Dreaming With My Ancestors

Dreaming With My Ancestors

Whenever I hear owls, I think of my ancestors. Especially my dad. He used to buy my mom all sorts of owl trinkets and figurines- and I guess it rubbed off on me as owls are my favorite too. This newest painting “Dreaming With My Ancestors” was completed in my intuitive painting style after spending a sleepless night laying in bed listening to the owls and then dreaming of my dad.

 

Intuitive Painting

I start with random mark making on a large sheet of Bristol Paper. Bristol paper isn’t exactly wonderful for watercolor painting but since it is sitting on my art desk I usually just flip open the front cover and start sketching and making marks. For me, art needs to have a low barrier to entry- I need to just be able to sit down and just go at it easily.

 

These marks are truly random lines and just come from my hand to pen to paper without any thought- that is the intuitive process. Once I feel I have enough marks on the page I will rotate my paper until I start to see shapes appear, figures or something that reminds me of ….something. I then add more lines and start to block in actual figures- an owl, a vine, perhaps a moon.

Something Different

This painting was a different direction for me as I introduced a dark night sky- blacks, blues, browns and purples. I tend to gravitate towards brighter and more colorful elements in my art- but this one really needed that night sky to ground the painting and let the owl fly.

 

Sometimes a bit of dark is needed to make the light shine.

To read more about the story behind this painting, please see Neil Young’s Times-Contrarian Artists Perspective linked HERE

With aloha,

 

Mika Harmony

 

If you’d like to see more of my intuitive painting style, please check out my new Bald Eagle post here