Skip to main content

Sand Dunes of Michigan


I have been working with memories of land formations and geographic features this week.  One of the pieces I worked on is called, “Sand Dune” and it is an abstracted version of a sand dune I climbed in Michigan.  I have been working with oil pastel on top of a foundation of vine charcoal for a few weeks now.  Yesterday I bought some watercolor pencils to add into the mix but I haven’t attempted to mix the oil-based and water-based materials yet. To my surprise and delight the oil pastel mixed media works seem to be coming together to form a body of work.  For the first time in a long time my work has a flow to it that taps on intuition and expression in a way that I enjoy very much. This is something I can continue with for a while and I can't wait to see the series all together in a gallery space. I intend to continue to work with mixed media, trying the watercolor pencil as a contrasting element with the oil pastels and vine charcoal. Often, I teach my classes projects that incorporate crayon with water resist so I think the teaching is an influence. With spring break from teaching coming up soon, it seems as though I need to visit some of these land formations and geographic features in Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana and Michigan that are fueling my work.  Stay tuned! This is “Sand Dune,” and it is 9” x 12” done using oil pastel and mixed media.
Labels:

Comments

  1. paulineMarch 26, 2012 at 11:10 AM

    Stephanie, this is beautiful... once again. :-)
    We are perhaps on the same wavelength - i posted something today about sand, and i almost called it "sand dunes"...
    I really love this abstract. xoxo

    ReplyDelete
  2. Stephanie BirdMarch 27, 2012 at 5:51 AM

    Pauline:
    That's really cool! I'll hop over to your blog to check out your piece about sand.
    Thanks so much!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Go ahead. Make my day by leaving a comment.

Popular posts from this blog

Gran Bwa

Gran Bwa is a lwa that helps you connect to ancestral roots or the spiritual home of Vodou. A friend of mine, who is an expert on Haitian Vodou, who has spent a lot of time in Haiti with the artists there, told me I had painted Gran Bwa when I made this spontaneous work out of walnut ink and sumi-ink on handmade paper. I had considered this painting a self-portrait. She now holds this piece in her private collection: Quite a few people are afraid of Vodou but it is an awe-inspiring tradition of bringing together plant energy with divinity, spiritual and personal energy. My friend who is very involved with Vodou, especially the art that surrounds it, is from European ancestry. She is light in spirit and bubbly, with a close relationship to nature and her garden.  Vodou affirms the relationships between cycles of life, trees of knowledge and spirit.  The Vodou vision of lwa , understands them as the intelligence of energy present in humans, nature and thoughts.  ...
5 comments
Read more

Tree Whispers

Tree Whispers Shinrin-yoku is a complementary medicine modality, designed to up-lift sub-par health conditions, through lifestyle changes that involve immersion in nature, specifically the wildness, we call a forest, where the senses, including our intuitive sense and ability to heal ourselves through it, is ignited. Forest bathing, as Shinrin-yoku is popularly called, has come to our attention, at a time when the scientific community is abuzz about the ability of trees - be it in stands, groves, or forests, to build community. This, at a time, when we as humans, struggle hard to build and sustain healthy in-person communities, in the face of Online communications. Books like “The Hidden Life of Trees: What they Feel, How they Communicate Discoveries from a Secret World,” (Wohlleben 2016) by Peter Wohlleben is a Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Washington Post bestseller. It makes readers privy to trees’ communication skills and social networks, that is, it helps us entertain...
Post a Comment
Read more

Xochitl--Flower

                                     (Winter Poinsettia by Stephanie Rose Bird, oil on wood) One of my Facebook friends does daily posts and shares called "I love Flowers." I love flowers too, in real life, in my garden, in paintings and as they are related to the gods and goddesses, in healing, as well as their use in folklore like Hoodoo. Not long ago I posted about Xochipelli (Sho-CHEE-pee-lee) prince of flowers and Xochiquetzal (Sho-CHEE-ket-zul) goddess of flowers in anticipation of April's blooming season.  The Goddess and Prince of Flowers post  is here. Today, I want to focus in on the root word of their names and it's symbolism. This word is Xochitl (Show-CHEE-tul) in the Nahuatl language of the Aztecs. This word means flower.                                         ...
20 comments
Read more