Paper and Threads

I have 1000s of digital photos and not a single photo of the Moon.  As I contemplated whether I would see a moon over the buildings here in Manhattan, I remembered the song from the movie Arthur and the phrase "between the moon and New York City."  I painted the skyline around the World Financial Center and a moon - and hopefully can now get the song out of my brain. 

The weather here was magnificent this past weekend.  There are fabulous tulips everywhere I look and I took a small art stool outside Saturday to paint several of the orange red tulips that are in huge tulip beds and around the trees in planters along the avenue. 

On Sunday morning we left the apartment at 9AM and walked to the area I call the Duck Pond or Toy Boat Pond.  This year the concession stand is open again and the patio is a wonderful place for morning coffee.  We really missed it last year.  While my husband did the crossword puzzle, I drank my coffee and sketched and painted a cropped version of the cafe counter. 

Here is an earlier journal page I did while sitting in the same place.

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I periodically practice figure drawing in preparation for the time after my retirement this summer when I can go to a drop-in figrue drawing class at one of the many sites available here in New York City.

 I set the time on Pose Maniacs for 90 seconds and sketched the following 5 figures.  I try each one that appears although some of their figure positions are so wierd that I can only imagine how a real body could achieve it.  They were sketched in watercolor pencil and finished with a watercolor wash.

I also have Mark Smith's book of nude photos for artists and had my husband select some photos and put "stickies" on them.  I then set my timer for 5 minutes, opened to the first sticky, and did a 5 minute sketch of the figure in watercolor pencil.  I then quickly brushed them with water in a Niji waterbrush.

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EDM Challenge # 219:  Draw a Window

Today several of us who met in Danny Gregory's class had another sketchcrawl in New York City.  We met in Grand Central Station and while I waited for them I sketched a ticket window for this week's Everyday Matters Challenge.

The weather was wonderful, so we walked over to Bryant Park, behind the New York Public Library,  and thoroughly enjoyed the wonderful flowers that were all in bloom, and the hundreds of chairs that are set up around the park for all to enjoy this fabulous area.  There were thousands of tulips, daffodils, pansies and hyacinths in flower beds and urns.  I was immediately drawn to the beds of pink tulips.

The Empire State building is visible above buildings on 41st St from the Park and we all did a sketch of the view.  In my sketch it is impossible to realize how tall it is behind the foreground buildings and trees.  I'll have to return to the scene and try again someday.

I ended the morning sitting in front more flowers - to document again the joy of sketching in the sun, on a warm Spring day, enjoying the company of Annie and Kathleen and surrounded by flowers in this fabulous urban setting.

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We really enjoy visiting Paris and since 1970, one of our regular stops in the City is Dehillerin kitchen supplies.  The old Les Halles was still across the street when we first visited and Pied du Couchon was still a modest restaurant with fabulous onion soup.  Over many years and many visits, we purchased some of our favorite kitchen tools at Dehillerin.  Here are 3 of the knives we bought for ourselves.  During one visit. we also bought each of our children one of the big chopping knives.

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This is a picture from our recent play time in Central Park with 4 of our 5 grandchildren.

My journal page is my attempt to paint one of the Magnolia blossoms that was partially opened and photographed from above. 

I clearly need to learn how to achieve the sense of depth in the center of the flower- although I really did observe and paint the shadows as they appeared in the photo.  Painting the bloom in person was not an option with 4 under the age of 6 running around. 

Our two youngest were in strollers with my husband and I pushing them out of the Park and Syd (age 4) and her 5 year old brother Henry were walking in front of us.  Suddenly she reached over and took his hand - and they walked all the way back to 5th Ave holding hands.

This is a link to a similar journal page that I did of them in Hyde Park London more than 2 years ago.

http://www.paperandthreads.com/2007/01/edm_challenge_draw_a_landscape.php

Posted by Shirley at 9:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

Our weather is currently bizarre, with April showers, several snow showers, and teaser days for Spring.  We just returned from a morning of play in Central Park with 4 of our grandchildren and while they have quiet time, I thought I would try to upload a few journal pages from one week ago. 

