My two latest pieces were inspired by encounters with animals in places that are special to me. The pair of crows featured in The Conversation are regulars on our back fence. The flaming red moon, Mars and smoke (why the moon is that color) are also rooted in reality. Smoke was billowing from the Valley Fire to the southeast of us near Alpine, California. It isn’t intended to be a depressing piece, but to encourage thought about climate change and where we choose to build long-term dwellings and businesses. As with all art, it’s also o.k. in my opinion to simply enjoy the imagery and decide what, if anything, it means to you.
Foxfire Oak celebrates both another recent Catalina Island fox sighting (I adore them) and a shapely, old island scrub oak at Wrigley Botanical Garden in Avalon, California. I combined personal experience and folklore in this mixed media painting that’s primarily watercolor with a bit of soft pastel added toward its completion to punch up the cold flames in the tree hollows and the fox’s eyes. Despite being quite different in both the techniques used and the outcome, it’s a bit of an homage to my favorite piece of visual art, New Year's Eve Foxfires at the Changing Tree, made by Utagawa Hiroshige. I was fortunate enough to see an original woodblock print of it at The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
If you’re interested in owning either of these originals, please send me a message here. Prints may be purchased through Pixels.com by clicking on the images of the paintings below.
Thanks for supporting living artists.
—Robin Street-Morris
Robin Street-Morris. The Conversation. 2020. Transparent watercolor and powdered soft pastel on 300lb cold press paper. 14" x 20" (36 x 51cm).
Robin Street-Morris. Foxfire Oak. 2020. Transparent watercolor and soft pastel on 140lb hot press paper. 13" x 19" (33 x 48cm).