This drawing/watercolor is leaving with my friend Alejandra on Sunday, bound for the northernmost research station of Greenland. She is gathering cores of the ice sheet for her Ph.D.-- and dousing my watercolor in glacial waters!
The drawing/watercolor uses water-soluble inks & paints, along with acrylic grounds on watercolor paper. The image was principally drawn and applied using curly willow branches as brushes/palette knife— a cousin to the arctic willows of Greenland, which hug the soil. I have added extra surface and texture to the paper using acrylic modeling and fiber pastes. The clumpy areas are meant to simulate the lichen areas attached to the stick I was using as a model. Embedded and dried into these areas are extra daubs of watercolor paints-— principally greens and blues.
Glacial waters will activate the reservoir of paints, thereby "greening" the page.
There are no trees in Greenland, as the permafrost makes deep root growth impossible. But with increasing global warming, we could see Greenland become full of meadowlands, bushes, and ultimately trees. Ale and I am bringing some of the first "trees" to the northern parts of the ice cap-- even if they are only virtual and artistic.
The drawing for Greenland was made today, June 21, on the Summer Solstice, in Boston, at 97 degrees Farenheit and at 42.3583 degrees north and 71.0603 degrees west. Photographed by me on my roof. Its next stop?-- well beyond the Arctic Circle!