Paper and Threads

 There is a new Superheroes Exhibit at the New York Metropolitan Museum of Art - part original movie costumes and part fashion from the major designers inspired by the Superheroes.  My grand daughter Sydney and I saw it Saturday morning when we went to play with the Museum computers in the Education Center and she loved Clark Kent who morphed into Superman - and then back to Clark Kent, so we had to go back with brother Henry the next morning.  They were so cute - such little people in that big Museum.  All of my grandchildren learned how to walk better in the Temple of Dendur and regularly throw pennies into the pools there and the fountain in the new Greek and Roman Galleries.  This is one of the easiest and most enjoyable ways to spend time with them when they are staying with us during really cold or awful weather in the city. 

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I had a wonderful relaxing day and can add my daily sketchbook page today when it was done rather than waiting to upload it tomorrow.  Today my sketchbook is more a visual journal because I had a leisurely lunch outdoors across from the Jefferson Market Courthouse between ordering a camera at B and H and browsing and buying art books at The Strand.

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I debated whether to participate in this challenge again this year.  I sketch everyday, but last year in May uploaded each sketch instead of just posting a sketchbook page several times each week.  It definitely was more time consuming and I had to force myself to remain free in my choice of subject each day instead of worrying about "a published piece."  I finally decided that it might be good for me to again post each day's journal page - they certainly are reflective of a very eclectic art interest and maybe I can break through the "performance anxiety" a little more.

Yesterday I painted a sketch of a townhouse that I love.  You can see it from one of the upper floor exhibit galleries on the north side of MoMA - and it is breathtakingly beautiful nestled among two rather plain and uninteresting buildings.  I sketched it from the MoMA gallery window earlier this year in my daily Moleskine watercolor sketchbook and posted it with sketches from several museum visits.  But I wanted to have a sketch in my NYC "travel" sketchbook as well.  The first sketch was done "live" and very quickly.  The second was done from several photos that I have.

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I periodically love to walk and sketch random things - in ink - building up a sketchbook page.  Last week I did several pages like this - just for quick fun and memories. 

The first page was done while I wandered through many bead stores in the Garment District with a friend.  I loved some of the designs.

We picked Robbie and Sydney up at Nursey School on Friday and took them to the Central Park Toy Boat Pond to play.  There were many remote control sailboats on the pond so I sketched one as it passed by.  Sydney found a one inch rubber charm of a summer "flip-flop" and she played with it for part of the afternoon.

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I found this challenge to be really hard because of the perspective that I chose.  There is much too much detail on the facade of my brick and granite 16 floor New York City apartment building and decisions needed to be made about how detailed I wanted to make the sketch.  I definitely chose not to make the upper section bricks part of my sketch.  I'm in awe of artists who can sketch and paint entire brick facades!! 

I share my house with many other families as I live in a 16 floor New York City apartment building.  In Manhattan parlance, these buildings are either "pre-war" or "post-war," i.e. WWII.  Our building was built in the late 1920s and I was able to locate advertisements for it in the archives of the New York Times.  Our architect, who was doing bathroom renovation, also found a piece of a newspaper that was buried beneath the bathtub in the master bedroom bathroom, so we have proof of the date when it was under construction.  I also located and printed the 1930 census pages for the building and now have several very interesting pages about the occupants at that time.  At the same time I printed out the 1930 census for the building 2 of my 3 children live in - showing Babe Ruth living there with his wife's family.

I will have to try it again from across the street so I can sketch it straight-on and concentrate more on the actual structure.  My stimulus for this might be to make notecards that I can use for the notes that I never get around to writing!  

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This is the wonderful used book store where I find my perfect-sized $1.00 books for recycling.  It is a lovely bookstore - well organized and cozy.  There is a cafe and tables for browsing and reading - and 3 carts always loaded with their oldest and most unloved books for $1.00.  All proceeds go for AIDS research and support.  My favorite that I purchased this week was Parnassus on Wheels - a short novel by Christopher Morley - complete with lovely ink illustrations.  Of course I had to read the entire book as soon as I got home. 

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This past Wednesday I was completely free to play - no work or other scheduled activities.  So I headed off for Soho for a visit to Pearl Paint and some of the galleries in the area.  I only had several items on my art supply list, but I always love browsing at Pearl.  It has one below ground floor and 5 above ground floors.  This trip I purchased watercolor paper for my next recycled book and several pencils, but seriously wondered if I should begin to invest in some 5ml tubes of Schminke watercolor paints since there seems to be so much enthusiasm for the brightness of their pigments.  Each 5ml tube (1 tsp) is $12-15 so I would only start with 3 primary colors - but then I wondered if they should be cool or warm primaries since I use both to mix colors with my Winsor-Newton paints.  So I didn't get any.

Gallery-hopping is always one of my favorite activities in Soho, even though many/most galleries relocated to Chelsea and on Wednesday I was not disappointed.  I discovered several new artists and saw lots of "eye-candy."

