Three new small paintings. These abstract landscapes express the light and weather of spring, using Prussian blue, yellow ochre, and burnt siena. I enjoy tonalism and limited palettes. I like to select some variation on the primary colors, or even just one color – Prussian blue is a favorite. The limitation does an end-run around my over-thinking and perfectionism and lets me get kind of Zen with light, shadow, and mood. It’s a liberating restriction.
Spring is in full bloom, and filling my head with ideas. Behold!
Out and about
The garden is up and running – largely without me, I admit. The daffodils are especially robust this year. (I wish I could say the same for the studio lighting or my poor old camera.)
A little sketchbook tour
Inspired by the energy of the season, I’ve been letting all my ideas make their pitches. Those glorious daffodils again, this time in two vases. This year’s solar eclipse – from photos. We didn’t get totality over Massachusetts, so while I took a moment to observe the partial over my studio (safely!), I also watched the totality over and over, live on NASA tv. The little Medusa concept doodles happened because I am convinced Medusa and the Gorgons were solar mythic beings. Next, ephemeral springtime forest plants – North American bloodroot flower and fern fiddleheads. (Did you know, that part of the violin is both named and designed after the plant?) All of these sketches are plans for future artworks.
The color sketch was just testing out some watercolor pencils. I’m not particularly in love with this set, but the SATOR design is an idea in development for some typographic abstracts. The SATOR square is one of the oldest good-luck charms in western culture, found decorating doorways of ancient Roman buildings.
And finally, testing out different pens – a dip pen, a bamboo reed pen, and a fountain pen – the one in black. I sketched with a glass pen, too, but forgot to photograph it. I like them all, but I think the reed pen gives that Real Artist vibe, at least in these little drawings.
In Other News
New small paintings are ready. I’m just editing the photos. I’ll post them separately, and they’ll be added to the shop soon.
An Alchemy of Dragons is on a brief hiatus. As I prepare to introduce the second protagonist, Iarius, and expand my characters’ world, I found I need to corral an explosion of plot bunnies. I also realized I made some mistakes in the earlier chapters. So I decided to pause, rework some details, and get more of the story written in advance of posting. Maps are being drawn. Character portraits are being designed. A world-building wiki is coming together as I go along. I’m pretty excited about the upcoming improvements. Watch this space.
-Jen
Happy Vernal Equinox Day! I thought I’d celebrate the season with a selection of some new and older works on the seasonal theme. No explanations. Not in any particular order. Comments and questions are welcome.
Enjoy!
Hi, all. Hope you’re doing well. Spring is literally just around the corner, with the Vernal Equinox next Tuesday, March 19. I’m very excited about it because it’s been a windy late winter here in lovely Massachusetts, and I live and work in a creaky, old, 1870s triple-decker. Locals will know what that means. I am tired of being cold. Granted, we could have a freeze as late as May because New England, but I cling to the straws I find.
I have two new paintings to share. Behold!
These are both views from my studio window, originally sketched on the same day, at about 11:00 AM. They will be added to the Artrepreneur shop shortly.
They’re also both experiments in mounting watercolors on canvas. Painting watercolor on canvas is tricky. You have to treat the canvas with a specially mixed primer, called watercolor ground, but honestly, I don’t love it. I like my work to look and even feel a certain way, and watercolor ground is just not the surface texture I want. Plus, watercolor on ground is fragile. For me personally, it’s a lot of prep work for a substrate that’s not very stable, for a medium meant for a different surface. Many artists do amazing things with it, but it’s not my resonance.
But then I had one of my “Hey, wait a minute, Jen” thoughts. Don’t I build collages on canvas all the time?, I said to myself. Why yes, I do, now that you mention it, I said back to myself. So why don’t I mount some paper on some canvas and then paint on it? Duh!
So I’ve been experimenting.
Wind and Clouds with Gull is watercolor, gansai, pastel, pencils, and collage on rice paper on canvas.
Dogwood Buds with Junco is watercolor, gansai, pastel and ink on drawing paper on canvas.
More experiments are upcoming with other papers and media. I think this is going to be a regular thing. I really like it. The wheat paste I make for collage shrinks in drying, tightening up the canvas like a drum. Maybe I’ll make a video of it, so you can hear it. It results in a gorgeously flat surface with no buckling or cockling, and a finished work that’s ready to frame and hang. I can’t think why I never thought to use this for painting and drawing before. Silly me.
