Meet Me in the Sky

“Meet me in the sky,” he said, which was a common enough farewell among lovers but was especially gallant in the falling woods.

Song of the Crow 

When we arrived in Juneau, I had just finished reading the Tlingit creation story. The story centers around Raven, who's credited with creating and bringing light to the world.

When we arrived in Juneau, I was, however, still in the middle of reading Song of the Crow, a story about Noah’s Ark told from the perspective of a crow.  “Meet me in the sky” is a passage from the book.

I looked now at Alaska’s forest, wind, and ocean, thinking of the crow’s experience of them. How different the point of reference from my own.

Crows and ravens are everywhere in Alaska.  You see them along rivers, picking at the dying salmon.  You hear them in the dense forests.  You can’t help but laugh with them as they surf the ever-present wind.  Ravens are everywhere in Tlingit art as well.  Tlingit geometric abstraction carries rich cultural symbolism.

I think of my interest in crows and ravens.  I’m exploring media — mixing pastels, charcoal, paint and brayer, monotypes, and ink — to depict these particular birds.  The aim is to help me better understand their behaviors, intelligence, emotions, and experiences in their world. I’m exploring abstraction to bring out something essential about the crow.  Essence over appearance and to hold the reader’s attention.

But, returning to the external world of actual picture-making —

In Alaska, I sketched landscapes and colors, taking visual notes using three colors of pan-pastels, three colored pencils, and an eraser. It was early September, which meant a lot of rain and mist. The sky and water were grey, except for one day when the sun came out fully in Glacier Bay.

Back home at my drawing table, I tried different ways to render the feeling of isolation and beauty of my sketchbook images and photos, including the crow’s place in the landscape.

In the end, it was “meet me in the sky” that took hold—the simple idea that guided my studio time.

Media Exploration 1:  Meet me in the sky

• 9 x 12 paper

• Starting with a light background and cool dominant, I used the pan-pastel colors I’d brought to Alaska—turquoise tints and shades.

• The drawing came out bluer than I’d hoped, so I added some orange—an overall wash with pan pastels and a colorless blender—to make it more neutral.

• Adjusted in Procreate, aiming to better convey that diffuse light in a mist — a bit of the unknowable Alaska.

Media Exploration 2:  Meet me in the sky

•  Same size.

•  Flipped from landscape to portrait orientation to focus more on the crow in the composition.

• This time, starting with a dark and warm underpainting, I mixed sepia paint and worked in the cad red and yellow. Applied it with the brayer.

• The same pan-pastel colors as above, including the orange tint.

•  Against the dark mountains, the mist stood out. Too starkly this time.

•  Uncover the red at the edges of the crow silhouette. Yes, that works.

Next step — take the lessons from these two explorations and make one more.

Time to go big:  Meet me in the sky

• 18 x 24 paper

• Initial brayer work, followed by an overall wash of orange (with a colorless blender).

• Oops, I meant to set up a dark foreground but left it as light as the sky.

• Started with the darkest darks and focal point.

• This is where the picture is — still on my drawing table.  Must finish!

Finish for (right) now:  Song of the Crow.

Let’s bring it to some closure.

• A book cover.

• 9 x 12.

A closer look:

Finishing something for a deadline is its own creative thing.  What-can-I-do-with-what-I’ve-got-right-now?! is powerful inspiration.  With this post, I’m back in the swing of finishing on a deadline.

During my month’s sabbatical, I traveled to the Last Frontier, read about corvids and giraffes, and emptied the giant shed in our backyard where a big project is now underway.