This sketch was done from a photo I took of Pearl Paint from the other side of busy Canal Street.  It is much too cold right now in NYC to work outdoors - especially in my shearling mittens.  It is on "rough" watercolor paper which I now know I hate!  But when I recycled my NY State Tax Book last year I filled it with many types of paper so I could decide what I preferred.  It didn't take me long to settle on HP 140lb paper. 

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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 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.  The Galleries for 19th- and Early 20th-Century European Paintings reopened on December 4th after renovation - so 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 am concentrating on sketching figures again in 2008 - with faces - so this seemed like a good painting to revisit again and again.  Please don't let them move the bench from in front of the painting!  Pen and paints aren't permitted in the Met, so I took a photo and plan to paint it soon.

We visited the Museum of Modern Art with out of town house guests several weeks ago and while my husband toured the 5th floor Painting and Sculpture I exhibit with them, I spent 25 minutes sketching.  I love the view from a window in the Picasso room on the 5th floor of MoMA of the top floors of a townhouse across W54th Street - and have many photos of it that I took during previous visits.  This time I spent 15 minutes sketching it - again in pencil because of museum rules.  Yesterday I found a full charcoal drawing of the same house in Drawing magazine (Winter 2008).  Artist Anthony Mitri wrote that his drawing of the house and surrounding buildings took 6 months!  I will redraw this house soon and try to do it justice. 

After sketching from the window, I did a quick sketch of Cezanne's painting "Turning Road at Montgeroult."  I love views of rooftops and always was attracted to this painting in the permanent exhibit.  I painted it at home in several sessions trying a yellow underpainting and mixed complementaries for the color of the houses and roofs.  Watercolor and oil paints give very different results, but I had fun with this and I think learned a lot from copying his composition.

This week I made a quick visit to the Morgan Library and Museum to see their current exhibit entitled Michaelangelo, Vasari, and their Contemporaries: Drawings from the Uffizi.  I chose a simple drawing by Baccio Bandinelli to copy and except for the tilt of the head managed to capture the rest of the lines and the type of shading used.  This drawing was a study for his Hercules sculpture that is opposite Michaelangelo's David in front of Palazzo Vecchio in Florence.  There were many other wonderful drawings, but it was crowded and I had to select one that I might copy quickly enough while standing and trying to manage sketchbook, pencil, bag etc.

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Today I had an hour to go back to the Eternal Ancestry exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art to sketch the wonderful faces on these Reliquaries.  They are 1-2 feet in height - some are full figures, but most are just heads on a standard base.  They are mostly earthcolors with some gold, bronze, silver, and even feathers. 

I walked through with my Moleskine watercolor notebook and walnut brown Albrecht Durer watercolor pencil and just sketched pieces that I really liked.  The digital photo image below shows all of the faces across a double page spread in the Moleskine.  I originally intended to add water, but then started using the pencil for small details meaning these strokes would be lost if I painted over the pencil. 

Here is the first page in more detail  (scanned):

      Here is the second page in more detail (scanned):

I wasn't at all sure what would happen if I sprayed these pages with Fixative, so I sketched another page with another mask and tried it.  There was no running or smearing of the color - and in fact I couldn't get the pencil to rewet so I could add color. 

The exhibit doesn't close until March 2nd, so I hope to have time to sketch more of these beautiful 19th and 20th C. sculptures from Central Africa.

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I had a completely free day on Wednesday - no work or family activities - or required errands.  For a full week I've been planning a slow leisurely trip to Pearl Paints on Canal Street in Manhattan.  Since I have not carried my recycled NY sketch book with me recently, I brought it and no other paper, 

As soon as I got off the subway I decided to sketch a roofline and water tank - one of my favorite NYC icons.  Then I browsed all 6 floors of Pearl Paints - picking up art supplies for my grandchildren and small new items for me (they have open stock Albrecht Durer WC pencils I can't resist).  I think I was in there more than 3 hours!  At lunch at Pain Quotidienne in Soho, I sketched a few of my new supplies and then a wall unit facing me in the restaurant.  What a wonderful day - full of inspiration and needed mind clearing relaxation. 

The map that is on the edge of each page is a piece of the end paper that I used for this recycled book that I used to cover the gap between the signatures.  The two pages were actually sketched on two different types of wc paper - I'm growing to love HP, tolerate CP, and hate rough!

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Progress Report for 2007: 

I copied my Goals from the 2006-2007 Progress/Goals entry on this blog and recorded 2007 PROGRESS after each Goal.  I am currently reflecting on where I am and where I want to be at the end of 2008, so my 2008 GOALS will be posted this weekend.