Anyway, that was the first big breakthrough of 2024.
I suppose the fact that they are paintings is kind of also a breakthrough. Collage is and always will be the most direct glimpse into how my brain works, but there’s actually a practical problem-solving reason why I am doing more mark-making work. I’ll write about that in future.
Other practical problems that need solving are being addressed this year as well. Watch this space for adjustments to the Newsletter and the Patreon, both of which will continue to be free, so you should totally sign up for them. There will also be new ways to acquire original, bespoke, Jen Fries artworks of your very own, so brace for joy on that front.
An Alchemy of Dragons will be undergoing some renovations, too. It turns out that writing a serialized novel is kind of like producing a reality series about a fictional series in which the characters build a suspension bridge, for which you actually build a suspension bridge. I’m bringing in co-protagonist Iarius Venzo as well as at least one subplot, and I’ve been quite literally at the engineering drawing board, because, you know, you can’t just do the thing. You can’t just sploop it out onto the internet. You have to build, design, construct – like a collage. Or a Werner Herzog movie.
I’ll write about that process in the near future, too.
Anyway… Spring!
-Jen
Happy lunar new year, everyone! I hope your winter has been cozy and all is well with you and yours as the Year-Beginning Season comes to its close.
I love that the universe gives us three chances to start every new year over the whole winter. We get the solar new year at the Winter Solstice, the astronomical new year at Earth’s perihelion in the first week of January, and now the lunar new year, which was celebrated yesterday.
Considering how dragged out many of us were in December and January, getting to count February as an additional start is especially welcome.
However, proceed with caution. 2024 is the year of the dragon, which is a double-edged sword. If you were born in a dragon year, it’s all good, but if you were born under a different sign, you’d better check your auspices. Rabbit-year folks like me, for instance, are advised to look both ways crossing the street, stay out of fights, take our vitamins, and generally behave like smart little bunnies.
I’ve checked Chinese astrology, western astrology, and western numerology, and overall, they all promise a year of great change and a mixed bag of challenges and opportunities. So … yeah, looking at what’s on our plates already, buckle up, kids. It’s going to be a ride.
That’s why I chose the illustration above as my greeting to you. That dragon was in quite the tangle in An Alchemy of Dragons, Ch. 2, but our protagonist, Erran, was able to use the brambles to make his escape. In real life, thickets are nurseries where new forests are born. They offer traps for some and havens for others. Little critters who learn the ins and outs are safe in there. They can find everything they need – food, water, shelter – and come and go as they please. Blundering clods like hunters, on the other hand, can barely get in, and if they force their way, they’ll have a job getting out again.
I think that’s appropriate for this year.
I’m sure you noticed that it’s been another while since you heard from me. I’m doing the stuff, but I can’t quite decide how I want to present it to you.
New small paintings are coming to the shop soon.
I’ve been reworking the structure of the Alchemy of Dragons serial, which may require adding material and reorganizing the chapters again, but I am very pleased with what I’ve got. I had been using the wrong plotting system, and the deeper into the story I got, the harder it was to plan what should come next in the telling of it. Putting together a system that works for me became my main winter project, and I feel like I’m on a much better track now. I’m as optimistic as I ever get.
Video and audio experiments are also in progress. Watch this space for further news on those.
Finally, just about all my online tools need refreshing. Figuring out the best options is an ongoing puzzle. There will be tweaks to the website arrangement, the newsletter, Patreon, and subscriptions. Nothing shocking, but hopefully some functional improvements, like my writing system.
I have a feeling a lot of us have been gnawing things over in our burrows all this winter, but the celestial clocks have turned, and the new season is just about here. Yes, in damp, icy Massachusetts, we just got another winter storm advisory for next week, but the days are undeniably longer and brighter. Buds are developing on trees, the backyard birds are already starting to sing and pair up, and I started spring cleaning today.
So Happy New Year!
– Jen, a rabbit in a dragon year.
-Jen
I have been writing, arting, businessing, and planning, and you’re going to have to take my word for it because I forgot to do the updating (and several other -ings as well).
