Kai Fagerström: Once Upon a Home

Kai Fagerström is a Finish photographer that primarily photographs wildlife. The photographer is a contributor to National Geographic. He won the BBC Wildlife Photographer of the year for both 2010 and 2012.  In 2011 he won the Finnish Wildlife Photographer and Winner 2012 IFWPY contest.

The series that caught my attention was Once Upon a Home.Winner. Fagerström lived near a cottage that became abandoned after the owner died in a fire. The cottage became a home to woodland animals. For fifteen years Fagerström documented the lives of the animals in the abandoned buildings near his home. He is all right with long amount of time it takes to accomplish the project.“This is fine with me,” he says. “The journey is more important than the destination.”

The Once Upon a Home is a magical look into the lives of these animals. When the people moved out, the animals moved in. They can be seen peering out of cracks in dilapidated sheds, like the wolf in the above image. An owl is backlit through a window in one shot giving a erie look to the image. His photographs are dark because he does not use a flash, which would scare the animals. The series looks like it is telling the story of a family of animals. One can almost see this as a storybook or fairytale. 

The series also shows the patience, determination, and vision of the artist. The top photograph took several nights of Fagerström waiting to get the perfect image of the dog staring at the bank vole. I am not sure if the dog is just curious about what the bank vole is doing or if he is trying to figure out a way in there to get it. I like the stare down, though. The most dramatic example of his determination is when he waited four years to get a picture of a family of badgers. He set his camera on the window sill, stood on a ladder outside, while using a camera remote to take the picture. He would stand on his ladder outside for hours.  In some circumstances the photographer will lay down food for the animals to draw them out. 

When Fagerström starts a project he usually has an idea in mind. For this project it was abandoned buildings. “Deserted buildings are so full of contradictions,” he says. “I am fascinated by the way nature reclaims spaces that were, essentially, only ever on loan to humans.” I did a series of photographs last semester on abandoned buildings that were reclaimed by nature. My focus was on the plant life that took over the buildings. I never thought of the actual creatures that may find the buildings home. His idea is brilliant. It really makes think about how this could be applied to my car series right now.

I changed my mind again. This is my last time. I am now doing watercolors of the junkyard. I have always been interested in what happens to our things once we have no use for them. Last semester I did a series of photographs of abandoned houses. This is a continuation of the them, but with vehicles and watercolor. I will need to check out some more junkyards to get more pictures. Right now I have three paintings in beginning stages.

Mary Lou Ferbert

Three Carousel Horses - 24" x 24" - 1991

Chicory And Tire - 28¼" x 39¾" - 1986

Mary Lou Ferbert is a Cleveland based artist that works in only watercolor. She has done commissions for big cooperations and professional sports teams. There is not one genre of painting that she concentrates on. Her paintings vary from industrial art to botany. 

Ferbert was drawn to the landscape of Cleveland area while working on a calendar in the eighties. This brought her to notice ecological problems in the area. She started a series of plants trying to survive in urban environments. The artist tried to show the adaption and survival of the plants. I like the way she uses light by working in only transparent watercolors. It allows each glaze to show throw the one above it. There is a luminous glow to the paintings. I also like the amount of character she gives to her paintings. For example the carousal horse looks sad. It leaves the viewer wondering if it is sad because it has none to ride it,  or perhaps because it is trapped riding in circles all day. 

Paul Jackson

Landing Patterns, 26x20" watercolor

Street Sushi, 36x22" watercolor

Paul Jackson is an award winning watercolor artist from Missouri. The artist does not just work in watercolor. He has also designed the Missouri state quarter for the US mint, created stage backdrops, art murals, public mosaics, and three times eggs for the Presidential Easter eggs at the White House. Jackson also teaches, judges watercolor competitions, and writes instructional books.

I am drawn to the illustrative look to his artwork. Some of his paintings are very realistic, while others are more abstract. They all look like they a story to tell. I want to know why things are happening in his paintings. Is the bird trying to fly with plane or is it the other way around? The paintings make me think and question what I am looking at. Like Jackson’s ability to work in different mediums, he works in different genres as well. He isn’t content to just paint cityscapes or a still lives. Jackson likes to push his comfort zone and try different things. I think that is a good thing. It is hard to grow as an artist if you never try anything new. 

