more watercolors...

 "Up Unity to the Rabbit & Poultry"

 

"Up Unity to the Rabbit & Poultry" by Nate Dray

watercolor on paper, 16 x 22 inches

 

 Nate Dray at North Water Street Gallery

 

So here's a thing. Grateful to Jeff Ingram of the North Water Street Gallery in Kent, Oh. for setting this up. Jeff was actually the first person to show one of my pictures in a gallery outside of a school event way back in 1999...or was it 1997? Either way, great guy who runs an excellent community arts organization called Standing Rock Cultural Arts. 

Check them out online at: https://www.standingrock.net/

"Copy of Klee's 'Vogel Garten'" 

mixed media on newspaper on cardboard, 31 x 40 inches.

I love Paul Klee. Brilliant designer. Unsurpassed stylist. A very special human being. I worked through the better part of his notebooks and Bauhaus lessons and while I'm not saying it was a complete waste of time, it was almost a complete waste of time. Not sure if he was a hustler or was sincerely attempting to document and explain his process in earnest technically, but the teachings amount to a whole lot of psuedo-intellectual hot air. Couched in exclusivity jargon and fancy terms for brick-simple concepts, the bulk of the materials aren't worth the time for a person trying to improve his or her craft. People claiming his writings on Art are on par with da Vinci are lying or confused. Whereas da Vinci informed generations of not just artists and craftspeople but also engineers and technicians, Klee's writings are thousands of pages the end result of which can be better internalized by understanding the golden mean and a brief survey of his artist's statement/manifesto. Or better yet, study his pictures. I imagine it was a combination of needing to justify his approach and teaching position, keep pace with the intelligentsia fashions of pre-Great War Germany and fill time when asked to speak publicly on his work that led to his prodigious overly complex prose. That or he was sincere and extremely neurotic. His math exercises take the student on long tedious journeys of arithmetic that end up illustrating principles that if not patently obvious or intuitively graspable are demonstrable by considerably more direct and simple means. That and they aren't particularly helpful to a person trying to improve his or her design powers.

Regardless, he's great. My favorite of the...whaddya call it? Was he Cubist or Expressionist? Whatever. I'm glad he defies classification. That's a hallmark of Quality, in my humble opinion.

Oh, also, like Klee, I made this frame by hand for the painting and the mat area is part of the painting itself. Note that the original is around 10.5" x 15.5" whereas my loose interpretive copy is a bit bigger at 31 x 40 inches. It hangs in my home above the landing on the stairs.

 "The American Schematic"

watercolor, ink & gouache on paper, 15 x 20 inches

 Playing card size ink & watercolor drawings of woods and trails. 

 

North Fork by Pancake

by Nate Dray

watercolor on paper, 17 x 22 inches

 

Over Lincoln Highway

by Nate Dray

watercolor on paper, 17 x 22 inches

 

Wars of Beleriand.

The Silmarillion board game, aka WOB.

Or...The Dispossessed.

Anyway.

Another unusual and interesting (to me) situation. 

I was playing as Morgoth and my opponent marched Thingol and a sizable host of Sindar out into the open onto Anfauglith and sort of left them there, sitting ducks. They were annihilated and when Thingol dies in WOB, Melian follows (though no VPs are awarded to the MorP for Melian's elimination under these circumstances).

Consequently, with no Melian deployed on the Game Map, the Fence of Doriath (or Girdle of Melian) is deactivated and we see here a very lonely Luthien all by herself in Menegroth with only an adjacent Galadriel unit to keep her company. The Edain haven't arrived yet (this is Turn 7) and it's just an unusual situation that amuses me. Shows the value in having diversity in playtesters. 

I would never have allowed this to happen as the Noldor Player, but I am pleased that it did happen. 

 

 

"Elkton Bridgehead"

14" x 12"

watercolor on paper

This title is a misnomer. The term "bridgehead" implies strategic significance and that's just simply untrue in this case. :)

An Old Red Barn
by Nate Dray
12" x 18" watercolor on paper

"Carb Complex"

“Green Wave Break over Mike Lusk’s Lock (no, his kid isn’t buried in it)”

“Green Wave Break over Mike Lusk’s Lock (no, his kid isn’t buried in it)”

Lusk was an English engineer who built beautiful locks. Contracted for a couple in the 1830s for the Sandy and Beaver Canal. There are sad stories about how this work in the howling Ohio wilderness adversely affected his life and family.

"The bushes are filled with strange things." - Juan Matus