But no, for real, did the things. I drew. I painted and collaged. I experimented with some still raw, in-the-seed ideas. I wrote and illustrated. I prepped several projects. I did a secret thing I’m not going to talk about yet.
I just didn’t mention any of it to you guys. The Communications division of me is feeling a bit exasperated with the Studio division of me.Â
Oh, well, I’m telling you now. Let’s get into the update.
As you know, Chapter 6 was posted earlier this month. Read it here.
Chapter 7 is about half written so far. Here’s a glimpse into the current draft:
The first tone of the concert seemed to rise from the Bard of Perna’s fingers of its own accord, tight, hard, building tension until it broke into an arabesque of notes sparkling through the air like the sunlight itself.
He let the passage fade into silence, then repeated, and with it, the Lady of Arrak rose and began to dance. His music and her movements were relaxed and breezy. Her veils floated and subtly slipped away, exposing slender bare arms, then a hint of a colorful bodice, all grace and tender gestures
Studies for seasonal paintings.
Illustrations for Alchemy Chapter 6 were posted.
Studio Assistant Princess LunaLynx posed for a photo shoot.
“I have traveled far to share this with you,” collage postcard with asemic writing. This was a mark-making exercise, related to a workshop idea in development. It resulted in a two-sided art object and an examination of my creative process.
Little by little, I’m organizing my online realm and figuring out how all the knobs and buttons work. The next phase is to integrate all the parts of the Jen Fries Arts Community, i.e. all you wonderful folks who subscribe or follow in the various ways. I’m going to be tweaking some features of the website and adding some more ways for us to interact, but I need to plan which skills to learn and gear to acquire next.
I would love to get some guidance from you via the form below. Let me know what you’d like me to develop for our little circle, and I’ll see what I can do about it.
Thanks!
– Jen
Previously, in An Alchemy of Dragons, Erran Fox was forced to realize that the Divines of the Grand Temple had been right, and he must do at last what he should have done at first.
It’s time to hire a bard.
As he said to Sister Kathil and Brother Godre in Ch. 5, bards follow money, money flows through cities, and the nearest city to Chesny is Lorondrias.
Lorondrias, the City of Emerald Spires, capitol of the Duchy of Lorond, commanded the Bay of Jewels from a promontory above the Reed Lands, the vast delta where the Pontyd River flowed into the ocean, and trade flowed across Bodhael and the Sea of Llyr.
Read the full chapter, illustrated, here.
I had fun with the illustrations for Ch. 6. As we travel farther abroad with Erran, we are getting to see more of the world of Aeldreth and its magic. We even get our first glimpse of Erran himself.
The view of Lorondrias in the Chapter initial is inspired by the woodcut engravings of the Nuremberg Chronicle, an illustrated encyclopedia published in 1493, establishing the general style of this part of the story’s world.
Erran’s clothes and the building ornament around the owls hint at the style of magic as well. Protection is less a matter of armor to deflect blows and bars to keep out intruders, and more about eye circles, colors, and complicated patterns to control the energies. So expect things to continue fancy as we progress.
And let me know in comments or on the Community page if you recognize the species of owls hanging out at the Golden Owl theater.
-Jen
October is the Hunter’s Moon, and this week, it was big and bright, and lit up the broken clouds in silver and gold. I decided to celebrate with some collages.
I’ve been deep in painting for the Alchemy of Dragons illustrations, so it’s been a while since I did a collage, which has been a mainstay of my work for many years. It was interesting to compare the two processes.
Painting is straightforward. I sketch and plan. Finalize the image. Recreate or transfer the line art to the painting surface. Select the palette. Do the doing. It takes as long as it takes.
Collage takes its time, too, but it’s a wilder ride. It’s a deep dive into my mind. It’s like memory recovery hypnosis. It’s like dream analysis. Nothing is planned or designed. A vision is in my head – a thing is seen or thought – and wants to become art. In this case, it’s a real-life thing, the Moon on the 28th of October, 2023.
But I didn’t draw a picture of it. I didn’t try to recreate the object of the Moon. I wanted to express the feelings it gave me. Complicated feelings and several of them.
