Dark Secrets

Dark Secret
Sketch from Little Hoquiam River
Thumbnail Size
Charcoal on Paper
Casey Klahn

For some time now I have been carrying this dark secret. It just appeared one day, out of the blue, in my painting Blue Wandering.

Blue Wandering

14" x 10"
Original Pastel
Casey Klahn

You can see it there - a dark "spot" or space hovering by the trees. What is it doing there? Soon, dear reader, I shall reveal this dark secret to you.

The Hoquiam River series

The series of works that I have been doing, which I call "The Hoquiam River" series, explores this dark path, or space. My home town of Hoquiam, Washington, is an overcast place - just like my father's home town of Forks, Washington, which was made famous by Twilight.

Stephenie Meyer says about her book, Twilight:

For my setting, I knew I needed someplace ridiculously rainy. This turned out to be the Olympic Peninsula in Washington State. I pulled up maps of the area... And there, right where I wanted it to be, was a tiny town called "Forks." It couldn't have been more perfect if I had named it myself. I did a Google image search on the area, and if the name hadn't sold me, the gorgeous photographs would have done the trick. (Images like these of the Hoh Rainforest (a short drive from Forks). Also see forks-web.com ).

This coastal hometown

"Ridiculously rainy;" good one. Rain and clouds dominate everything, and one's cup runneth over with nature, as it were. Trees, moss and greenery as thick as primordial soup cover all aspects of the landscape. Mud and muck; clouds and cold. A place to love, but only if you're from there, it seems.

Little Hoquiam River
No Vampires Visible

This coastal hometown is where I first started drawing and developing my art. As you might imagine, the colorist side of me never flourished until I moved to the sunny eastern side of Washington state. But the fundamentals of light and line were my muse on the coast.

Trees as tall and as big as all heaven surrounded us, and the pathways between them, well - there weren't any. The undergrowth is as thick as a jungle, which coastal forests here are literally. They are called temperate rain forests, and are exactly like jungle, minus the nice temperatures.

What are the dark secrets? Just ask yourself this: what are the ways to create a plastic space in a picture? Why might one's eye fix inside the picture plane and stay there? More when we enter the Hoquiam River Series...

Credit: MP3 Music from the Dark Shadows TV Series.