Paper and Threads

I found several drawings that I loved at the Christie's Auction Preview last week and was also able to photograph them.  It is almost my favorite part of the previews - the room full of works on paper which are 90% drawings.

I loved this Van Gogh charcoal drawing and and just knew that I wanted to draw it.

But I have NEVER used charcoal!  I hate the feeling of my charcoal pencils on paper and never even tried the sticks/vines.  This posed a dilemma - but I discovered that a 6B charcoal pencil was soft enough not to make my teeth vibrate.  So I took a very small piece of my watercolor paper (4" x 7", 140 lb soft press) and did a quick sketch just to see if I could quickly capture the image. I used a large graphite blending tool - probably incorrectly - for shading! 

THIS DRAWING SOLD AT AUCTION ON MAY 2ND FOR $722, 500 - DOUBLE THE AUCTION ESTIMATE THAT WAS PRINTED ON THE CARD!

 This is a Matisse that I'm saving for a rainy day drawing:

THIS DRAWING SOLD AT AUCTION ON MAY 2ND FOR $122,500.

Posted by Shirley at 9:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (8)

There are many, many museums in the city and I love to visit the art museums to see the exhibits and sketch from the Masters.  We saw a Leon Kossoff drawing exhibit at the National Gallery in London (2007) and I was impressed with his return visits to sketch the same few works by Masters many times during his career.  

I thought it might be fun to try this, in part to see how my art skills evolve and how my familiarity with the painting may change my drawing over time.  On my first visit to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2008, I sat in front of Cezanne's Card Players and sketched it.

I sketched it annually and then sketched many of the preparatory paintings in a big 2011 Cardplayer exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.   

 Cezanne did 5 oil paintings of the Cardplayers - one with 5 figures, one with 4 (owned by the Met), and 3 with two figures.  The 2011 exhibit at the Met was unable to reunite all 5, but there were many preparatory drawings and paintings of individual figures.  I sketched some of them on 3 occasions.

I was thrilled to learn that a previously unseen preparatory watercolor of Paulin Paulet, a gardener from Cezanne's family estate, was being auctioned at Christie's NY by a private collector.  He is the only figure that appears in all 5 paintings.  There was a full page picture of the painting in the NY Times on Friday and I painted it in my sketchbook.

On Saturday, at the auction preview, while many people were viewing the painting, I sketched the head again with a watercolor pencil.  I may never get the head tilted like Cezanne!

And then waited until I could get an angle for a photo without reflections of the spotlights.

Last night this watercolor sold for $19.1 million dollars!! 

Posted by Shirley at 8:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

This week was my monthly visit to the Society of Illustrators for figure drawing.  I love the event, but can't seem to get there more than once per month.  There are 2 models and live music and a bar!  What more could I want?  More time in my life to do everything that I would like to do! 

This post will have 2 five minute, 2 ten minute, and 2 twenty minute sketches.  The black and white sketches were done with a 9B graphite pencil, the color sketches were done with watercolor pencils and then brushed with water in a Niji waterbrush.  The first 4 images were scanned.  The last two were photgraphed because of the size of the paper.

This year I read a very interesting book about figure drawing, Peter Steinhart, Undressed Art, or Why We Draw.  Although I see this book in stores, I rarely see it mentioned in art blogs.  I recommend it for anyone who is interested in drawing, especially from live models.  It is much more a historical perspective and source of inspiration, than a how-to book.

Posted by Shirley at 10:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I started drawing 100 Faces several years ago as part of Carla Sonheim's book Drawing Lab.  I forget about them sometimes, but recently started carrying my cards and supplies with me again when I'm going to be out and about.  Here are the latest 6 - all done in classes or seminars. 

Gay Kraeger posted a video this week on How to Paint a 20 Second Face.  Here is the link to her video:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gaykraeger/6951556124/

And here is my painting:

Posted by Shirley at 8:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I finished my last sketchbook with two pages of heads drawn during classes at Columbia University.  The first page was done on a paper napkin with a ball point pen while we discussed Chekhov short stories.  The second page of sketches are of Professor de Bary, a very elderly Emeritus Professor of Chinese Studies - who is incredibly sharp.  I loved the opportunity to draw him while he appeared to be asleep, but he remembered more of the panel discussion comments than I did when he lifted up his head.

I barely finished making my new watercolor sketchbook in time to continue with my daily sketches.  The bookcloth was made with soy wax and a potato masher as resist and thickened Procion MX dyes.  The sketchbook is a 6 signature book with Fabriano Artistico Soft Press 140 lb paper and Canson Mi Tientes end papers.

The first page is a drawing of my watercolor palettes.  I have fun starting some of the sketchbooks with my paint palette even though I add and/or change paints infrequently.

Posted by Shirley at 3:06 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)