Speaking of Art Blog

Prairie Abundance, pastel, 12x12"

This is my newest pastel, of a Monarch butterfly getting sweet nectar from Joe Pye Weed at Mnoke Prairie, an authentic prairie at the Indiana Dunes National Park.  I photographed this scene last year about this time, when the grasses were thick and tall and laden with seeds.  In fact, the flowers and butterflies are sometimes hidden from view in the fall because of the tall grasses.  I miss some photography opportunities because of that, but then that’s the nature of a prairie in early fall.

I actually love Mnoke Prairie.  I love the wildness of its bright flowers, towering grasses, and seed heads so heavy that they are falling over across the path.  It’s all so lively and thriving.  But I have struggled over the past few years with trying to figure out how to depict all of that thriving wildness on paper with my artwork.  Here are seven of my attempts.  I do love these moments in time that I have rendered, but they are a bit too orderly, too perfect, not wild enough to depict the true nature of the prairie as a whole. 

A Slice of Summer, pastel

A Slice of Autumn, pastel

Whispering Prairie, pastel

Monarch Migration, pastel

Prairie Song, pastel

Prairie Lace, pastel

Milkweed Plus 2, pastel

Earlier this summer I watched my pastel friend, Laura Pollak, give a wonderful demo for the Great Lakes Pastel Society’s members via Zoom.  During her demo she used a small brayer that had a lined design in it, that she rolled in some PanPastel dust and then applied the dust to the surface of her painting.  Wow, that looked like so much fun.  I wanted to try it.  So, I researched into where to get brayers with interesting textured designs on them, found some on Amazon, purchased them, and then they sat unopened in their package for about a month.  Why?  Because I wanted to have a reason to use them.  I didn’t want to just pull them out and use them on my artwork for no reason other than that they looked like fun.  To me, that would be a gimmick and I didn’t want to have the final effect look gimmicky.  I wanted the markings to enhance the story behind the artwork.

I also noticed during Laura’s demo that she used her brayer for adding a top textured layer to her painting.  Brayer marks are somewhat fussy, and if you decide to change your mind and cover the brayer markings up, well, good luck with that.  They might smear and make a mess because they go on thick in some places.  That right there made me even more determined to figure out the best subject matter/story for using brayer marks because they might definitely stand out, and my realistic style does not lend itself to using brayer marks any old place.

Then while I was hiking last week at Mnoke Prairie and the Big Bluestem grasses were swaying their seeds above my head, it suddenly hit me – those wavy brayer lines and those random dots could be grasses and seeds! YES!  When I got home from that hike, I finally opened the package of brayers and started playing with my new toys on a scrap of pastel paper.  Two of the brayers would work well.  Then I looked through my hundreds of photos and found the one I wanted to use.  It had hints of grasses in the background and foreground and there was enough negative space for adding brayer marks.  Perfect.

I decided to move the picture plane off center so that the butterfly’s wing tip would extend into the side margin, a compositional anomaly that would cue the viewer about where to focus.  And I would be able to accentuate the wavy grasses and seeds in those two wide white margins.

Suddenly I was really excited to work on this painting.  I had my story and I had my new toys.  But do you know what the hardest thing was?  You guessed it, applying those rollers to the paper.  When the time came, I held my breath and just did it.  Oh my, I am used to being in complete control when I use pastels, but this was not under my complete control.  Those brayers do what they want where they want and I just had to roll with it (pun intended).  There was no going back and, for the most part, no undoing what was done once I rolled the brayers on the surface.  But did I accomplish what I set out to do?  Yes, absolutely.  My story of the prairie in the fall is wonderfully illustrated, and applying the brayer marks was so much fun (once I got over my initial fear).  I mean, what the heck, it’s only paper, right? 

Story and curiosity intersected in a most pleasing way.  When I finished, I took a hike through Mnoke Prairie and immersed myself in the atmosphere of swaying grasses and seed heads, fluttering butterflies, and bright flowers.  It was magical.  While it’s impossible to accurately portray a lively prairie on a flat surface, those brayer marks did a decent job of imitating it.  I give them a solid B - for brayer (groan).  After all, nature says it best, I just embellish the tale.