At the beginning of the month I went to visit my dear friend from college and fellow artist, Joanna Hennigan, husband (also a friend from college), and daughter in Tucson, Arizona. Not only I hadn’t seen them in almost four years, I had also never been to the Southwest United States, I so I was quite looking forward to this trip and I was not disappointed! Right away, I was amazed by beauty of the landscape that was so different from anywhere else I had been visited. Photos had failed to capture what being in this strange and harsh yet stunning and eternally fascinating land would be like for me. As we caught up with each other, Joanna familiarized me with the area by taking me to several sites including The Desert Museum, Tumamoc Hill, The San Xavier Mission and Mt. Lemon. Wherever we went, I tried to bring my sketchbook to sketch or do watercolors.
Joanna and I on Mount Tumamoc
Even though oils are my first love, watercolors are a great way for me to be able to bring a color medium with me on trips without taking up very much space. I use a little box set from Sennelier that’s smaller than my hand! I just taped watercolor paper into the pages of my sketchbook and I was set to go. While I painted this on Mt. Lemon, Joanna and her daughter did their own painting.
Watercolor painting of the woods on Mt. Lemon after our lunch
Joanna’s painting collaboration with her daughter
Meeting Joanna’s daughter for the first time was one of the (many) highlights of my trip. One of our favorite activities together was drawing and painting. If I had my sketchbook open and a pencil around, she just went right along and started drawing, no questions asked.
Watercolor painting in the woods
Little hands at work
Joanna and I both started out college working in painting and drawing, but once we took ceramics, Joanna found her true passion was ceramics, particularly throwing. She now has her own ceramic business. Many of her pieces draw inspiration from her surroundings in the desert.
We were able to get some time away to the pottery co-op studio where she throws, glazes, and fires her works to do some creating. While she worked on glazing some mugs, I threw for the first time in a couple of years. It’s definitely not my strength, but it was so fun being at the wheel again. We took them to her home to dry and I painted them with engobe to decorate them.
Me at the wheel
Later we worked on a collaboration. I used her underglaze painted to paint a desert landscape on one of her bisque fired mugs (first firing, without any glaze). Although I had used underglaze before, this was a new experience because I had never painted an entire scene using many colors with mixing and layering involved. I painted it as though I was painting in oil or water, but the way underglazing works, you don’t see the final color and it is cooked in the fire, so it can be definitely be tricky. Joanna will dip the mug with a clear glaze and then fire it in the kiln again. I’m excited to see it when it comes out!
All photos are courtesy of Joanna Hennigan. You can check out her work at her website https://joannahennigan.com or on instagram @joanna.hennigan.