1. Continue to sketch/paint everyday in my large Moleskine watercolor sketchbook.

 I did do a daily sketch - and sometimes 2-3.  On a few days when I was too busy to even open my sketchbook, I did my daily sketch the next morning and then another one at my usual time in the evening.  The majority of my sketches are pen with watercolor washes.  Most of the time I used the large Moleskine watercolor journal (I'm halfway through the 5th for the year), but I also added sketches to my London sketchbooks and all 3 recycled books that I made. 

2. Complete each EDM weekly challenge and try to expand my skills by what I choose to paint for the challenge.

For the second year, I did all of the EDM Challenges in the 3-10 days after they were posted and tried to stretch my skills slightly by what I chose to sketch.  I posted all of them on my blog, as one of my planned 2 entries per week.

3. Make plans for how I will use my new Eliz. I recycled book.  I'm currently considering using it for more London sketches -  from photos that I have taken during our visits.  I have another Cachet journal for my London Travel Sketchbook Volume 3 and decided that I want to continue to use the same journal type for all of my London travel. 

I completed 3 full Cachet Linen Watercolor sketchbooks during our London travels.  There are approximately 150 pages in total from our 6 visits to London - my goals certainly were exceeded and I will always treasure these books.  One sketch that I never posted was added as the final page to honor the birth of our grandson last Christmas in London.  This sketch was made using colored pencil from a postcard I purchased at the Guercino drawing exhibit we saw at the Courtauld Gallery at Somerset House.

My Eliz. I recycled book has been used for playful sketches of Big Ben and most recently the Tower of London from photos that I took - using different techniques, even collage.  If you look closely you can see I used the Holbein Henry VIII painting from the Tate Britain exhibit for the collage.

4.  Recycle another book since I have more paper from my previous purchase.  This time I will look for an old New York book that I can use for special days out and about my own city.

I recycled two additional books - one for New York and one Michaelangelo Sonnet bookfor some of my figure drawings.   

5.  Spend more time sketching human faces and figures.  I'm not sure yet whether I want to take any life drawing classes because I love the challenge of learning on my own.  I collected some copies of Holbein's portraits and Rodin's figure drawings from our museum visits this week.  And I now own two Hockney drawing/portrait books.  I will recreate some of these pieces from the 16th C, 19th C, and 20th C for fun and then immerse myself in my city and draw people to try to develop my own style. 

I was very productive sketching figures - or body parts - and almost filled my recycled Michaelangelo Sonnet book for some of the sketches and my Moleskine for the rest.  I alternated among Derwent light wash pencils, Albrecht Durer watercolor pencils, Zig Millenium pen with watercolor wash, and 2B pencils for the sketches. 

My references included:  Greek and Roman sculptures at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, photos of dancers, photos of nude figures from an artist book  I purchased just for these exercises (The Nude Figure by Mark Smith), and occasionally even real people!  But very few of my figures have faces - a goal for 2008!

6.  Read some of the new art books on my shelf - starting with Betty Edward's book on color.

I continue to read art technique books, but never opened Betty Edward's book.  This year I did 5 lessons from a Watercolor Skills book by Linda Elsworth.  There are 5 more lessons to do, but I was temporarily derailed by a lesson on landscapes, my least favorite type of sketching/painting. 

In May 2007 I decided to finally start an Eric Maisel book entitled The Creativity Book - a year's worth of inspiration and guidance (it has been on my shelf for several years).   There are 2 exercises to complete per week and I am now on Week 31!  I have done some sketching and painting, but mostly writing, as I explore creativity in general and my creative dreams in particular. 

7.  Make a "larger-than-journal size" watercolor painting of the house my daughter and son-in-law rented this year in London so we have a personal visual memory of this wonderful year when they return to New York mid-year.

I did this painting and included it as part of a big "London" Christmas gift that I gave to my daughter and son-in-law.  The gift also included a DVD of all of the photos (1000s) that I took of their family and London and a Guest Book that our family kept everytime we visited them.  I printed some of my sketches for the book and even included an essay re: my reflections on our visits.  I was also able to make a photo collage of them at the moment when they were leaving New York in May 2006 and then leaving London in June 2007.  The children grew lots during the year and and another grandson was born there mid-year.

8.  Be a visitor in my own city and keep a Manhattan "travel" journal.  I now have scattered journal pages throughout my daily sketchbooks. 

I did continue to sketch in NYC throughout the year - and even started a series of sketches entitled "10 blocks from Home."  My New York City sketches, however, are scattered through my New York recycled book and my regular Moleskine sketchbook.  This occurred because I used whatever book I had with me when I decided to sketch.  Since I use both sides of a page in my Moleskine, I can't easily move these sketches - and I just have to be OK about this level of disorganization!

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While my husband and I were preparing dinner for our 15th Annual NYC Family Thanksgiving holiday, cousins were balloon handlers for the giant Snoopy balloon in the Macy's parade.  This sketch was taken from a photo on the front page of the New York Times yesterday - showing the Kermit balloon floating down the Avenue.  We learned that it is really hard work!

