Even though the groom is the grandson of my husband's first cousin, they are the family who we spend major holidays with, including all Thanksgivings since 1989!  The wedding couple both graduated from medical school on Friday afternoon and that evening was the start of a weekend full of celebratory activities.  Ari will begin his internship in Internal Medicine at the University of Chicago next month - the program that I trained at beginning in 1969!

Our children were there and we took advantage of the occasion to get a family photo.  It is rare to have everyone together without our grandchildren, and dressed up.  They are very close to the groom and his older brother - and we adore both of their wives.  And, both families were thrilled - making it a joyous event. 

Only one of our grandchildren was there, and my husband and I took care of him Saturday AM.  Since they live in DC, this was a fabulous babysitting gig for us!  Here is William gazing at his giant new giraffe. 

Today I walked to 3 galleries to see their current exhibits and quickly sketched a few details from one of Paul Klee's Bauhaus prints.  The lady in profile captured my attention as soon as I saw the print and I had to return to sketch her quickly with my dreaded Pentel Pocket Brush Pen!  The print was from 1925 and it was in one of 3 exhibits that I really enjoyed. 

These were the exhibits - all within 10 blocks of each other on the Upper Eastside of Manhattan: 

Paul Klee - The Bauhaus Years at the Dickinson Gallery. 19 E. 66th St from May 3-June 14, 2013

Munch and German Expressionism  at David Tunick, Inc. 19 E. 66th St. from May 7 - May 20, 2013

George Grosz (Watercolor Paintings) at Soufer Gallery.  1015 Madison Ave from April 23- June 14, 2013.

Being a mother makes me so happy, and being a grandmother is equally wonderful. We have 3 adult children who we adore, and now 8 grandchildren (ages 7 mos to 9). 

Our youngest child, Rachel, stayed at home to raise her 3 children after graduating from Columbia College and Columbia Business School.  When her youngest child started kindergarten, she started plans for a new business for online consignment and sale of designer furniture and home decor.  That business is now fully launched and we are all so proud of her.   

Please look at the website for Viyet and see what amazing things you can buy for your home or apartment - and you can now have it shipped throughout the United States.  Even if you are not ready to buy furniture, just look at the wonderful photography and enjoy the designs.

This weekend my husband and I cared for our youngest grandchild, and having him here over Mother's Day was a very special treat.  I got to give him his "just finished" hand quilted baby quilt, and yesterday we spent the afternoon walking him around Central Park.  The quilt colors were selected to match the colors in his room!

He seemed to like it! 

Taking care of a 7 month old Friday-Sunday while his Dad (in the gray shirt), Mom, and two big brothers went to Florida, meant that I had no time to finish my sketches.  I worked on a page of his favorite "chew toys," but never finished painting it.  But we had a wonderful time and my sketchbook will wait for another day!

This month I made two accordion books using paste papers for the covers.  They measure approximately 5.5 X 7.5" and have two different kinds of paper for the concertina.  The first one I made has an 80 lb paper and the second one has 140 lb watercolor paper.

These Are the Front Covers:

I typed out notes about accordion books and the methods that I used - and collaged them in Book 1.  Here you can see 6 pages of notes. 

And here are several pages that I included regarding my methods. 

This month I am going to make portfolios.  Although I usually draw and paint in handmade watercolor sketchbooks, I do have some loose paintings and would love portfolios in sizes that will be perfect for them.

My husband and I loved the preview at Christies, and they have wonderful audio descriptions of 8 major works on their website at this link. 

http://www.christies.com/sales/impressionist-modern-new-york-may-2013/evening-sale.aspx

I love ballet, ballet classes, and Degas for his many paintings, drawings, and sculptures of ballet dancers.  This one is beautiful - much more sophisticated in its rendering than many in the collection of bronzes at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  I stood quietly, off-to-the-side, and sketched her, enjoying my brief minutes with her beauty.  The sculpture is 16" high and 21 5/8 inches long.  The estimated sale price is $600,000-800,000.  I will be able to look at the final sale price after the auction, but no information about her new home will be available.

Here are a few of my drawings from the evening.  The male model is really tall and skinny and he extends his arms, legs, and fingers (which must be 12 inches long) in every short pose.  These are therefore incredibly challenging and I find I have to focus on a smaller part of him to get anything drawn during these 2 minute warm-ups.

Here is an Uninspired 5 minute Pose by the Woman Model

And a 10 minute Pose by Him:

And Finally a 20 minute Pose by Him.  I couldn't capture the way he had his legs crossed over each other, he was bearing weight equally between his legs and had both knees slightly bent.  Yikes!  So I moved on and did a slightly different half-body view of him for the remaining minutes.

Irene Brady suggested looking at animal webcams and sent me the link for an eagle nest.  While watching it, I snapped a phpto and then sketched one of the parents feeding a baby.  Thanks Irene.

I also went back to my first sketchbook (started in 1998), and looked at a few of my early sketches.  Everything was sketched in pen and no watercolor paint was added until almost the end of sketchbook 3 (2008). 

In 1998 I sketched many Picasso ceramics at an exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art - all in black pen.  I loved the shapes and decided to redraw them and paint them wet-in-wet with watercolor.

