Tag Archives: Itten

BUTTERFLY BONES

Posted on by

Butterfly Bones

Yesterday I think I saw the last basic-black butterfly of the year, almost soot black, the absence of reflected light from a pigmented surface, no reflected color. Hello, Isaac Newton and the theory that color is light.

A few years ago my big dog Rocks died. As I buried his ashes under a dogwood tree with several other dogs and cats, a black butterfly fluttered by and landed on the fresh mound. It just looked at me and said, “Here I am, hombre.” (California talk).

Black butterflies seem to be around ever since then. I call them all “Rocks” and they don’t mind, but as they do every autumn they have vanished to escape the cold. Rocks and his sister Pebbles, weren’t winter weather dogs; they were lie-about canines from California’s sun without seasons.

Butterflies Escape

This, “Butterflies Escaping Autumn” color wheel, is painted in 12 moderately tinted tones of the Ostwald and Itten color wheel that has been so important in my study and use of color for 55 years. A 12-hue color wheel, with a million or more possibilities.

These are the butterflies that migrate to the sunny climes of the far south, in this image, they leave the autumn leaf symbol in the center. The green dot is the promise of spring and rebirth and y’all come back. Y’hear…

Before The Fall

During a busy, open studio day, a number of women looked at a large (30×40”) paper sculpture of an oak leaf in extravagant autumn colors. There was a small, elegantly patterned butterfly in the composition, and they all said, “Oh, I reeeeeally like that,” or something similar.

I told them that the leaf change was on, and if they went into the forest, they might find butterfly bones among the beautiful leaves. Wide eyed, they said, “Reeeeeally?” and I said, “Noooooooo.” They were so disappointed and said that they wanted to go look for the butterfly bones they were never told about in kindergarten butterfly classes.

Butterfly Bones

Since they all thought it was an interesting idea, I decided to do a series on the bones of insects that die when the leaves change color. Among them were: butterfly bones, dragonfly and mayfly bones, bumblebee bones, small moth bones, firefly bones, and half a dozen others.

Mayfly Bones

There are no such things as insect bones among the autumn leaves. However, that doesn’t mean they don’t exist inside my weird imagination. They’re in there along with a lot of other detritus. The image I show is my idea of mayfly bones among the leaves. I live in my own little world, but that’s ok. They know me there and it’s cheaper than reality.

Dragonfly Bones

Dragonflies are the most dramatic of all the bugs that I portray. Their wing bones stand out among the multi-colored maples and the palette of poplars. Delicate wings that were tough as cargo straps on an 18-wheeler, yet now the wings shatter like Marino glass at the slightest touch.

Firefly Bones

Lightning bugs, (A.K.A. fireflies) are the glamorous glowers that kids love to keep in glass jars until the lights or the game runs out. Fireflies arrive in early spring and endure until the terra firma really starts to cool down. I’ve seen a late loving lothario shine his stuff so late in the game that there wasn’t a female in the bar to watch him.

While I was producing these fragile winged bugs,I realized that no one would know what I was doing. Fortunately, I had met a poet, Richard Cary, and he agreed to do a poem about each one. We had plans to mount a show of “Butterfly Bones”; the poetry and a video of the project. Then the economic downturn happened and it got put on the proverbial back burner. Here’s a poem about lightning bugs, by Richard Cary.

Lightning Bug Bones

We drift about your backyard
traveling to and fro with lanterns

I remember
an amazing night meadow
we were too numerous to believe
I felt alone in outer space
suspended in the winking galaxies.

tonight
you see our lightning bug bones
weave and blink
at some imaginary corner
on some imaginary street
in some imaginary metropolis

we may appear bewildered baffled
as we zig zag through our choices
but we are constant miracles
encircled by loving cosmic laughter

we’re on the way
to nothing more than light
#

Thanks for visiting me…

leo

I’m never satisfied with what I know,
only with what I can find out.

My exhibit is still in its first month at the Grovewood Gallery in Asheville, NC. Click here if you are interested in my collage classes. New classes are being added for January and February.

Butterflies Flee Autumn color wheel $1000….Before The Fall $1650…
Butterfly Bones One $1850…Mayfly Bones $1600…
Dragonfly Bones $2000…Firefly Bones, sold…Butterfly Bones x5 $2500

Butterfly Bones x 5

 

Whales in the Forest

Posted on by

Dear reader,

When I moved to the mountains in Western North Carolina, my palette became warmer because of autumn. The mountains go crazy with color in the fall and won’t be ignored. When I was a boy in the Black Hills, autumn came on a Wednesday and then we had three feet of snow for the weekend. Besides, Ponderosa pine needles don’t change color so there was no change from summer to winter. I lived in Los Angeles and we had four seasons, but they were fire, flood, earthquake and riot. There was no autumn influence in my fifty-year incarceration there.

