Paper and Threads

I sketched today during a Gallery Talk on Rembrandt and Vermeer at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. 

Last January I outlined my art goals for 2011 - just to have a map to guide me through the days.  I maintain a sketchbook for pleasure and get joy from recording the little things in my current life.   No one is monitoring my progress, but I still like to reflect on how I spent my time, so I can make plans for 2012.  Here is my progress on 5 goals.

 1.  Continue to work on drawing skills with daily drawings and monthly live figure drawing. 

I averaged more than one sketch per day for the full year, and went to figure drawing monthly at the Society of Illustrators.  I also went to figure drawing at the Battery Park City summer program for the first time.  Although I want to eventually try using just a brush and watercolor to "draw" figures, I stretched a little and sketched figures, during the 20 minute poses, with a watercolor pencil and then water to shade the figures. 

I'm working on a 100 Faces project from Carla Sonheim's Drawing Lab book and added 33 portraits - drawing from live people who usually didn't know they were being sketched.  I now have almost 70 done.  And I even tried sketching portraits of my mother and a few grandchildren, although I still struggle trying to schieve a likeness of their faces.

2.  Continue to work on watercolor painting skills.

I'm not sure that I'm making progress although I am trying to increase my range of values.   And I'm using watercolor pencils more in my daily sketches, especially when I'm sketching faces on subways and buses.

3.  Continue making my daily watercolor sketchbooks and expand my bookbinding skills.

I made and used 7 watercolor sketchbooks and one recycled watercolor book during the year and now I'm working on an artist's book -  collaging, drawing, and painting Christmas ornaments that I made over the last 30+ years to document my collection. 

4.  Continue education through on line classes, workshops, and directed reading.

Participated in the three 2011 Strathmore online workshops.

Took an online mini-class with Kate Johnson on watercolor pencils

Took an online class with Mary Ann Moss to make a "Remains of the Day" journal and then slowly filled it over the entire year.

Took a class with Judy Coates Perez at Quilt Festival, painting and drawing on fabric with Tsukineko inks.

Worked through several DVDs on Art Journals, Read Cathy Johnson's Artist's Journal Workshop twice, Reread Twyla Tharp's The Creative Habit, Read Eric Maisel's Coaching the Artist Within and Peter Steinhart's The Undressed Art or Why We Draw.

5.  Enjoy and nurture connections to the art community. 

I blogged 8-9 times per month (2X/wk), met regularly with members of my Journal Study Group to visit museum exhibits, go on sketchcrawls, and "make art" together, attended 8 Central Park Sketching and Art Meetup Group sessions, and followed Everyday Matters (Yahoo Group) and many art blogs for inspiration and contact with the broader community.

I'm am thoroughly enjoying my retirement and I'm thrilled that I found another passion to add to my other lifelong interests.  My blog will be 6 years old next week and hopefully I will make some plans for 2012 by then. 

Posted by Shirley at 4:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Christmas weekend we took several of our New York City grandchildren to special programs.  Five year old Callum needs some separate time with us, i.e. without big sister Sydney and big brother Henry, so we planned a movie date to see The Muppets.  This was very nostalgic for us - since we watched the Muppet Show with our children every Sunday night and took them to see the first Muppet Movie.  I had tears in my eyes during the reprise of "Rainbow Connection."  Squirmy Callum sat at the edge of his seat with rapt attention.

This is a web image of our favorites - that I sketched to remember the day.

The next day we took Sydney, Robbie, and Callum to see Cathy Rigby in Peter Pan.  I played the part of Peter in our 6th grade public school production and saw Mary Martin in the role at about the same time.  Syd watches my videotape of that Broadway Show (from when it was rebroadcast during the decades of VCR) at least once per month in my apartment and also knows all the songs.  Cathy Rigby was even better than Mary Martin and her gymnastic abilties at age 59, during the flying sequences, were not to be believed.

I sketched this from the program cover to create a sketchbook page for the day.

We talked to our DC grand daughter multiple times over the weekend, and my son sent this photo of Princess Annabelle - dressed in the sparkly princess dress that I made her for Christmas.  She is also wearing the tiara I found for her at the NY Union Square Christmas Market, and the earrings that her other Grandma gave her to complete the outfit.  We also have photos of her putting Princess spells on various things with the wand that matches the tiara. 

We are going to meet her new baby brother William this week.  My son also sent a photo of him in the blackwatch baby gown that he requested that I make for their family "blackwatch" Christmas Day morning celebration.  So glad that it fit!

I would like to wish everyone a Happy and safe New Year's Eve celebration, and a joyous and artistically productive 2012.  We have our 5 NYC grandchildren here (without parents) for a New Year's Eve party and sleepover - the very best way that my husband and I can think of to welcome each new year.

Posted by Shirley at 9:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL OF YOU!  I'm thrilled to know that my blog posts are read, and hopefully enjoyed.  Thanks to each and every one of you and my wishes for a happy and healthy 2012.   

Our Christmas Gifts are wrapped - or placed carefully in gift bags and stockings I made for our grandchldren over many years.  And the table is set for Christmas Eve dinner with our NYC children, our grandchildren and my 92 year old mother.  We will miss our DC grandchildren and their parents!  

I'm still adding drawings to my Ornament Sketchbook and uploaded my pages of Christmas trees and reindeer today.

Several weeks ago I received a comment on my blog asking about the Jingle Bell Reindeer.  The writer received one of these as a gift many years ago and was looking for the pattern without success.  When she put all the correct words in Google, she found an image of one of my ornaments from an earlier blog post.  I was able to provide her with pattern details, and hopefully she finished making all of hers for friends and family this year.

Posted by Shirley at 8:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

In 1976, the year after our 3rd and last child was born, I started to make fabric ornaments for our Christmas tree.  I usually made 20-24 of the same ornament so I could give some away as gifts.  And over the years I made several more for our family when I found a new pattern, design or needlework technique (for example smocking or silk ribbon embroidery).  After giving away 3 full sets of the ornaments to our children, when they were married, I still have 139 hanging on our tree. 

Each of the last few years I sketched and painted random ornaments in my daily watercolor sketchbook during the holidays, and then last year I decided  that I would make a mixed media artist's book of my favorites.  So I am scanning and printing some of the ornaments from my sketchbook pages and collaging them into the book.  And on other pages, I'm drawing and painting them directly on the pages in the 8 x 10" watercolor book. 

Here are 3 of the first pages.  This will be a long term project for the last two weeks of December each year.  Once we take down our tree and pack up the ornaments, they will be forgotten until the next year.

Posted by Shirley at 11:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (5)

We love being grandparents and last month got one of our annual photos of our 6 grandchildren - ages 2-8.

Last night Annabelle welcomed a new baby brother.   And now we have 7!  We are thrilled! 

                        HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO EVERYONE FROM OUR HOUSE TO YOURS.

Posted by Shirley at 7:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (12)