Stephanie Peters

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  • Home
  • About
    • Biography
    • Stories
    • Picture a day
    • Events/Exhibits
  • New
    • Colorful Wildlife Encounters
    • Migration - Circle Bird Paintings
    • Urban Wildlife
    • Life on the Rock
    • Icebergs
    • Spirits of the Forest
  • Natural Disasters
    • Natural Disasters
    • Volcano paintings
    • Wildfires
    • Extreme Weather: Storms, Tornadoes, Hurricanes & Lightning
  • Wildlife Pastels
    • Life on the Rock
    • Adirondacks
    • Africa
    • Arizona Desert
    • Aquatic life
    • Birds
  • Paintings
    • Series >
      • Migration - Circle Bird Paintings
      • Flying Color - Bird Paintings
      • Ocean Life
      • River Fish
      • Wildlife Paintings
      • Abstract
      • Illustrating Literature
      • The Energy of White
      • Abstract Landscapes
    • Printmaking >
      • New prints
      • Stamps
  • Buy Art
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-Stories from the road-

Adventures, notes of inspiration, daily experiences, trips to nowhere and then somewhere, works in progress, creative discoveries, new work, tools of the trade, news from the studio, event updates, and things that make me smile or think deep thoughts...

New Watercolor Prints

3/31/2017

1 Comment

 

New Watercolor Prints

Last Saturday, I spent the afternoon painting at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix, Arizona. It is an amazing place to see all kinds of desert plants, but unfortunately I can't tell you what kinds of plants, because I wasn't paying any attention to the plants. Although I find flowers pretty, plants aren't really my thing - I'm sure my botanist Grandfather is rolling in his grave hearing that - But, animals - animals are my thing. And the Desert Botanical Garden is a great place to see some native desert animals.. like the Round Tailed Ground Squirrel, or the Harris Antelope Squirrel... 
round tailed ground squirrel
Round Tailed Ground Squirrel
harris antelope ground squirrel
Harris Antelope Squirrel
​...and a great place to see native birds like the Gambel's Quail, Roadrunner, and even some non-native birds like the house sparrow. 
Gambels quail
Male Gambel's Quail
roadrunner
Roadrunner
female house sparrow
Female House Sparrow
Painting animals from life is not exactly easy, because they never stand still. It is recommended you learn a bit about the anatomy and movement of your subject before you enter the field - and way before adding water, paint and a brush. I am no expert at painting animals from life, but I have been practicing a lot recently. My practice method is not drawing the animal in detail, but instead capturing their gestures in watercolor. With gesture painting (same principles as gesture drawing in learning how to draw the figure), you can get a better understanding of the creature's movement - which ultimately helps me when I'm in the studio painting from photographs. 
So last Saturday, I was doing some gesture painting of Quail, House Sparrows and my favorite this week, the Harris Antelope Squirrel. Now, because the animal moves... and really doesn't stop moving... ever... with watercolor gesture painting, you get blobs of paint that kind of resemble a distorted road-kill version of the really adorable creature you are trying desperately to paint... 
gesture painting
Scene from my sketchbook
But sometimes, you can get some really interesting results. And those blobs and layers of watercolor paint can catch the essence, the life, the energy of that really adorable creature you are painting...
gesture painting
Pages from my sketchbook

​And sometimes, you can take those gestures, and with a little digital magic,
​ turn them into works of art....

Abstract house Sparrow
House Sparrow
framed house sparrow art
Framed print, available at Fine Art America.
abstract blue squirrel
Harris Antelope Squirrel
framed art squirrel
Framed Print, available at Fine Art America
Then, make them available as prints on products of course... 
house sparrow abstract tote bag
Tote Bag
squirrel mug
Coffee Mug
Just another fun way of merging technology and art: The traditional into the digital. 
I think the best thing about gesture painting is that it keeps you loose. When painting from photographs, I tend to get too technical and focus on all the details. Which can be interesting if you are trying to render a subject accurately and realistically. But, I prefer to paint abstractly - I love how abstract marks can add an energy that sometimes gets lost in 2D art. So when you are out in the 'field,' this method really enhances the movement and I feel it brings the soul of the subject to life.  More gesture painting to come as warm spring days invite me outdoors. 
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Harris Antelope Squirrel

3/29/2017

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​Last week, I was all about the Round tailed Ground Squirrel, and as seen on instagram, this week,
​I've discovered the

Harris Antelope Squirrel

harris antelope squirrel

That doesn't really show it's cuteness... ​

Squirrel

Or how about...

