings-stories, pet paintings-stories | Tags: bridge structures, dog walks, doggy story, dogs of Florence, siuslaw river bridge, susan canavarro
The DogWalk (a.k.a. The Dogs of Florence)
© 2006-2012 Susan Canavarro. All Rights Reserved.
- Weeeeee, this is more fun than riding in a car, Max!
- No, Monty, it is not fun and you know it.
- It is too. It’s fun, isn’t it Dox?
- You can be sure it’ll be even more fun when the wind comes up, Monty.
- Oh, boy! Can’t wait! His rump and tail wagging like crazy.
- Dog, if you don’t watch out you’re gonna wag yourself right off the edge. Now stop it!
- Geez, every gall dern Tuesday we gotta take this darn dog walk. What’s it all about Max?
- Challenge, Kiddo. It’s about challenge. Like when we try to eat snowflakes or when we try to follow the cat Scrwuffy up a tree.
- But still…every week?
- Yup. You gotta challenge yourself, Monty, fill up your dog years with learning and insight and adventure. Besides, every Tuesday is Dog Show Day across the river. We may live in a small town, Kiddo, but we still gotta keep up with other dogs, how they’re grooming, what commands they’re paying attention to, what they’re eating, how well they’re running, you know, that kind of stuff.
- Gosh, Max, lighten up, will ya? This is simply an adventure. All it is. Nothing more. Sky is blue. Gorgeous day. Stop trying to turn it into something educational, for cat’s sake. It’s a heck of a lot easier today in the sunshine than it was last week in the wind and rain. So lighten up!
- Who said that? Pipsqueak?
- Yeah. What of it? Don’t be such a sour-puss, Max.
- Hey, Did you just call me a puss? I aint no puss. And I sure as heck aint no sour-puss. I’m pure hound. Pure bloody hound dog is what I am. Everybody stop! Shut up!
- Why? What is it?
- What’s wrong Max?
- What happened?
- I think I see a bird, Monty.
- A bird?
- Oh for goodness sakes. Not again with the blue bird thing, Max?
- Yeah, a blue bird.
- A blue bird?
- Geez, Monty, would you stop repeating everything I say.
- Repeating?
- Yeah, REPEATING!
- Be careful Max. Remember what happened the last time you thought you saw a bird?
- Shut up! Will ya?
- But Max, the last time you thought you saw a bird it turned out to be a porcupine with long sharp quills. You got your nose all stuck up, remember? And your tail bit off.
- Grrrrr.
- Hey?
- Yeah, Monty?
- Does this bridge structure remind you of anything?
- Hunger. It reminds me that I’m hungry.
- Hey, Max?
- Yeah, Dox?
- Do you think they’ll be serving dinosaur bones and fish hors d’oeuvres at the dog show?
- Most likely, Dox, and escargot.
- Yea! Let’s car go!
- No, Monty, we’re on a dog walk, remember? You’re such a silly cat!
- I am not.
- You are too, just a plain silly cat.
- I’m not a cat. I’m a dog! And I’m not silly. Hey look, Max, I can turn around up here! Uh oh. Oops! Maaaaaaax! Dog overboard! Dog overboooaaaaard! Maaaaaaax?
- SPLASH!
- Oh MONTY! A belly flop?
- Paddle, Monty, paddle. You’re really close to the other side. You can make it. Just move your paws like crazy and keep your head above water. We’ll meet you over there.
- The dogs of Florence ran over the bridge beam and skidded down to the water’s edge on the other side.
- Come on, Monty. You can make it!
- Yea! Monty!
- Monty climbed up the bank, sloppy with water-soaked fur. He shook himself in a ripple dance from head to tail. Water flew everywhere.
- Hey, cut that out. You’re getting me all wet.
- Boy, Max, that was sooooo much fun!
- For cat’s sake, you are incorrigible.
- What’s corrigible, Max?
- The word is incorrigible, Monty. And you are.
- Come on Dox, let’s go for another dive.
- No way, Monty. Not me. Let’s get outta here, Max. I’m starved.
Filed under: art, Fort Bragg paintings, Landscape Ptgs, Paintings -Inspiration, Paintings-stories | Tags: Beachcomer Motel, Fort Bragg, Northern California coast, susan canavarro