Yesterday my 88 year old mother and I took the 5th Avenue bus down to Rockefeller Center to see the Christmas decorations and the annual tree.  Although it won't be lit until Wednesday night, the lights are already on the tree and the entire area around the skating rink is beautifully decorated and full of visitors.  This sketch was made from a photo that I took of one of the 3 soldiers on the north border of the rink.  It was really cold and outdoor sketching just wasn't going to happen!

I love the Christmas decorations in New York City - and even don't mind the crowds.  My, mother, who hasn't been in NYC for the holidays for many years, had a wonderful time.  She's amazing and kept up beautifully!

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I still try to do occasional sketches of Manhattan, as if I am a tourist in my own town.  While waiting to meet my daughter and grandson one rainy day this month, I sketched the National Academy of Art - which is just north of the Guggenheim Museum on 5th Ave.  I also did my first sketch of the Status of Liberty - from a poster - using a Juniper Green watercolor pencil.  The head and the uplifted arm had to be redrawn.  

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We took Henry and Sydney to the Central Park Zoo following the Carousel last week, arriving just in time to see the penguins being fed.  The penguin house is dark - with a climate controlled space for the penguins which means water droplets across the windows.  In addition, they move too quickly for me to draw in the dark - so these were sketched from a few of my favorite photos. 

Every penguin has a numbered tag and the animal feeders have a clipboard with a long list of them. This is to insure that each of them is first fed one "special fish" that is loaded artificially with
their vitamins.

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We took our grandchildren Henry (just 4) and Sydney (2 1/2) to the Central Park Carousel this week.  We arrived just before 10AM so we were able to see it before it started running.  I even took Sydney to see a nice little horse - but there was no way this otherwise adventurous child was going to get on that horse!  So grandma had a ride on a big horse, all alone, hoping to change her mind - but no.  "When I'm bigger" was all she said!  Henry was also very cautious and rode in the cart behind one of the horses with Grandpa. 

Tonight's dinner salad.  I really did have to sketch and paint it before eating.  I wasn't looking forward to this, but like most EDM challenges I'm glad I did it. 

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One of my goals for 2007 is to sketch in my own city as if I were on an exotic vacation.  Manhattan is so large and so varied, from neighborhood to neighborhood, that I will never tire of the scenes.  This is one apartment building on 5th Ave - in the 80s - as seen looking Southeast through foliage in Central Park.  I think these are terraces associated with the penthouse(s), but the roof watertank is also probably housed in one of these structures.

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I went back to the Metropolitan Museum of Art Paul Poiret fashion exhibit again yesterday with out of town friends.  These garments were from the first several decades of the 20th century, but avant garde for their times and still wearble.  The hats were fantastic and rarely seen today, so I chose to sketch the mannequins with the best hats.  I'm still trying to do fast loose, figure sketches, so this was a perfect journal page for the day.   

When I saw the exhibit for the first time I carefully recorded colors and painted the sketch when I got home.  Yesterday I didn't have time to really look at colors, so I'm leaving these as line drawings.

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Casey, Sandy, and I met this morning at 10 and spent the day sketching together in Central Park and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  It is so much fun to meet other EDM members - who you feel like you know from reading their blogs, enjoying their art, and exchanging comments.

 Sandy and I would like to sketch faster and looser like Casey - so we watched her carefully!  The 3 of us will upload our individual journal pages as they are completed - I'm not sure that mine are too different from my normal style as much as I tried.

Here are two photos:  We started at the Toy Boat Pond, moved to Bethesda Fountain, then had lunch at the Central Park Boathouse.  We ended the day on the Sculpture Garden Roof and in the Greek and Roman Galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Left to Right: Casey, Shirley, Sandy.

On the Sculpture Roof at the Met with the NYC skyline behind us:  Shirley, Casey, Sandy

We all sketched random people at the cafe at the Toy Boat Pond, Bethesda Fountain, the Boat House restaurant where we had lunch, a statue in the Greek and Roman Galleries, and an Etruscan Chariot.  However, Casey sketched lots more!  Here are my sketchbook pages, in that order:

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Another visit to the Greek and Roman Galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art with fellow EDMer Paula.  She is returning to Brazil at the end of the month, so this was our last time to sketch together for awhile.  We're both hoping that she will come back to NYC for work - regularly.

There are cases and cases of artifacts that are wonderful for sketching.  The ewer on the left was so beautiful because of the colors.  The funny head on the right is one end of the yoke for a real Roman Chariot - an amazingly beautiful piece.

These are two small terracotta horse heads - even though one of them looks more like a moose without horns.  I love using a colored pencil for these sketches.

I could spend many days in these galleries before even finishing all of the types of artifacts.  