Desert Harris Antelope squirrel
The Harris Antelope Squirrel is native to Arizona, New Mexico and some parts of northern Mexico. It looks very similar to a chipmunk, but is in fact a squirrel. They can be found in rocky desert areas and around cacti. They are always dashing around and looking adorable. But, when they get hot, they will find a cool shady area, and spread their legs out so their belly will touch the cool ground. This helps release the heat from their body, and explains their odd behavior. Well some of it... 
Harris antelope squirrel standing
So to celebrate my new favorite subject, I decided to take three different materials and explore how I want to share my love for it. The first material I used to convey the subject was charcoal:
Squirrel in charcoal
Harris Antelope Squirrel in Charcoal See details
Charcoal is a wonderful material to really grab the form, and showcase the values in the composition - but wasn't quite what I was looking for... Next, I tried some graphite and added a little wash to it... 
harris antelope squirrel drawing
Harris Antelope Squirrel with watercolor wash See details
Then to really capture the personality of the Harris Antelope Squirrel, I decided to draw a more quirky pose, in just the simplicity of graphite: 
drawing of harris antelope squirrel
Harris Antelope Squirrel in Graphite
Graphite is one of my favorite mediums to render a subject in, the precision and value helps bring the creature to life.
A good wildlife drawing or painting is usually rendered quite well - but a great or even exceptional wildlife painting, I believe, captures the soul - the personality - the life of the subject. By doing the Harris Antelope Squirrel in three different mediums, I am able to explore different styles, textures, etc. that will help me find my way to share the soul, the personality, and the life of the subject - at least, how I see it or experience it. Most likely, these studies will lead to a larger pastel drawing or even a painting. I know for sure though, this little squirrel gives so much inspiration in it's tiny package, that I'll never stop wanting to draw or paint it!
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Trump's Budget Plan? - The human Spirit will live on.

3/18/2017

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In response to Trump's budget plan to eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, I think this speech appropriately explains why they are a necessity, and eliminating them is not Making America Great Again. 
"To the extent that artists struggle to express beauty in form and color and sound, to the extent that they write about man's struggle with nature or society, or himself, to that extent they strike a responsive chord in all humanity. Today, Sophocles speaks to us from more than 2,000 years. And in our own time, even when political communications have been strained, the Russian people have bought more than 20,000 copies of the works of Jack London, more than 10 million books of Mark Twain, and hundreds and thousands of copies of Hemingway, Steinbeck, Whitman, and Poe; and our own people, through the works of Tolstoy and Dostoievsky and Pasternak have gained an insight into the shared problems of the human heart.

Thus today, as always, art knows no national boundaries.

Genius can speak at any time, and the entire world will hear it and listen. Behind the storm of daily conflict and crisis, the dramatic confrontations, the tumult of political struggle, the poet, the artist, the musician, continues the quiet work of centuries, building bridges of experience between peoples, reminding man of the universality of his feelings and desires and despairs, and reminding him that the forces that unite are deeper than those that divide.

Thus, art and the encouragement of art is political in the most profound sense, not as a weapon in the struggle, but as an instrument of understanding of the futility of struggle between those who share man's faith. Aeschylus and Plato are remembered today long after the triumphs of imperial Athens are gone. Dante outlived the ambitions of 13th century Florence. Goethe stands serenely above the politics of Germany, and I am certain that after the dust of centuries has passed over our cities, we, too, will be remembered not for victories or defeats in battle or in politics, but for our contribution to the human spirit.

It was Pericles' proudest boast that politically Athens was the school of Hellas. If we can make our country one of the great schools of civilization, then on that achievement will surely rest our claim to the ultimate gratitude of mankind. Moreover, as a great democratic society, we have a special responsibility to the arts, for art is the great democrat calling forth creative genius from every sector of society, disregarding race or religion or wealth or color. The mere accumulation of wealth and power is available to the dictator and the democrat alike. What freedom alone can bring is the liberation of the human mind and spirit which finds its greatest flowering in the free society.

Thus, in our fulfillment of these responsibilities toward the arts lie our unique achievement as a free society."

- President John F Kennedy, Remarks at a Close & Circuit Television Broadcast on Behalf of the National Cultural Center. November 29, 1962 
​We should not leave it up to the government to decide for us what the arts are worth. Now more than ever, it is important that we the people preserve and contribute to the arts - personally and collectively. Go paint, buy art, see a play, act out a scene, sing a song, write a poem, read a novel, play an instrument, rock out to a band, and dance... If you have a chance to sit it out or dance. I hope you dance your heart out. And as we nurture the next generation, let's personally give them the opportunity to contribute to the human spirit. As JFK said, it is what we will be remembered for, the arts - the human spirit - will live on.
President Lyndon B. Johnson believed this when he signed the Arts and Humanities Bill... 
"In the long history of man, countless empires and nations have come and gone. Those which created no lasting works of art are reduced today to short footnotes in history's catalog.

