Drawings and Watercolors produced to illustrate my published books

Young Spotted Turtle on Sphagnum Moss

Over the course of my twenty two year epoch of writing and illustrating these books I produced more than two hundred art works of which nine were watercolors for YEAR OF THE TURTLE, and seventeen for TROUT REFLECTIONS (including cover art for each). There were 18 pencil studies for TROUT REFLECTIONS.

The remainder of the drawings were executed in pen and ink. Drawings and watercolors are a means to my knowing the turtles and their world more intimately, and in more ways. Perhaps the deepest satisfaction they give me lies in their being a way for me to remember, honor, and celebrate each subject, from turtle to skunk cabbage… and to share them with readers.

It is tremendously rewarding to think, that with all but three or four images in the entire collection, every representation is of something I have directly observed, in most cases many times over. I never tire of the searching and witnessing.

There have been many exhibitions of collections from this body of work, accompanied by sketchbooks and other material, the most noteworthy being a comprehensive showing at the Currier Museum of Art, in the “Beyond Words…” show, from the 18th of June to the 9th of September, 2018. (I elaborate on this truly gratifying exhibition on my “Beyond Words” Exhibition at the Currier Museum page.)

This exhibition featured the work of “three award-winning book artists from New Hampshire”. The other two were Tomie De Paola and Beth Krommes. Tomie was the author and illustrator of numerous children’s books, and Beth, a children’s book illustrator.

Each of us had splendid separate gallery installations. I cannot imagine my work as a book artist having a superior presentation, which included written material and sketchbooks. Interviews with the three of us can be seen at https:/currier. org.

Sadly, Tomie passed away in 2020. He is greatly missed – I lost a long-time friend I did not see often enough over the years. The “Beyond Words…” show provided me a wonderful reunion and extended our connection.

The Currier Museum purchased three of my original pen and ink drawings for their permanent collection: a congress of spotted salamanders; a Blanding’s turtle terrestrially basking; and an eastern box turtle. The former two were published in SWAMPWALKER’S JOURNAL; the latter has not been published.

Salmander Congress

Salamander Congress — This drawing was published in SWAMPWALKER’S JOURNAL, and is one of three (with the following two) that were purchased by the Currier Museum of Art for their permanent collection. There are times when a large aggregate of spotted salamanders who have made their nocturnal edge-of-spring migrations to vernal pools, during what I think of as “salamander rains”, forms a solid mass, often spherical, of interweavings in constant motion. These are known as congresses. I witnessed one at three in morning while it was still lightly raining. They were in a ball somewhat larger than a basketball. Every now and then a salamander would emerge from the writhing mass, ascend to the surface for a gulp of air and then descend to seamlessly re-enter the great congress. I watched this stunning spectacle for half and hour or so. When I departed, this – I have to think ancient – ritual was still in progress.

Blanding’s Turtle terrestrially basking

My drawings and watercolors for my books (background information for each can be found in the “My Five Published Books” segment) come from life studies (as delineated in my Swamp Sketchbook sector); memory; and imagination. Memories, some from my deep past, half a century or more distant, served a major role for the writing as well as the art work. Flashbacks to times and observations in places no longer in existence are a constant companion of my current searchings. They come unbidden, welcome and yet haunting, serving as guides as I continue my rounds of the turtle seasons.

Photos taken in the field also were of reference value and inspiration. They were helpful for my setting myself in time and place as I worked on drawings of scenarios from spring warmth to high summer heat in the heart of winter; although memories from my long history with swamps, streams, and fields played the major role in my “being there” as I worked on the art and writing.

My methodology throughout the development of the books was to concentrate on text for ten to thirty days in a row, then “switch the disc” to engage in the art for a succession of weeks. I have friends who are author- illustrators of children’s books who can write in the morning and then draw in the afternoon.

I could never manage that. I had to be in a separate sustained zone for each of the two disciplines. It would take time for me to make the transition, and get there, and once in that zone I had to stay there for an extended period in order to do the art work. As I was writing, I did make notations of drawings that occurred to me as subjects to go with a particular line or body of text.

Although they were intimately interrelated on the path to developing a complete book, the transition from the writing mind to the visual art hours of working with a .13 mm pen and fine-pointed number 4 Kolinsky sable watercolor brush was often quite wrenching.

