Paper and Threads

Dance is my one lifelong physical activity, and loving to take ballet class also means loving to watch ballet.  For the last 3 years my husband and I go to working rehearsals, orchestra rehearsals, lecture demos, and occasional dress rehearsals of the New York City Ballet.  Last week we went 3 days - and these are the 2 sketchbook pages that I created from scribbles before the lights went down.  The dancers move so fast that is almost impossible to capture their movements, but I try to remember at least one pose at a time.

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Yesterday I posted information about Master Drawings Week in NYC - with a link to the website and a map of the participating galleries. I went to see the large exhibit of drawings at Sothebys - which are being previewed until 5PM Tuesday - and sketched in pencil a favorite Goya pen and ink drawing.  When Sothebys invited artists to come sketch Saturday and Sunday they stipulated pencil only.  This morning I used my favorite Brause steno nib and India ink, followed by diluted ink applied with a brush to finish "my Goya basket lady."

In yesterday's blog post, where I posted the original Goya drawing, I also mentioned that the estimated auction price is 1-1.5 million dollars!   

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Last night Galleries participating in Master Drawing Week had openings from 4-8PM.  I took my husband to one of them because I wanted to see the travel watercolors, and he hadn't ever been in any of the townhouses that we always pass on our way to the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  For those in or near NYC, it is an unusual opportunity to both see wonderful art and visit galleries in some gorgeous townhouses. 

Hilda May Gordon traveled the world for 7 years in the 1920s, and painted as she went.  Whenever she had accumulated enough paintings for an exhibit and sale, she would visit a large city, sell her paintings, and use the proceeds to finance more travel.  The exhibit was very interesting and the Gallery was welcoming. 

Each year they publish a book of the participating galleries on the Upper Eastside of Manhattan, and you can go to their website for the list, and a map.  The booklets can then be obtained in the first gallery you visit.

http://www.masterdrawingsinnewyork.com/ 

Today I went to Sothebys auction house to see the previews for their Master Drawings auction, and they had many more than most of the galleries.  I loved a Goya ink drawing and sketched it in pencil.  I'll add ink and paint it with ink, sometime this week, but wanted to put a photo of it here.  Sothebys is open tomorrow afternoon, and 10-5 on Monday and Tuesday, as the auction takes place on Wednesday.  My little Goya from the 1600s, entitled "Don't Make the Basket Too Heavy," has an auction estimate of $1,000,000-1,500,000!

In March there is Asia Art Week, and we repeat the process to see wonderful art from a different part of the world. 

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I love figure drawing and look for any opportunities to practice drawing hands and feet.  Deliberate Practice is one way for me to do that - saving images whenever possible just to draw both, and hope that this practice will carry over to times when I'm drawing live figures from observation.  This month I decided that I need to search my reference photos, clipped usually from ads in magazines, to draw some more feet.

If anyone has a good photo source for feet photographs, I'd love to get the link.  Here are feet from the only two ads I had, and one drawing of two hands together - another one of my goals.  

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Two Hands Together - one in an ongoing series of my practice drawings - moving from single hands to two.

More about Deliberate Practice:

In his best-selling book “Talent is Overrated,” author Geoff Colvin writes about the concept of deliberate practice and how by adhering to this principle, the practitioner can attain expertise far more rapidly than they could through repetitive methods of practice that focus on already sharpened skills.  From Huffington Post The Blog 05/24/2016

Here is another link discussing the definition - and since I don't have someone critique my efforts, I may or may not be using the concept correctly.  https://3starlearningexperiences.wordpress.com/2016/06/21/370/ 

But it works for me - VERY slow progress has been made. 

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My husband and I went to the NYC Womens March on Saturday along with 200,000 other people.  The weather was great after our weeks of Arctic Chill, and the crowds were just as wonderful as last year.  Both years I was impressed with the comraderie, and the lack of conflict  People were genuinely happy to be marching.  Husbands marched with wives.  Parents brought their children.  And everyone waited patiently in large crowds even to get on the main march route down Central Park West.  After the Womens March in NYC in 2017 and the Science March in DC in 2017, I am so impressed with the number of truly creative signs, all of which express our dissatisfaction with this administration.  Here are a few of the photos that I took. 

Waiting for the bus to the Upper West Side.  After last year's Womens March I sent it to my Grand daughter in DC, and then needed to borrow it back from her for this year.

Beginning with "Women Are in Charge of Their Own Bodies,"  this sign says it all for me!

This Father marched with his little girl - and he is carrying a sign with sponsorship from the Girl Scouts.

And here is his little girl.

By chance I met one of my favorite friends - Robin - who is part of my 4 person Quilt Bee.  Her sign of course is the Statue of Liberty.

After more than an hour waiting on W68th St., we were fed into the main March route on Central Park West.

This was again an amazing experience!  And I will turn out every year to make sure that the world knows that we are no longer proud of our country, and will resist and persist. 

I didn't even bring my sketchbook, but on Instagram you can see some of the reportage artists' drawings.  They are amazing and really capture the crowds and the moods.   Here is the link:

https://www.instagram.com/artistsfordemocracy/ 

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