Patricia Tobacco Forrester

Copake, 2006, Watercolor; 40 x 60 inches

Ausable, 1999, Watercolor; 40 x 60 inches

Patricia Tobacco Forrester was a watercolor artist that worked en plein air. Sadly, Forrester passed away in 2011 at the age of 71. Before her death she was a Guggenheim Fellow; and has work shown in Smithsonian Museum of American Art, Art Institute of Chicago, and the British Museum.

She worked directly from life. The landscapes were not planned or drawn out before hand. Forrester spent seven hour stretches a day painting outside. She did not replicate the scene, but infused memories with what was before her. The main inspiration for her paintings were things that grow. 

My favorite element of Forrester’s paintings is the sense of movement she creates. The movement was created by how fast she painted en plein air. She also did not use the exact colors you would find in nature. Her paintings are bright and exciting. I would like to follow her example and not be so literal about my color choices. There is an interesting mix between the realistic and the abstract of her landscapes. The paintings are somewhere in between the two. Perhaps, they are a little Impressionistic. She let light and the environment direct her to what to paint. She might start with one thing as the focus and find that by the end another element has taken over and become the focus of the landscape.

Henry Fukuhara

Henry Fukuhara was one of the great American watercolor artists. He continued painting until his death, at the age of 96, in 2010. Even though Fukuhara had gone completely blind for the last few years of his life, he continued to paint with an assistant to hand him tools. He was able to paint landscapes completely by memory and touch. The artist lived on both coasts during his lifetime, as well as spending time in Tokyo.

I like the that Fukuhara makes his landscapes fun and not so serious. Even for serious topics. Fukuhara returned to the Japanese detention camp, where he was held during World War II, to paint landscapes and used the same light approach. Surprisingly, he was not bitter about his time in the detention camp. He rationalized that it was war and many men did not return. To make his images of the detention center up beat he focused on symbols. Fukuhara veered from the realistic and instead made abstract landscapes in bright color schemes. He preferred to work en plein air. The paintings have a quick line work to them that show that he is working on site. I think Henry Fukuhara is an inspiration not just as a watercolor landscape artist, but as a person. 

Ted Nuttall

Ted Nuttall is a portrait artist that works in watercolor. He has worked as an illustrator and graphic designer before painting full-time. Nuttall is a nationally respected watercolor artist that has won many awards for his paintings. He also teaches and serves as judges for watercolor competitions. 

What draws me to his paintings is the looseness of them. The paintings have paint dripping down them in areas. There are also parts were splattering of paint was used. The techniques aren’t used at random, they are used to enhance the piece. The dippings will be from the shoulder down the shirt to show the structure of the body. Splattering will also be used in areas of the body that need attention drawn to it. Nuttall uses the minimum amount of brush strokes to get the effect that he wants. It gives a light airy quality to the paintings. The way the artists uses light is done to best show the emotion of the people in the portraits. Perhaps the most interesting things about his paintings are the unique angle which Nuttall chooses to paint his subjects. They are not staged looking portraits. The portraits look natural, thus making the people more interesting and engaging. 

So I have had a change of heart on my project. I must be crazy. After spending all day processing pictures I decided to go in a different, yet similar direction. I fell in love with my pictures from Cook Forest and am planning on watercoloring series of them. This will still be environmental themed, but on the positivity of conservation. This is what happens when we preserve. I have vacationed there all my life and love the message. My focus will be on all the different elements of the forest not just the same exact tree shots over and over. Ground covers, textures, and landscape are important. I hope I can give a feeling of being there without it looking too representational.

Yesterday I returned from a successful trip to western PA. I was able to hike in Cook Forest to get pictures of the cathedral pines. I believe I am going to watercolor them, though. The pines were so tall that it took seven shots to get one tree. I was able to travel to Warren, PA to get pictures of the oil refinery in the middle of town. That was an experience. It was hard to get pictures without being seen and getting the whole refinery into one frame. Luckily, my sister remembered that there was a park that overlooked the town. It required some four-wheel drive and a little luck to get there, but I did eventually make it. So I have the whole refinery in one frame. I also took some pictures of some cornfields, which was incredibly easy since the whole area is farmland. The last big thing I needed pictures of was a sprawling junkyard. My dad took me way out in nowhere to this crazy junkyard that was exactly what I needed. The owners found it amusing that I wanted pictures of a junkyard, but let me take some quick pictures anyway. The junkyard pictures are my favorite. I can't wait to start working on them in Photoshop. I may go back to PA at the end of the month for a wedding and more photos. I am already thinking of things I wish I would have photographed I while I was home.