31. Inspiring Cypress Trees

The Holiday Season is a time we are reminded of trees. I recently had the opportunity to paint under the branches of an entire grove of Cypress trees along the windswept cliffs of Davenport, California. You can feel the presence of spirit, similar to Redwood Trees, as you stand beneath the gnarly branches that form a very high canopy.  Cypress are very interesting trees because they respond to the elements that bombard them by growing to accommodate the movement of the air past them. So on windswept cliffs such as these, the trees form beautifully sculptured branches that follow the wind away from the cliffs. While painting these beauties I am reminded that they teach us to trust in the flow of life and allow our own branches to be shaped by the wind. As artists, we must learn to let go and let our own spirit be molded by the idea or scene before us. When we give in to a spirit that is greater than ourselves we soar and become a thing of beauty ourselves. The symbolism of a very ordinary Cypress tree can transform your painting experience into something extraordinary. 

 

31, Inspiring Cypress Trees

30. Goddess in a Frame

I just completed a Soul Art piece guided by my mentor Laura Hollick at http://www.soulartstudio.com. The Soul Art process is a wonderful discovery of your inner self. My video shows you the process I went through and the insights that came as a result. There are five stages you go through in creating a Soul Art piece. The process begins with 1. Intention- Writing down what you want this journey to be about. 2. Bodymap- Your body is traced onto something such as paper and reflects in someway the intention you set. 3. Soul Art- You use some creative exercise tools such as doodling to give you ideas for images to include in the art making and then you create your piece. No art experience is needed here. Cutting photos from magazines and pasting them to your piece works just fine. 4. Insight- You use some more techniques to help you receive the insight that your Soul Art is communicating to you. 5. Spirit Action- Reflecting on your clear insight, you choose the best way for your insight to be come action. Your insights progress and compel you forward. It’s an intriguing process that you may want to try on your own or with a guide. I’m in training now to become a Soul Art facilitator.  

 

 

30. Goddess in a Frame

29. Eucalyptus Path- The Allure of Old Trees

There is an old eucalyptus tree at the Arboretum in Santa Cruz that I have painted several times. I have been trying to figure out why I love this tree so much. I can feel that trees have become sacred to me. There’s something about just remaining stationary and watching life take place around you. The trees respond to the events around them and reflect the interactions of humans and what is happening in the environment. As you know, they can live to be very old, like a redwood, whose life vastly eclipses the length of my life span and yours too. 

My tip for drawing and painting trees is to imaging that your hands are touching the branches as you work. This way you can feel some of their history. You will discover things you never noticed before. You will see that these living creatures speak to you in wonderful symbolic ways. Some of what you feel comes out in your drawing and painting. 

So why do I love this tree so much? One thing that intrigues me as an artist, is just the sheer joy of the branches as they undulate up into the sky. The shapes themselves are very beautiful with smooth areas and some hanging bark that gives off violet and gray tones that change with the movement of the sun. Another reason is that trees are symbolic of communication to the heavens and the underworld because of their branches and roots. What are they saying as they communicate with the gods? 

 

28. Soul Art & Cleaning Out Your Space & Roaring Camp

Hope you have had a marvelous summer. This  summer I started on a journey to become a Soul Art Guide. Soul Art is a journey of discovery with lots of art techniques to help you discover your own creative soul. This is a marvelous program created by Laura Hollick (http://www.soulartstudio.com). Sometime in the Fall I hope to have finished the first certification, which will allow me to facilitate soul art classes to help anyone with their creativity - more  on that later.  The goal of the Soul Art journey is to “ tap into our own creative spiritual mastery and let it become a sacred gift to the world” as described by Laura Hollick. Anyway, I am on this journey and so I thought I’d share some of the process with you. 

 One of the first things you need to do is to make sure your space is clean and uncluttered so that you will not have any blocks to your creativity. Needless to say, I really know this from experience but I let my studio become horribly cluttered with over 10 years of trying many materials and painting a lot of paintings. I realized that I no longer wanted to come into my studio because it was too cluttered.  So I have been very busy for over a month cleaning out my studio space. It's turned into an enormous project that needed the garage cleaned out to get some needed space to store things.  

 I have to say that it really has been an enormous release and I feel rejuvenated. I thought I’d share with you somethings I’ve learned about clearing your own space and a few tips on products you can use to clean your art space. It really helps when you feel overwhelmed to just start making piles. The ones that helped me the most were: 1. Give Away or Sell 2. Throw Away 3. Keep. You might want to add another pile for Can’t Make Up Your Mind.  I really felt overwhelmed and did not know where to start. It turned out that I did not start in the studio but started making piles in the garage. Pretty soon I was able to take carloads to Good Will and even start a Dump pile. When I finally got to the studio it was so much easier because I had a place to put the things that I use infrequently. 

 One of the problems I faced in the studio was that I had neglected to clean my floor for a number of years and it had dried oil paint. I don’t know how I let it get in this state but I knew I had to get it clean. Originally I wasn’t worried about the floor because we had put down Pergo and I thought it would clean up easily. The trouble is oils are very different from acrylics and I had switched to oils several years ago. Here’s a short video to show you what I discovered. 

 You can also check out 22. Roaring Camp Caboose for some comment on the spiritual side of letting go (www.CafaRelliArt.com/blog/).

I did get some Plein-air painting done this summer too. Our Plein-Air group went to Davenport Beech, which was quite lovely with nice wild flowers. Check that out below:

28. Soul Art & Cleaning Out Your Space & Roaring Camp

27. The Santa Cruz Mission

I recently painted in watercolor at the Santa Cruz Mission, part of the state park system,  which also has an informative museum within the last remaining adobe building. The building I painted housed the neophyte population, which were native peoples recruited to work the various agricultural and manufacturing enterprises of any of the California Missions and at the same time, be baptized into Christianity.

 

The old barrel and grinders that I gazed at took on added meaning as I imagined the native hands that used these tools. Native peoples had strolled under the portico and walked through the same door I was now painting. They slept under the same adobe walls and tiled roof. Many Indians died of disease in the close quarters of the mission set-up. But even greater numbers died after the system was secularized. 

 

It's hard to know what to say when confronted with a subject where history echos through your paint. As an artist and human being, I dedicate this painting to the memory of the native people who lived and died here. May it be of some comfort to their spirits to know that their history is now honored by the conquering peoples who first rejected them. 

 

 

27. Mission Santa Cruz

26. Greyhound Rock

I recently visited a picturesque little area with a remarkable large rock. Greyhound Rock stands on the edge of the ocean about five mile north of Davenport , California. This very large natural structure stands as a stationary symbol of strength against the steady bombardment from the sea. Looking at this rock while I paint conjures up the importance of rocks in spiritual history. The Egyptian pharoahs spend years creating monuments in stone to their legacy. They believed that since rocks were immortal, so would they be. It's very interesting to to study Eqyptian art and you realize that the names of the pharoahs are still remembered today because of these stone structures. So in some ways they were correct. Of course, there are many other examples.

The stone on which Jacob slept is recorded in the Old Testament where he dreamed of a ladder to Heaven. That rock became known as the Beth-El stone or God's house. In Christianity, Jesus even said that upon this rock I will build my church referring to Peter as that stone. And in modern days, there are about 1,000,000 people that go to Mecca and visit the K'abba which is the site where a meteor fell and  has become a centering and sacred spot for millions of Muslims. So rocks are important in religious consciousness. In our human psyche important rocks represent solidity, permanence and a spiritual connecting spot with the divine. Think about that the next time you look at or paint a rock.