Posted by Shirley at 6:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

It was a beuatiful cool, sunny morning last Sat and I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art rooftop sculpture garden to read for 2 hours(needed to work on the 500+ page book I have for Book Group tonight).  While reading I took approximately 20 minutes to sketch these towers on the building at 74-75th St and used watercolor pencils to add color.  The 4 pencils I used are listed in the paint samples.   It was liberating not to worry about all of the windows - and not to really try to capture all of the architectural detail.  When I enlarged my digital photo on the computer screen at home, I could really see how complex the towers are.

Posted by Shirley at 6:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)

I have lots of trouble staying loose.  Even though I sketch quite quickly, it is too tight and I can become obsessed with detail.  Not that I put too much detail into a sketch, just that I can't seem to sketch it if I can't see it.  I envy those in the EDM group who can stay really loose and capture images of something - this week Casey in Hong Kong, Hashi on her LA city walks, and Gabi on the bus. 

I want to be able to do both - depending on the project.  So this morning I brought my sketchbook and watercolor pencils with me when my husband and I took our grandson to Bethesda Fountain and I forced myself to do just a really loose sketch, add color, and then water - all in < 30 minutes.

I definitely need to have more of these sketching sessions.   Need more practice!!

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May 30th: There is a wonderful wall display of amphoras in the new Greek and Roman Galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  I was really attracted to the composition, the colors, and the shadows.

May 31st:  Big Ben has such an intricate guilded structure around the clock face and I could see the details when I zoomed in on my photo.  I used W and N gold gouache for all of the gold.  This is the second sketch in my Big Ben series in my recycled Elizabeth I book.

This is the final sketch in my "Every Day in May" series.  For me this project was an exercise in uploading my daily sketch rather than doing a daily sketch.  It was time consuming on work days when I was tired.  I also didn't like the slight change in my attitude toward my daily sketch, i.e. I actually had to upload whatever I produced each day.  The major advantage is to have a full months body of work saved on my blog - and it really is eclectic: figure drawing including yoga poses and nudes; museum sketches as I repeatedly visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art; several pages in my recycled books: the 10 blocks series of NYC and Big Ben; and of course the EDM Challenges!

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May 28th: I really like my new book - Nude Figures for Artists - and can probably spend the next year sketching these models without running out of inspiration.  This was a quick sketch done with colored pencil - no faces yet and pretty poor hands.  But those are challenges that I will work on!  Michaelangelo on the left and me on the right.  Again having problems with the rough paper - the model didn't have hairy legs!

May 29th:  I went downtown early this morning to buy a gift for my daughter-in-law who will graduate from Medical School this afternoon!  She will begin her Pediatric Residency in June and we will still babysit their son Robbie on Fridays!  I then continued to walk downtown, through Washington Square, in the direction of Dick Blick.  I stopped for a cup of coffee and did this quick sketch at the SE corner of the park.  The proprietor cleaned and polished his cart the entire time I watched!

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It was a lovely cool morning and I decided that an early visit to the Met was a perfect way to spend the morning.  I stopped at the Southeast Corner for a quick sketch for my 10 Block series of NYC journal pages and to wait for the Museum to open.  At this corner, I sketched just one window of the windows from the Greek and Roman Galleries - and the amorphous stone sculpture that sits among the bushes. 

Inside, I wandered through more of the exhibits in the new Greek and Roman Galleries and saw the chariot for the first time.  I found one more marble figure to sketch and then went to find a small iron hunting dog in another part of the Museum.  I saw it previously and loved the shape.  Unfortunately, the body is longer than my page was wide and I didn't realize it until the end.  I will resketch it from photos so I have a better image.

I sketched the marble figure with a colored pencil and the dog with a Derwent Sketching Pencil (light wash).  I was then able to use my Niji waterbrush to add the gray color to the dog.  I love playing with those pencils!  And they are great for Museum sketching. 

Posted by Shirley at 2:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (6)

  Memorial Day weekend in the US, which means 3 days off work - and beautiful weather.  Many New Yorkers escape for the country or open beach houses.  Others, like us, love the city during the summer - it seems slower and neighborhood restaurants are less crowded. 

Yesterday I did another lesson from my Anne Elsworth Watercolor Skills Workbook:  Painting an all-white still life with a monochromatic color scheme.

Today my husband and I took a late afternoon subway ride to Battery Park - I had NEVER been on the Staten Island Ferry - a free 30 minute ride across New York Harbor.  Here are two pictures that I took from the railing - one on the way out of the ferry slip and the second one as we were returning to Manhattan.  I loved every minute of the ride, including the path past the Statue of Liberty.

After our ferry ride, we stopped for dinner at Battery Gardens - and sat on their outdoor patio overlooking the harbor.  I was able to sketch another table - and also do a 3 minute sketch of one of the huge sailboats that quickly passed our table.