I had long thought that I would never be able to draw with the unyielding point of a technical pen. But I found myself able to adapt to it and came to regard it as the essential instrument for rendering the minute details of my subjects, while achieving the range of lights and darks in them and in backgrounds varying from water to shadows of turtles on sphagnum moss or sand and gravel.

I had always needed the flex of a drawing point, even the slightest degree offered by the “finest” pen points, which were finer than hawk or crow quills. Even at that I used the point upside down to achieve the rendering demanded by such work as my botanical studies.

In that regard I see that I was evolving toward using a fairly rigid pen point. As I approached the pen and ink drawings for my first book I decided to make some attempts at working with a technical pen. With less experimenting than I would have thought possible, I became adept with the unyielding micro-point.

Despite the often frustrating, to maddening, difficulties with the tendency of the point to become clogged, it became my instrument of choice. And of necessity, as I worked on drawings of great detail and specificity, with a patience that came easily enough, as long as the ink would flow.

This became an analog of my transparent watercolors for YEAR OF THE TURTLE and TROUT REFLECTIONS. The cross-hatching of myriad hair- like lines in the blackest ink allowed me to draw, or build, into the darks, by which I also achieved the lights I needed, as on a spotted turtle’s carapace. The darker I rendered the shell around the spots, the brighter the spots became.

Achieving the darkest darks required going over the areas immediately surrounding a spot, light in a turtle’s eye, and other highlights, time and time again, without letting any lines break into the boundary of the light. Gradual gradations in the darks allowed a range of light in the luster or sunlight on a carapace.

As in my transparent watercolor technique the lights, theoretically of infinite values, came from the white of the paper. This yields a radiance that cannot come with the use of opaque white paints.

Young Spotted Turtle on Sphagnum Moss

My intent for the the collection of these objects (as works of art are referred to in curatorial parlance) is to reserve a number of them as “Carroll’s Carrolls”.

Since archival institutions as a rule restrict themselves to written material, as opposed to visual art collections, I do not anticipate that a significant number of the drawings and/or watercolors would be considered in a purchase of my core archive. But art is a pillar of my work overall, my legacy, and it would be a loss if it were not represented in any comprehensive collection.

I will echo what I have stated elsewhere that the art, naturalist, literary aspects of my collection are of one life’s work, each in effect a sine qua non of the whole. The ideal would be to have the entire body of art work for the five books remain together in one place, with the drafts, field notebooks, correspondence et. al. for my books. That is my ultimate goal, and I would certainly be happy to discuss the possibility.

But the limited-likelihood factor of such a transaction coming forth leads me to explore other avenues at the same time.

It is of primary importance to me that a representation of the book art (as opposed to my “art for art’s sake”) accompany my book drafts and their attendant material – the field notebooks; swamp dialogs, correspondence and other written material. To that end I would be more than willing make a donation of a selection of drawings and watercolors a part of any archival acquisition.

I am also interested in discussing the purchase of a body of this collection with museums, art archives, individual collectors,

I will also be offering various individual works for sale. I would be happy to discuss the purchase of a drawing or painting from any of my books that does not appear in my book art gallery.

My Five Published Books

Trout Reflections
Following the Water
Year of the Turtle
Self-Portrait With Turtles, A Memoir
Swampwalker’s Journal

Hand Bound Books

A Book of a Number of Hours
A Book of Winter Buds
A Book of Winter Branches
Borradores
Landscapes – January 20, 1978 – April 1978
Variations: February 1, 1967 – August 1, 1968
Visions: Drawings and Paintings: 1976 – 1988

Exhibitions

“Seldom Seen” Exhibition at the Davidow Center
“Beyond Words” Exhibition at the Currier Museum

Galleries

“Seldom Seen” Gallery
David’s Wildlife Studies Sketchbook
Virtual Gallery of Art Produced for My Five Books
“Regarding Women Regarding…” Introduction
Sketchbook Gallery: 4/1/1985 – 10/14/1987
Swamp Sketchbook
The Swamp Dialogs
Drawings and Watercolors Produced to Illustrate my Published Books
CODIT – Compartmentalization of Decay in Trees