While two of my grandchildren painted and colored at our dining room table last Friday, I played with my grand daughter's Sargeant watercolor pencils - obvioulsy hoping for lots of tulips before long.  The magnolia blossoms were partially open this morning and I see tulip buds in the huge beds of tulips in my neighborhood.

Last Sunday there were beds of daffodils blooming in Central Park - and they still looked very fresh this morning.  My 2 year old grandson doesn't understand why I won't let him pick all of the pretty flowers he sees!

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I live close to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and my membership card  is used almost as much as my Metrocard.  We visited the Raphael to Renoir Drawing exhibit again last Sunday with weekend guests and I sketched from another Guercino drawing.  I first learned about this 17th C. Italian artist at the Courtauld Gallery in London - and I'm thrilled to see two more of his beautiful portraits in person.  I don't know if I ever linked back to my first drawing "copying the Master."

I sketched this as part of a two-page journal spread celebrating the birth of our grandson Callum in London while his parents and siblings spent a year in the city.

Here is my second Guercino drawing from the exhibit at the Met.  I posted the first several weeks ago.

I covet the book of the exhibit - and wish that it were in soft cover.  I will probably not be able to resist it during one of my many trips to the Museum Store and can then draw with the Masters for many days after the exhibit closes. 

Yesterday I met several NY artists for a mini-Sketchcrawl at the Met.  We started in the Modern Art section on the mezzanine, and I experimented with my watercolor pencils by drawing the Chuck Close painting called Lucas.  I drew the entire painting with 10-12 Albrecht Durer watercolor pencils and then added water at home.  The Met permits pencil sketching only, although lots of pen sketching is done, and I assume there are other exceptions with special arrangements

Here it is as photographed in the Museum with natural light:

Here it is after adding water at home and a link to the original painting which is done as small squares of color.  If I sketched it again, I would increase the size of the forehead - I'm just glad to have "played" so intensely with my watercolor pencils in 30 minutes!

We moved to different sections of the Museum for two more 30 minute sketches and my favorite of those two locations was the Petrie Sculpture Court.  Here is my sketch of Sappho, done by Comte Prosper d'Epinay in 1895 - with the contrast increased in Photoshop - because the original colored pencil lines were not dark enough.

We then had a lovely leisurely lunch in the Petrie Cafe and shared our sketchbooks and experiences.  Our new group of women who want to sketch together is having fun and we hope that we can meet monthly for our own mini-sketchcrawls.  In two weeks I will sketch with several other group members who had other prior commitments yesterday.

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This is ME with my Internal Critic pictured in front of my "right brain."  I  tried to assign a particular human form to my internal critic, but I know that it is just a piece of me that I need to deal with. I feel as if I’m fooling myself when I try to create a person to blame. 

My critic likes perfection and can make me unhappy every time I make mistakes. This puts emphasis on product, not process, and I have to remind myself over and over that "play" is an important component of creativity, and perfection should NOT be my goal. Mistakes are a wonderful opportunity for growth to occur.

I also deal regularly with "fear of failure" and it is sometimes strong enough to keep me from trying something new. I think that working small, in a sketchbook, and everyday helps me overcome some of the doubt. But I have to really work hard to step out of my comfort zone and create tricks to get past the Internal Critic in my brain.

What does my Internal Critic look like? Half of my brain? A really small part of my brain? If so, where? Maybe I should have sketched a really small person and put her on my head - as if she were in my brain. When I try to picture her, I see a "bag lady" if I see anything - someone with an incredible number of opinions but no creativity, passions, skills or products of her own - just a mouth, thick frame glasses, and a bag of scripts.  The major scripts that she repeats over and over are the ones listed above.

I really haven’t made much progress changing my perception of my creative abilities. I’ve read enough about creativity, the origin of creative ideas, and how to stimulate creativity - so I am developing skills to deal with my critic. And every once and a great while I do something that even I feel is original.

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