Posted by Shirley at 9:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

 No work today and beautiful sunshine.  My husband and I wandered through a fantastic Picasso lithograph exhibit at Helly Nahmad Gallery and then I stopped 10 blocks from home to add a page to my NYC Journal.  This really interesting little store has a very narrow facade, and is squeezed between two large buildings on E. 78th St.  The large banner attracts attention from Madison Avenue and the very sedate sign next to the gate says that it is a "unique, chic haven for brides." 

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  May 19th:  I sketched my EDM Challenge while at the Metropolitan Museum of Art yesterday on the World Wide Sketchcrawl.  Rocks are a little hard to find in my immediate neighborhood and the weather was too awful to go into Central Park to paint one of the big rocks.  So I painted 3 big rocks that make up the side wall of the Temple of Dendur (15 B.C.E.).  This allowed me to really focus on the engraved drawings - which are wonderful.  There are approximately 5-6 figures down each side of the Temple and I don't think that any two are the same.

May 20th:  I walked 10 blocks from home, looked around, and sketched a small piece of the roofline of the Jewish Museum on 5th Avenue in Manhattan.  There was a man sitting on the one of the benches painting the facade in a wonderfully loose, impressionistic style.  I sat on the curb (because 5th Avenue was closed to traffic) and tried to just capture a little of the essence of the complicated architecture and decoration.  I love the aged copper portions.

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  We spent several hours in Central Park with my son, daughter-in-law and grandson Robbie in celebration of Mother's Day.  The weather was beautiful and the Great Lawn was full of families and softball players.  I sketched the city skyline looking south from the Great Lawn at 86th St.

 I still hate the rough watercolor paper. This sketch was done in my NYC Journal using Albrecht Durer watercolor pencils.  The piece of subway map that is above my sketch is my addition to the journal to cover the gap between signatures.

Posted by Shirley at 7:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

  Today was my monthly Empire Quilt Guild meeting which is held on the 8th floor of Building A at Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT).  I arrived early to meet with my small applique group and while sipping more coffee sketched the view from the window - another NYC rooftop image.  I'm not sure what fascinates me about these water tanks.  If you take a minute to look up in the city, they are everywhere!  And no two structures or rooflines are the same.  This is the back of the buildings on W. 26th St. 

Posted by Shirley at 9:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

  May 6th (but labeled incorrectly as the 7th on my page)

I am starting a series of New York City sketches - when the spirit moves me - probably in nice weather and when I have time to take a walk and sketch without needing to get somewhere.  Since it is hard for me to decide what I want to sketch in this big city, I will walk 10 blocks (1/2 mile) and then select something from the 4 directions that I can see.  Today was "10 block series #1" - and I stopped in a my neighborhood independent bookstore, sat on a bench, and read for awhile along the way.   Only when I reached my destination did I realize that I only had 12 watercolor pencils with me.  This was very liberating and I think the sketch is looser.  I added ink and water when I came home.  My only disappointment is the Arches 140lb rough paper.  I bound many kinds of watercolor  paper in my recycled books so I could experiment and I don't think I'll buy "rough" again anytime soon. 

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    I draw everyday so my commitment for this month is to upload one of my journal pages for every day in the month - which I never previously have done.  This one will be out of order because I wanted to post my EDM challenge today.  On Sunday I'll upload all of the other sketches.

Three "sorta" round wheels:  I was leaving the International Center of Photography exhibit several weeks ago - really inspired by Henri Cartier Bresson's philosophy about impulsive actions, when a red pedicab pulled up to the light as I was crossing 6th Avenue.  The beautiful driver, then sat up and placed her hands on her hips - exuding power and confidence.  I managed to quickly take one photo before the light changed and she pedaled on, but I was fearful about sketching from the photo because I couldn't figure out how to sketch so many spokes on 3 wheels.  I even asked for advice from this group - and sketched "the anatomy of a bicycle wheel "from our bike rack at work.  But, when I saw the magnificent tandem bicycle in the large painting by Ramon Casas at the Barcelona exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, I realized the wheels had NO SPOKES - and I might never have noticed if I weren't obsessing over this photo.  As soon as Karen announced the challenge for the week, I knew I had to do this - without spokes. 

Posted by Shirley at 9:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)

EDM Challenge #116: Draw Something Green:  I searched all week for something green that was interesting and exciting enough for me to use for this challenge.  I gathered up my apartment green objects for my Color Project Green month last year, so I was more interested in finding something in another environment.  Today I went over to the new Greek-Roman Galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City and sketched the south end of the gallery for an hour.  Then as soon as I started to wander around the space, I found wonderful Roman glass from the 1st C. A.D.  This green glass vessel is only 6 inches high, but so beautiful!

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Last weekend (3/16-17) we had freezing rain and snow - precluding even walking because of the winds.  This weekend was much warmer and New Yorkers ran a marathon in Central Park and filled the playgrounds on Sunday morning.  We met our son, daughter-in-law, and grandson in Hippo Playground in Riverside Park.  He loves the slides - and I was warm enough to sketch the hippo sculptures.  There are buds on the trees and the early spring flowers have stems about 4" above the ground.  This is as close as we have gotten to "fresh"  - wonderful fresh air to cure winter cabin fever.

