Paper and Threads

It is hard keeping up with my art goals while being on vacation with my husband at the home of very good friends.  I find that I am only able to do it by taking photos and painting during quiet times in the house.  Only the bird feeder and the squirrel were painted "in the moment."  I am also trying to paint in my summer vacation sketchbook each day.  It takes me much longer to do direct painting because I need to carefully plan the layers.   

The stuffed bunny was sitting among rocks at the Acquinnah Wampanoag cemetery on Martha's Vineyard.  The Beach roses were photographed on the path we walked to the beach for our morning beach walks.

The wampum flower was painted from shell pieces I brought home from the beach.  The yacht was photographed in the harbor in Vineyard Haven on a day we saw two movies and attended a Town Hall meeting by Senator Ed Markey.  The bird feeder needs an air traffic control system - for constant bird visitors, and this squirrel who jumped from the tree to the top of the feeder, and then snuck down the pole to the yellow feeder to eat. 

Posted by Shirley at 8:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We are enjoying our visit to Martha's Vineyard with some of our oldest friends.  I have to fit in sketchbook pages whenever I can, and I'm now taking photos and painting from them later in the day.  This is a beautiful stained glass window hanging that I look at each time I sit down in their home.  Painted from observation as I sat and  talked.

We are staying "up island," near the Wampanoag Indian Reservation.  I saw this image on a tribe seal on the reservation truck, and learned the legend of the giant Moshup who caught whales in the ocean with his bare hands.  He swung the whale into the cliffs to kill it to eat, which made the Gayhead Cliffs red.

Boats waiting on the shore at Red Beach, Menemsha Pond.

Two children in the surf, from an illustration.  The waters are still cold, and we never see anyone in the ocean on our morning walks.  This was done as a direct painting, but in my summer vacation sketchbook.  It gets confusing!

I am doing "direct paintings" for the 30 X 30 challenge in a different sketchbook, and will post them when we return home. 

Posted by Shirley at 9:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

After our beach vacation on Long Island, we are returning to Martha's Vineyard to vacation on another beach. Retirement is wonderful and the settings couldn't be more different.  To record the move from the Hamptons to the Vineyard, two of my 30 X 30 paintings (direct painting/no lines) done while in NYC from my photos were of the lighthouses in both places.  The Montauk lighthouse was painted, after I painted the sky as a negative space. Fun, and the type of challenge I needed. 

The house we will be in for a week, a direct painting from one of my photographs. Blog image  photographed, not scanned.

The beach at Acquinnah in Martha's Vineyard is rocky, with big rocks in the surf, and smaller ones on the beach.  Near the cliffs at Gayhead there are several huge rocks in the ocean that are always covered with cormorants.  This is a sketchbook page of mine from a previous visit, but many were on the rock again yesterday on our beach walk.

Posted by Shirley at 6:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I am faithfully doing the 30 X 30 Urban Sketchers challenge this month and just passed the halfway mark. The challenge is to do "direct painting" using only paint and brush every day in June.  I made a 16 page watercolor journal for the challenge from Teesha Moore's Tutorial on YouTube.    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1z6qmXGRrsE 

I usually do quick pencil drawings from observation, and paint my inked drawing on location or take a photo to paint at home (when in museums, galleries, or when there is no time).  I see everything as a series of lines. Seeing only shapes is totally different and I'm so happy that I'm gaining this experience.   I will have to develop these skills more after the month is over.  But it is a start.

June 10 and 11:  I like drawing and painting bottles, like Morandi, but not forever as he did.  These were painted as shapes from photographs.

June 12 and 13:  Two figures painted as shapes, from photographs.  The lines on the far right are bookbinding thread from the pamphlet watercolor paper booklet I made for the challenge.

June 14, 15, and 16:  Leaves and a Lily from photos I took at the Jefferson Market Garden, and Belvedere Castle from my stash of reference photos I took over the years in Central Park.

Posted by Shirley at 6:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I love to draw figures, and gravitate to drawings and paintings of Masters to practice my skills when I'm at museum and gallery exhibits.  I saw a huge sumi ink and collage painting on paper by Kara Walker at MoMA this week.  It measured approximately 12 X 18 feet in size, and contained 80 heads and figures.  It is called Christ's Entry into Journalism (2017), and was inspired by slavery and misogyny, chronicling American racial history.  I sketched her Confederate soldier.  Exhibit ends June 22nd.

There is a new, exhausting exhibit of Giacometti's sculptures and paintings at the Guggenheim Museum NYC.  Unlike a previous sculpture exhibit by David Smith at the Guggenheim, and Picasso at MoMA, there is enormous repetition of similar pieces in this exhibit.  But I like Giacometti's art and specifically liked this table top sculpture of 3 figures.  I would find a place for it if someone wanted to give it to us!

Line of Action Drawings:  I watched a free Craftsy Class by Suhita Shirodkar called "Figure Drawing Made Simple" last Labor Day, and started to draw figures on 1/4th sheets of used copy paper to practice the technique.  It has now become a habit for me  to draw figures from magazines/catalogues after breakfast each morning.   I did them with my non-dominant hand while my cast was on - and now continue.  The following drawings were done after my cast was removed, with my dominant drawing hand.

Posted by Shirley at 6:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)