On the last warm day of early October I was in a garden in Glenview drawing the last stand of some rosinweed and coneflower blossoms when a flicker of motion caught my eye and for a few seconds I saw a little fairy under the coneflowers. She must have sensed my gaze because she scurried into the foliage and I couldn't see where she went. I had to sketch her into my drawing from memory.
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| October Coneflowers, 16 x 12 inch signed print by George C. Clark AVAILABLE |
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| October Coneflowers, 40 x 30 inch ink drawing by George C. Clark AVAILABLE
When I do an exhibition of my travel art I usually mention in the press release that "subjects range from the back roads of Europe to the artist's own Chicago back yard." Here is one of those subjects I found in my back yard. One October a few years ago I was struck by the graphic qualities of a browning, wilted coneflower plant drying out next to my garage. I put a big piece of light-colored cardboard between the plant and the dark brown wall of the garage and made a 20 x 16 inch ink and watercolor painting of it, which I promptly sold to a collector in Evanston. I liked the image so much that I photographed my painting and adapted the digital image to create the 16 x 12 inch open edition signed print shown above. (The print shown isn't signed yet-- I sign them in pencil just above the copyright notice at the lower left.)
Occasionally I find a subject so interesting I do more than one version of it, and this is such a case. Using my first painting as a guide, I made a much bigger black-and-white ink drawing with a fat calligraphy pen on a 40 x 30 inch sheet of heavy watercolor board. In doing so, I made a few subtle changes to the composition. I think of it as an study in spidery linearity.
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| Aunt Mary's Begonias, 6 x 5 inch ink and colored pencil drawing by George C. Clark SOLD
We arrived early for a visit to my wife's Aunt Mary on the farm in Delphi, Indiana, and she wasn't home from an errand yet. While waiting for her I sat on the deck outside her house and drew the flowers in one of her planters.
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| Fox Valley Pansies, 10 x 8 inch ink and watercolor by George C. Clark AVAILABLE |
