Paper and Threads

An Urban Sketcher from Sydney Australia connected me with a Sydney watercolor artist who was coming to visit New York City and we spent two days together this week.  I'm constantly amazed at the international world of sketchbook art and the friends I meet through Everyday Matters, Urban Sketchers, and my blog.  On Monday Eunice and I met for coffee, and were in the café so long that we ordered and ate lunch!  This is a picture of us following lunch and before we went downtown to buy art supplies.  It was wonderful to meet her and I'm delighted that she will be visiting regularly.

On Wednesday we met for a combined Weekday Urban Sketchers and Battery Park Conservancy Art Day.  Eunice and I sketched Pier A, at the tip of Manhattan overlooking New York Harbor, and while we sketched we watched Navy and Coast Guard vessels arrive for the annual Navy Fleet Week.  Notice the Statue of Liberty, which is on the other side of the harbor, right above the back of this destroyer.

We were freezing while we sketched and had to go into Pier A for hot coffee.  Here is my "as yet" unpainted drawing over New York Harbor.   Pier A is on the left and way in the distance is Governor's Island and the Verrazano Bridge

In the afternoon we moved to the Battery Park South Cove for Figure Al Fresco, the weekly figure drawing session sponsored by the Battery Park Conservancy.  The wind and cold made it unpleasant, so I did only the 1, 5, and 10 minutes sketches.   From left to right - 10 minute, and two five minute sketches done of our model who was sitting or standing on rocks in the South Cove. 

Next Wednesday it is supposed to be in the 80s, so we will meet again under better weather conditions for outdoor sketching. 

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I am still doing daily drawings from my imagination as part of a 100 day Drawing Project.  Some days I have to just draw a squiggle and go from there, and they are mostly dreadful drawings.  Other days ideas flow as I'm drawing and these silly little people appear. 

I drew a table and added the "patient."  Then I decided it must be a physical therapy session and added the therapist and the room details. 

I started out drawing a car, and then wondered where it was, and a gas station materialized.

Are these cartoon faces able to express emotions?

Last Friday I went to a "Working Rehearsal" of the New York City Ballet and did a few quick sketches from the Mezzanine before the lights went down too low to see my sketchbook.  I just redrew what I remembered and the 3 dancers morphed into my imaginary people!     

I'm having fun drawing from my brain to my tiny notebook and will periodically show a few drawings here on my blog.   But it is hard work!  And I really need an encyclopedic store of images in my brain from what I drew previously.

Posted by Shirley at 9:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

There is a free, outdoor Figure Drawing session in Battery Park City at the tip of Manhattan every Wednesday afternoon from May through October.  Yesterday was the first session, and many of the artists, and the model, were old friends.

The model is Donna - an incredible, colorfully dressed, experienced model.  I prefer the younger models who are dressed in tank tops and leggings so I can draw their full posture, but yesterday Donna was dressed in so many layers and colors that I had to pull out my watercolors for the longer poses.

This is the 5 minute sketch - in graphite.

There were also two 10 minute sketches and one 30 minute sketch, which I did in graphite and then added paint.  But I missed the lines after painting, and brought them home and added India ink lines with my flexible nib over the watercolor.  Over and over I find that line is the most important element for me in art.  I prefer drawings to paintings, and ink and watercolor to any other paint medium.  And among oil paintings, I gravitate to the paintings with definite black lines in the paintings, like Matisse and Beckmann to name a few of my favorite artists.

For this 30 minute pose Donna added yet one more scarf, a deeper auburn color over her bright pink one.  Her dress was a multicolor print and I simplified it to only capture the colors. 

Posted by Shirley at 7:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

For my homework for Jonathan Twingley in Sketchbook Skool 4th semester, I did many pages of imaginary drawings and then selected a few, cut them out, and made a collage.  The background was created with paste paper that was leftover from my bookbinding projects. 

I loved this week, both the ink blots to make into imaginary drawings, and the pages of imaginary drawings that I did each night for the collage.  Thank you Jonathan Twingley for "Stretching" me.

Posted by Shirley at 9:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

My classmates in Drawing I at FIT:  I finally finished my composite drawing from my Drawing class.  Each week, when I finished the assigned drawings, I would add 1-3 classmates to this page.  The drawings were done very quickly with 4B graphite and then photographed because of the paper size.

The Central Park Drawing and Art Meetup Group at a Portrait Party met at a rented studio here in Manhattan last weekend.  We had no rules, and some participants sat for portraits and alternated the person "in the chair," and others just sketched members as they were sketching.  We had approximately 45 minutes for each session, and then went out in the neighborhood for a final sketch.  I did these with my Sketch and Wash graphite pencils, but then decided not to add water. 

Meetup Portrait Party  First Session

 Meetup Portrait Party Second Session

My only goal when I do these composites is to not have everyone looking the same - meaning that I have observed and tried to individualize their features. 

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