There are two groups of hippo sculptures - that children climb on and adults sit on.  Here are two pictures that I took of the "animals."

Very few New Yorkers even pay attention when I'm sketching, and while I was sketching the hippo head with open mouth, a woman kept talking to her friend and actually put her foot right up into the mouth obscuring my view.  And I was standing not more than 4 feet from her! 

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We visited the Guggenheim Sunday afternoon to see the El Greco to Picasso exhibit before it closes on March 24th.  What huge crowds!  The lighting was wonderful - a combination of light from the skylight in the rotunda and the lights over each painting.  I was captivated by the view across the open center and stood along the balcony to sketch the scene.  I had to reduce the number of people in my sketch in order to really see the paintings.  The half circle in the center of the sketch is an open area overlooking a small adjoining gallery below.

I then quickly visited a few of my favorites in the permanent collection and sketched this small portion of Camille Pissaro's painting Hermitage at La Pointoise.  I love rooftop scenes and ! was looking for something to paint using a single color triad: cadmium red, Winsor blue, and Winsor lemon. 

Posted by Shirley at 8:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (17)

Last Sunday I explored Bryant Park, the space behind the New York Public Library.  A free skating rink and 100 artisan Christmas shops were set up in the park and Christmas decorations were everywhere.  The sky was clear and the late afternoon sun was on the Empire State building and the Chrysler Building.  I sketched and painted both of them, and tonight collaged the wreath that I painted last week on both buildings.  However, I'm not proficient enough in Photoshop to do it digitally, so I cut out the wreath, used restickable glue (like post-it notes) and put the wreath on each building before scanning.

Our family Christmas card each year is a Manhattan holiday design - next year I might be able to make my own. 

Posted by Shirley at 9:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (9)

I have 100s of buttons in my studio from my many, many years of sewing.  When we lived in Texas I bought an old English oak button cabinet to use as a side table, and the buttons that I sketched tonight were some of the lovely metal buttons that came with that table.   Each one has a very intricate design, regardless of how small.   The two largest buttons in this group are 3/4 inch and the smallest is 1/2".

Last Saturday I spent the day between the New York City Garment District and Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) with my new fried and fellow EDM member Paula.  She is from Brazil and currently studying at Columbia.  I have walked past the Garment District sculptures at 40th and 7th Ave many times, but on Saturday joined Paula in taking a few pictures of the large button, needle, and garment worker.  It sometimes takes new eyes to make you see something that is so familiar!  I thought that I would include it as another sketch for the Button challenge.

Posted by Shirley at 10:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (7)

I have never sketched a flag - and was lucky enough to have one in front of a historically landmarked building in my neighborhood in New York City.  I want to do multiple sketches of this beautiful building that was the home of a light opera composer in the early 1900s.  In the 1930 census that I viewed its value was already estimated at $1,000,000 and it is well maintained and now contains several luxury apartments.  I was able to do the sketch while standing in front of the building and then take a photo of the flag when it was blowing to sketch and paint at home. 

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I looked at traffic signs all week as I drove from home to work and back again.  Our streets are very wide and I suddently realized that 95% of the traffic signs  are along the sides of these 4-6 lane city streets and highways.  I never remember seeing half of the signs that I saw when I was patiently looking (and trying not to hit the cars in front of me).   My favorite was the yellow and black sign in the middle of this drawing - on a signpost in front of yellow and black arrows.  An undivided city street suddenly acquires a center median and all traffic needs to move to the right.  If you fail to do so, you plow into the sign and a huge row of black rubber containers!   My second favorite is the "Don't block the Box  - Fine +2 points" sign.  I wonder if our EDM members would have any clue what this sign means?

Posted by Shirley at 2:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Grids were being posted to EDM just as I was leaving to go out on Tuesday - and it seemed like the perfect answer for my daily sketch.  I started at the Metropolitan Museum of Art where I saw the special Ambrose Vollard exhibit and painted Derain's view across the Thames of London and a Cezanne tree from the paintings I saw.  No sketching was permitted in the exhibit - but fortunately I was able to buy postcards of these two paintings.  The garnet and gold eagle is from 500AD - and part of their jewelry collection.  The lion is from the Rembrandt drawing exhibition.

I then took a bus down 5th Ave to the bead district on 37th St. to buy beads and sequins for a group project with my Art Quilt friends.  

Next I walked down 6th Avenue to NY Book Center to get a class chedule in case I decide to take a weekend class in bookbinding (I'm going to blame Jan Allsop and her recycled books for this new interest), and then along W.25th Street to City Quilter to buy  muslin for my next baby quilt (grandchild #4 in January in London).  The Manhattan skyline is their business logo (I colored what is usually just an open line). 