Art is a nation's most precious heritage. For it is in our works of art that we reveal to ourselves, and to others, the inner vision which guides us as a Nation. And where there is no vision, the people perish
.

We in America have not always been kind to the artists and the scholars who are the creators and the keepers of our vision. Somehow, the scientists always seem to get the penthouse, while the arts and the humanities get the basement.

Last year, for the first time in our history, we passed legislation to start changing that situation. We created the National Council on the Arts.

The talented and the distinguished members of that Council have worked very hard. They have worked creatively. They have dreamed dreams and they have developed ideas.

This new bill, creating the National Foundation for the Arts and the Humanities, gives us the power to turn some of those dreams and ideas into reality.

We would not have that bill but for the hard and the thorough and the dedicated work of some great legislators in both Houses of the Congress. All lovers of art are especially indebted to Congressman Adam Clayton Powell of New York, to Congressman Frank Thompson of New Jersey, to Senator Lister Hill of Alabama, to Senator Claiborne Pell of Rhode Island, to many Members of both the House and Senate who stand with me on this platform today--too many names to mention.

But these men and women have worked long and hard and effectively to give us this bill. And now we have it. Let me tell you what we are going to do with it. Working together with the State and the local governments, and with many private organizations in the arts:

--We will create a National Theater to bring ancient and modern classics of the theater to audiences all over America.

--We will support a National Opera Company and a National Ballet Company.

--We will create an American Film Institute, bringing together leading artists of the film industry, outstanding educators, and young men and women who wish to pursue the 20th century art form as their life's work.

--We will commission new works of music by American composers.

--We will support our symphony orchestras.

--We will bring more great artists to our schools and universities by creating grants for their time in residence.

Well, those are only a small part of the programs that we are ready to begin. They will have an unprecedented effect on the arts and the humanities of our great Nation.

But these actions, and others soon to follow, cannot alone achieve our goals. To produce true and lasting results, our States and our municipalities, our schools and our great private foundations, must join forces with us.

It is in the neighborhoods of each community that a nation's art is born. In countless American towns there live thousands of obscure and unknown talents.

What this bill really does is to bring active support to this great national asset, to make fresher the winds of art in this great land of ours.

The arts and the humanities belong to the people, for it is, after all, the people who create them."

- Lyndon B Johnson,Remarks at the Signing of the Arts and Humanities Bill. September 29, 1965
​Johnson and Kennedy built a foundation to prop up the arts in the United States. Less than 55 years later, the Trump Administration wants to eliminate it. Ignoring the purpose behind it: our responsibility to support contributions to the human spirit and helping create the nations most precious heritage. ​Politics have dramatically changed, but the citizens can make a difference to Trump's stance. We can keep the arts alive by personally getting involved. 

​We can make it so the arts flourish and not just survive.
Participate & Support locally, nationally, and globally.

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Round-tailed Ground Squirrel

3/12/2017

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I've fallen in love... Big black eyes, tan and gray, and somewhere between a prairie dog and a rat... this little creature has entered my heart:

round tailed ground squirrel

Did you notice how cute he or she is? Here's a better picture... 

ground squirrel arizona
This little creature is called a round-tailed ground squirrel. I've never heard of such a thing, or seen one, until i stumbled upon them at the San Tan Mountain Regional Park, east of Phoenix, last November...
ground squirrel san tan
We both froze when we saw each other. Then, slowly, he (or she..its kind of hard to tell) came closer to my car.. and I took some close up pictures. Which inspired this pastel drawing...
round tailed ground squirrel drawing
Round-tailed Ground Squirrel, Soft Pastel on light blue-gray toned paper, 18x24"
Then winter happened in Arizona... you know that one month where we get something called cold weather... and the ground squirrels went into hibernation.
But, this past week, I went to the Desert Botanical Garden, in Phoenix, and fell in love with them all over again... Because it's spring, and spring is a marvelous time of year.
It's the time of year when we get to see cute, little ground squirrels munching on new leaves as they climb up high into the trees...
ground squirrel in tree
round tailed ground squirrel
arizonas round tailed ground squirrel
ground squirrel eating on leaves

 They are just so darn cute. 

And this one is definitely going to find its way into some new pastel drawings. 
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