I also challenged myself to draw the Don Quixote image from one of the Picasso plates with my "hated" Pentel Pocket Brush Pen.

This is a print made with watercolor.  I resized my graphite drawing from "Live Figure Drawing" at the Society of Illustrators, printed it out on copy paper, and then transferred the image to my gelli print with carbon paper.  Finally, I used a dip pen with a Speedball 5B nib to "draw" the figure on the print.  The ink did not disturb the watercolor ar all and drawing was very easy. 

Teri recommended Sharpie Paint, Souffle, or Glaze pens for drawing over acrylic.  Since I wanted only a black pen, I tried both the Sharpie oil-based and water-based Paint Pens over two acrylic gelli prints.  I transferred my earlier drawings using the method outlined above. 

The first figure was drawn with the oil-based pen and the second with the water-based pen.  Both were easy to draw and the pen seemed completely unaffected by drawing over acrylic paint.  Can you tell that I ruined many previous pens (in my ignorance) by trying to draw or write over acrylic paint?

I'm not sure where this series is going, but it might be fun to collage some of these types of prints in an accordion book.

I arrived early and sketched a woman reading while waiting for the doors to open.  In the exhibit I quickly sketched a Picasso woman who was in one corner of his drawing and a Miro square that I wanted to remember for my "visual language project."  The exhibit stretched over two big galleries - lots to see and read without doing more drawing. 

Degas and his painting of Miss La La at the Circus was in the upstairs gallery.  There was information about the circus in Paris, preliminary drawings and paintings, the big painting and works by other artists who also painted the circus.  I loved the shape of a clown in a lithograph by Henry Gabriel Ibels and sketched a portion of the print.  But then I had to go find Pat and Benedicte, who still hadn't come upstairs, because I wanted to leave time to see the American Watercolor Society Show at Salmagundi.  Both of these exhibits closed Sunday. 

I love the annual watercolor show and enjoyed it again tremendously.  It is hard for me to fathom how accomplished artists can make such amazing paintings!  A real inspiration, but not a realistic goal!

I switched from Speedy Carv to Moo Carve right before Stamp #25.  It is much softer and I had to master the pressure needed to carve smooth lines all over again.  Both of them are great for carving stamps and each had a learning curve for me.

Exercise 3:  The instructions said to trace the black cut images from exercise 1 and in the process to convert them to line drawings.  My black images were all squares, so I wasn't sure this would be very interesting.  And I also didn't want to trace when I can always use drawing practice, so I selected a few stamps and made a line drawing of the image.  Some of them are the result of putting my 1" stamp together many times to create another image. 

Yesterday Teri, Pat, and Benedicte joined me at my dining room table for another play day making prints with Gelli Arts plates.  Here is a photo taken at the height of our printing - 4 plates, lots of paints, and numerous stamps, stencils, and other texturing tools.

I don't especially like acrylic paints and need to experiment with different pens so I can draw over acrylics without immediately ruining each pen.  But I love making the prints, so I'm open to any and all suggestions for pens that you use successfully.  I can use a dip pen and India ink, but then I can't transport my tools easily because of fear of ink stains.Teri suggests Souffle and Glaze pens and gave me a Sharpie to try (Poster Paint).  This is one of the acrylic prints I made - using color copy paper. 

But then I decided that I really needed to try to make a print with watercolor paint.  I have an inexpensive set of Reeves tube paints that Sydney uses with me and I used them in the same way that I used the craft acrylic paints.   I deliberately used a stencil, a stamp, sequin waste, and corrugated cardboard to texture the paint on the Gelli plate for my test and here is what printed!!

I was so excited that I made several more - printing one of them in my current watercolor sketchbook.

Last night I painted several more daffodils over the watercolor Gelli print using Winsor-Newton Gouache paints!  I am super-execited!  Now I can play with media and tools that I like better.  What other cheap, tube watercolors should I try??

Before the one hour concert, there is a one hour educational session called Kidzone.  Members of the orchestra introduce 3 instruments to children and they get to try making sound with them.  And there are at least 4-5 other activities which the boys LOVE!  Robbie was at his first soccer game of the season on Saturday, but here are Henry and Callum learning about the trombone.  That is Henry in front and his little brother Callum behind him.

The boys love learning about the instruments and try to guess what they will be for each concert.

Henry decided that he wanted to play the violin and drums, about the same time that he started attending the concerts, and is extremely musical and talented.  I sketched him while he was practicing the violin last month.  And then sketched him yesterday playing the trombone (from a photo that I took on Saturday).

I think that these exercises are fun and important for abstract art - including collage and surface design on fabric.  I still worry that I won't be able to create another 1" square stamp, but as I work I find all new variations.  I rarely work in a series, but marvel at the creative benefits.  This is an open-ended project for me, and I will periodically post the exercises I'm doing.  Posting the exercises is as much for me as readers, to keep me inspired and on track.

 Here are stamps #7- 18

I definitely feel more comfortable carving the stamps with Speedball Cutting Tools and Speedy Carve.  You can see the first Exercise and the initial 6 stamps from Exercise 2 in this blog category http://www.paperandthreads.com/2013/03/another_project_begins_1.php