Water Cycle

 

I finished my piece for the

Ashes to Art Project,

I call it Cycles.

The project was created to raise money for

the fire departments in Colorado who

battled mass wildfires over the summer.

Artist were given pieces of  charcoaled trees

from the Fort Collins, CO wildfire.

 

I have been working on this project for some time.

This pieces was my fourth try, working with

the burnt trees was not easy.

The charcoal was fragile and in places it was still wood.

It was really hard to get an edge to make a line or

get a consistent mark made on the paper.

I tried rubbing the charcoal on a stone to get

a straight edge which I could get, but it would

crumble or wear down quickly.

 

( I think most charcoal artist use is made from grapevines)

 

My piece is about Cycles.

The water cycle and tree growth.

The circle is a slice of a tree, see the growth bands?

I used Indian symbols to tell the story of the water cycle.

The sun symbol is in the center, then starting left top, raincloud.

Moving clockwise, it continues to mountains,

rain fall and lastly the circle

which is a house of water. 

 I got the Indian symbols off a postcard a friend sent me from

Mesa Verde, CO. I'm not sure what a house of water is, my guess is

a lake or pond. I probably should have looked it up. 

 

Cycles is a watercolor. I used some ground-up tree charcoal mixed

with water on the outer tree bark ring.

 The lines for the sun are drawn with

tree charcoal. I had tried to use more charcoal but it was to

difficult to work with.

 

Today I will mail Cycles to the Ashes to Art Project manager.

I hope to have more details about the online art auction

that takes place in October, will post the information

when I get it.