MINERALARTS:

Amulet for the New Moon

I don’t have a lot to say about this amulet. Four inches long, four hot-forged pods – two copper, one steel, and one sterling silver. It started out as something entirely different. When the original idea didn’t work out, I nearly abandoned the pieces until I discovered how neatly the iron and silver pods fit together. I knew that I…

ironwing

February 6, 2008

Iron & Metalwork

Pallasite Meteorite Pendant

The top stone on this pendant is a tiny slice of the Esquel pallasite that I bought several years ago. The other stone is native terrestrial iron from Siberia, which I bought as a small slab and cut to match the pallasite. Together they are an image of the boundary deep in the earth where…

ironwing

February 3, 2008

Iron & Metalwork, Nature

Stick Oracle – finished

I finished the last of the Stick drawings. This one represents the Third Quarter Moon. For some reason, this is the most stylized and least realistic of the series, though that wasn’t intentional. Minor changes will be made in a couple of the drawings before printing, but for now you can see how they all…

ironwing

February 2, 2008

Scratchboard

Mica Collage

I’m working on several paintings for a poster presentation that I’ll be taking to a botany conference in two weeks. The poster is mostly about using handground mineral pigments in egg tempera for botanical illustration, but will also include scratchboard art and a couple of craft projects like this: Jaguar Tracks in Blue Oak Canyon 10″x14″ Amate…

ironwing

January 27, 2008

Iron & Metalwork, Paintings: mineral pigments in egg tempera, Scratchboard

Stick Oracle: Madrone Gate

For the Waxing Gibbous Moon, the Stick Oracle shows a gate built of two heavy Arizona madrone branches placed in a pile of stones on a small island. The young bark of madrones is smooth and dark red, so it is shown in black here. Older bark is nearly white and is broken up into small square blocks. …

ironwing

January 21, 2008

Scratchboard

Stick Oracle: First Quarter Moon

Just in time for the First Quarter Moon – the corresponding card in my Stick Oracle, showing two forked staves marking the confluence of two creeks. Although carefully sketched before inking, these Stick cards (six so far, with two to go) have had a lot of reworking as each develops on the way to the…

ironwing

January 14, 2008

Scratchboard

Cranes and Ferns

Yesterday we went cranewatching and fernhunting, two activities that have special significance in southeastern Arizona. Thousands of sandhill cranes spend part of the winter here, drawn to the warm weather, cornfields, and small artificial ponds. A thousand years ago, they would have come for the natural cienegas (marshes) and grasslands that have now vanished. Their wild, primitive…

ironwing

January 13, 2008

Iron & Metalwork, Nature

Ice Lamp Moon

Today’s New Moon is the Ice Lamp Moon in my personal moon calendar. I named it when I was 13, in reference to the Winter Orchid or Puttyroot (Aplectrum hyemale) that grew in the woods near my house. The plant has a single leaf that sprouts in September and persists through the winter, dying back…

ironwing

January 8, 2008

Nature, Paintings: mineral pigments in egg tempera

Silver Scratchboard Wand

I bought myself a Winter Solstice present: silver scratchboard by ScratchArt. It comes in packages of 10 8″x10″ sheets for about $8.00. Basically it’s a sheet of smooth aluminum foil laminated to cardstock and coated with a thin layer of black ink. The ink layer is thinner than the Ampersand Scratchboard (Claybord Black) that I…

ironwing

January 5, 2008

Scratchboard

A Winter Solstice Poem

WINTER SOLSTICE SUNRISE (Lorena B. Moore, 1990) In some hollow hall behind the dawn Silent copper horns are blackening In the tarnished penumbra of the year. In that last hour before the old brittle sun Freezes to shards in a dark burst of metal, A deep, molten hum breaks out of the ground. The winds…

ironwing

December 22, 2007

Nature