Finally I ended at Talas on W. 20th St. to buy linen thread, an awl, and a bone folder to recycle a book.  I sketched the thread spool, awl, and the book I bought entitled Bookworks by Susan Doggett.

 It was a great way to sketch my day and purchases.

Posted by Shirley at 11:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

I love books and bookstores, and while the big superchains really allow you to browse and read all day, I like the personal selections and recommendations of independent bookstores.   This is one of several in my neighborhood.  I also love specialty food stores, but when I looked at my favorite green grocer/food shop, the facade just wasn't as interesting as I thought.  Too many piles of fruits and vegetables on large shelves across the front and no architectural interest above the level of the awning.

Posted by Shirley at 3:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

When I first read the EDM chalenge, at 5:30 in the morning, I thought that it said traffic light.  So I grabbed my camera when I left for work and took a photo of the traffic light on my corner.  I didn't want to get run over as I stood in the intersection sketching and decided a photo would have to be used.  After I sketched and painted it, I realized that Karen's email said "streetlight".   Since the streetlight is the single pole that holds everything, I sketched it too.  The height has been shortened to make the composition more compact.  There are endless varieties of street lights in my neighborhood (one light or two) and traffic lights (single and fixed to the pole or double and triple and suspended over the intersection on a long arm that is attached to the street lamp pole).  Since this is such a walking city, I also included the Walk - Don't Walk signs that are on the street lamp pole.

Wednesday night I was in mid-town Manhattan and noticed that they have much nicer lights on their poles.  Before this challenge, I never realized that there were regional differences in street lights on the main streets in the City!

Posted by Shirley at 3:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (8)

 

My husband and I take care of our youngest grandchild on Fridays and when weather permits, love to walk him in his stroller to the Boat Pond Cafe in Central Park.  It is just opening most Fridays when we arrive to get our coffee.  This week Park crews had heavy equipment cleaning up mud debris from the Thursday evening thunderstorms.  My grandson, who turned 1 at the end of July, had a wonderful time sitting in one of the big chairs with us, eating snacks, and watching the bright yellow vehicles moving around the walkways.

Moleskine watercolor journal, Pigma micron pens, and mostly Winsor-Newton tube paints.  The base layer of paint copper roof and awning were done with Daler-Rowney viridian from my cylinder travel set.  

Posted by Shirley at 11:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

This week's EDM Challenge is to "go someplace different and draw what you see."  It was a very wet weekend in New York City and my husband and I spent much of both days seeing current exhibits at the Museum of Modern Art (DADA art) and the American Museum of Natural History (Darwin). 

My son Jason had a pet iguana for many years and our family got attached to Pablo (as long as it was living in my son's apartment).  When I saw the iguana from the Galapagos in the Darwin exhibit, I decided that this was as "different" as I was going to get - and it was a good time to do more museum sketching.  I wasn't sure about the rules at AMNH, so I waited to paint it at home. 

Posted by Shirley at 3:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

We live in corner building and I was able to sketch/paint 3 fire hydrants just around the corner - along the side of our building.  The one on the top left stands on the sidewalk right in front of the building, the big one in the middle is on the sidewalk along the curb, and the one on the bottom right is actually on the wall of the building.  Two of them are beautifully polished brass, but I'm still not able to accurately capture reflective surfaces.  Maybe next year!

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I attended my first Sketchcrawl Friday February 3rd.  It was organized by Patti and Danny Gregory at the Rubin Museum of Art which is a new Manhattan museum that features art from the Himilayas.  It's a gorgeous space and the art was inspiring.  I filled 5 pages of images that I abstracted from the paintings, clearly more in my "comfort zone" than sketching the very ornate, small sculptures.  The sketch above was one tiny portion of a very large painting from 17th C. Tibet to which I was drawn because of the stylized clouds.  I did the sketch with a Pigma micron 05 pen and added watercolor washes at home.  I wish that I could have met all of the other artists, and I really wish that I could have seen their work.  Hopefully most of them will post their sketches to the EDM group.

I loved this little fish - created in a transparent orange pigment over a dark background with white highlights.  The same fish appeared scattered around the border of the painting several more times.  I can't wait to recreate him on paper or on silk in a quilt journal page.

Posted by Shirley at 3:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I see this rooftop many times each day, but never previously considered it a scene for sketching.  Although I used only pen for all but one of my sketches in Sorrento Italy (see earlier entries from Moleskine journal), I recently started laying out lines in my sketches in pencil, usually because I had the time to play with lines a little more now than when I was standing and trying to draw in just a few minutes during our trip.  There was a wonderful exchange this week on the Everyday Matters group (and Danny Gregory's Everyday Matters website) about using pen versus pencil/then pen and I decided that I would do this sketch without allowing a pencil to touch the page.  I still have lots to learn about watercolor, but I found this quick sketch to be fun to do.

Posted by Shirley at 10:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)