The personal choice of color is subjective, and we choose color that makes us comfortable. Professional colorists select it to affect emotion, comfort, purchasing, identification and a myriad of results. Artists of every stripe can be objective in color selection to solve problems or accomplish goals, but personal color selection is subjective. Warm color preference is my style and “my style” has been called “the sum of my bad habits.” Now and then, I’ll do a dominantly cool piece, which I usually set aside for a period of time and view with suspicion.

When I got to North Carolina, my wife already had painters working on the living room. They were using a good white and two soft neutrals of the beige persuasion. I’m not comfortable in a visually safe, monochromatic environment so I added a bright, chrome yellow for a wall in the large entrance, a bathroom, two walls in my studio and as accents around the kitchen windows and the fireplace.

When the painters picked up the yellow paint the clerk asked if they were going to paint lines down the highway. But when the job was finished one of them said, “Mr. Monahan, I thought it would be garish, but it works!” I explained that it was the amount of yellow that we used. The contrasts of amounts used (variation of proportion) is the primary consideration in every choice of any element in art. My definition of design for any art is the study of proportion. Big is big when compared to something small, red is brightest when compared with a touch of green, and so on and on and on. Name any art and I’ll show you how the artist has used variations of proportion.

Leo Monahan Paper Sculpture

I began designing the “Spouting Whales” color wheel’s variation of proportion by thinking about a whale’s physique. It is bodied with undulating shapes starting at the nose and ending at the tail in a spiral. The overlapping whales assume hidden bulk. The underbody blends from white into tints (the addition of white) into pure color in a smaller proportion than the upper body, which starts with a modified or neutral version of the same color that blends into a darker value (dark & light) at the center. I toned down the colors with the addition of the direct complement (the opposite side of the color wheel). This is getting “teachy,” but I don’t have another way of describing things. The darker body color is blended with raw umber, an earth tone.

The spouts are the direct complement of the underbelly. For example, the violet whale at the bottom has a yellow spout and the yellow whale at the top has a violet spout. The star shape in the center is visually insistent and the eye starts there then moves out in large spiral shapes and is rewarded by the small accents of the bright spouts. All of the hues (color) have been tinted with white to about 75% for contrast, and the whole wheel is mounted on black to enhance the colors.

Joseph Albers, who had been a Bauhaus student under Itten, modified the color course from what it had been under Paul Klee and Kankinsky, expanded it to a full year and put it into the rational system that I studied under Bill Moore and then taught for many years. Albers was one of the instructors who came to America after the Nazis closed the school and he worked, taught here, and became the famous painter that we know. The list of famous artists that came out of the Bauhaus is impressive to say the least.
Read the history.

img_0216

Aspen groves grew near water and took over when forest fires killed the pines. They were favorite places to play when I was a boy in the Black Hills. They could be deep and dark, white but non-threatening. The first forest is narrow (20×30”), and has a strong vertical thrust which is enhanced by the tall narrow trees that move up from dark to light. The negative spaces between the three main trees are very strong, wavy flames that point up to reinforce the vertical direction. Referring back to the list of elements and coordinating principles, the layout is the dominantly vertical direction of trees with a horizontal subordinate of landscape.

The color is limited to variations on earth colors, burnt sienna, raw sienna, burnt umber and raw umber. I don’t use them right out of the tube; I add small amounts of color to give them character. There are dozens of bright color accents in the shapes of the forest floor. The paper is heavily embossed and painted in variations of the earth tones. The color accents hit the higher embossed shapes.

The values (dark and light) are dominantly dark with a subordinate use of white, but the white trees make up the main interest with their negative spaces and textural overlay.

img_0219

This forest has a more passive direction (24×30”). While the elements and techniques are the same, the intent is to pull you into the forest instead of up into the top of the trees. The visual flow is along the strong diagonal tree arrangement as they recede among the overlapping horizontal landscape shapes. It’s the same forest with different ideas.

“I wonder whom these woods belong to. I’m not sure I’ll walk through there even though it would be a short cut. It’s dark and gloomy with rough rocky ground and brush. What if I fell and injured myself? No one would ever find me. Wait…what was that? I think I saw something moving. Just another reason not to go in there but it’s probably my imagination. No, dammit, there’s something in there…Oh, jeez, it’s two little boys and a dog.”

“What were you doing in there boys? Is that dog friendly, will he bite?”

“We always play there and my dog will lick you all over. Do you walk in the woods mister?”

“Oh sure, I’m in there a lot, I just I love the deep, dark woods. Big people aren’t afraid of places like this y’know. I’m not going through this time but when I’m here again, I’ll just traipse right in there and wander around and have a lot of fun.”

“Ok mister, we gotta go home for lunch. G’bye.”

“G’bye boys…. Jeez.”

 

Thanks for visiting with me…

leo

The first Forest, Black Hill I, just sold. The second forest, Black Hills II, is available for $3200 at the Cut, Bend, Fold, ColorColorColor exhibit at the Grovewood Gallery in Asheville, NC.