I wanted to pull that Moon down to me, big and close, the way it felt when I looked up and the distance between me and it melted away. The clouds parting, and my little neighbors in their roosts, touched by its light. Taking a night walk, soaking up that cool glow amid autumn wind and flying leaves, in the season of witchery and ghosts.
I can’t sketch that out. I have to wander my way to such an image. I have to find the hooks to draw it out, piece by piece, to turn the ephemeral into the material. So I hit the collage files.
I pulled out papers, vintage clips, found materials, searching for pieces of what was brewing in the old noggin, anything that resonated in the moment. Dark blues and a rich black. Oh, look, some gold tissue paper, just like the clouds that night. A scrap of a copy of some Japanese textiles, this will give me the leaves I want. Wait – what stars are up this month? Consult the Old Farmer’s Almanac! Collect paint, ink, pencils. Cook some paste.
I pulled out so much stuff, and then began the process of combining and recombining, adjusting and problem-solving until two stories emerged. One on paper. One on canvas.
It took up my whole freaking workspace, much to the annoyance of Studio Assistant Princess Lunalynx, who likes to nap in the sun on the main table. Holy smokes, there was a lot of clean-up. I’m still holding out the unused materials, in case more Moon or Halloween ideas come to me – the ripples and echoes still bouncing around.
Collage will always be a vital part of my creative practice because it teaches me about myself. The process of selection and composition mirrors the way my mind works and how I construct my ideas. Chaotic. Messy. Quirky. Full of references. And of the school that says that even the most unrealistic image will be realistic if it captures the real essence of a thing – if it speaks to a person’s emotions – if it makes you feel like you were there, like you had that dream, too.
Anyway, that’s the goal.
These works will be added to the Artworks gallery and my shop very soon.
I did the Alchemy Chapter 6 illustration, too. I’ll talk more about this and its accompanying chapter initial in another blog post, but for now, thrill to the world’s first glimpse of our main protagonist, Erran Fox.
Here he is, with Squirrel Nutkin and the aura-horse Maedrephon, flying towards the sunset, in search of a bard who can charm dragons.
Chapter 6 is expected to hit the website by the end of this week. Watch this site.
Our Halloween is a little pauce this year. We’ve had too many headaches and joint issues, both me and My Sainted Mother, too many distractions, and too much disappointment with our fellow humans.
But I still found some moons and some magic. Plus, I see it’s 1:30 AM as of this writing. The day is young.
Happy Halloween!
-Jen
I decided to take pity on you all for once and split my longer chapters into two parts for easier reading on teensy-beensy little phone screens. Of course, each chapter still needs at least two illustrations, so that means more art!
Chapter 4 has been split into Chapters 4 and 5, with two new images. You can see these in the novel text, here, and get a close-up look in the Artworks Gallery, under Illustration, here.
Chapter 3 is also going to get split. I need to do one new image for that. I’ll probably default to Ch. 3, Pts 1 and 2, rather than edit all the other page titles after it.
Dog roses from my garden, pastel on paper.
I actually don’t work well with pastels in the traditional way, as a dry medium. I apply them wet, like watercolor paints. It gives me an interesting matte finish, like a more ethereal gouache. I intend to write about my process in the near future.
Coming Next: The first illustration for Chapter 6 of Alchemy. Here’s a sneak peak of the sketch.
Still Inside My Head: October is the month for lunar art, don’t you think?
I’m thinking collage for this one.
Why, yes, I do take photos of the moon with a rubbish old point-and-click camera with no filters or proper settings, from my studio window in the middle of the night. Doesn’t everyone?
It’s been dark all day today
Dark sky
Dark light
Dark rooms whispering dark news
But the soft air invites a sweater
And the birds
talk with me
among the dogwood leaves
in the rain
outside my window
Heavy clouds all day. It was too dark to mix colors, too dark to photograph art. The news of the world was pretty damn dark, too.
But then I fed the wild birds on the porch roof outside my studio window. They were waiting for me, as usual – sparrows and mourning doves, house finches in their subdued red, jays in their glamorous blue. So much gossiping and yakking while they ate.
It didn’t matter that I couldn’t understand what they were saying. Sitting with them, listening to the rain and their voices, feeling that soft, damp, early autumn chill, it gave a strangely profound sense of perspective.
It felt real. It felt good.
So I wrote about it.
-Jen
Jen Fries Arts 