Paper and Threads

Annabelle is visiting us in NYC for 10 days, and her Manhattan cousin Zachary joins us for some of the adventures. 

Tuesday:  Walking to the Metropolitan Museum of Art with their backpacks containing art supplies.  They loved walking through the Greek and Roman sculpture hall in the Met, on the way to the Egyptian wing to see William the Blue Hippo - mascot of the Met.  They were very interested in the Egyptian Wing and Annabelle wanted to see one sphinx, and actually saw many.   

Sitting facing the Temple of Dendur for a quick sketch.

I sketched with them, and added all of our entrance stickers to the page.

We went up to the Roof Garden to see the current summer art exhibit, and neither of them even realized there was an open roof top exhibit area on the museum.    The City Skyline, looking south to midtown is impressive.  After the Roof Garden we had lunch, went to look at the Fish in the Astor Court, and then ended the day in the Nolen Library so they could explore the children's computer terminals.

Thursday:  Annabelle wanted to paint today before we went to buy new art supplies.

She painted a red fox to take home to her best friend.

Posted by Shirley at 7:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wagner Park Flowers last Wednesday morning.  A quick search of Hydrangea images and information suggests these belong to the category lacetops.  I also sketched a cone flower and an unknown.

I explored the Florine Stettheimer exhibit at the Jewish Museum on Thursday and was more interested in the history of this Victorian painter and her family, than the paintings.  The early paintings had a more interesting range of values and compositions.  This is the self-portrait I chose to copy, as I continue to practice facial features.

Posted by Shirley at 7:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Prime Time Tour:  With guides Danielle and Jenny (Danielle:  An intern for 2016-2017, Jenny -Assistant Curator who worked on plans for this exhibit for 4 years!) .   Robert Rauschenberg and Friends is this summer's huge exhibit at MoMA.  It covers the entire 4th floor of the museum.  Last week I attended gallery talks, each for two hours on Tuesday and Thursday, which were part of the MoMA Prime Time experience.  As we sat in front of the art works I quickly realized that I wouldn't be able to sketch any of the selected works, so I sketched our guides Danielle (an intern at MoMA) and Jenny (an assistant curator for the exhibit).

Prime Time is a special program for seniors, which includes both art history and art skills programs.  It is so popular that you must be on their mailing list and register quickly when the programs are advertised by email. 

I like some of Rauschenberg's work, specifically his silk screen and collage works, but I knew almost nothing about him.  What I learned was that he was most interested in (1) exploring techniques in art, pushing them in new directions and (2) establishing lots of collaborations for his art, including other artists, writers, dancers, composers, and even engineers.  This is a link to the exhibit, and there are some good short videos.

https://www.moma.org/calendar/exhibitions/3634?locale=en 

Posted by Shirley at 11:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I love the free adult art program sponsored by the Battery Park City Conservancy from May through October.  On Wednesday mornings I stop briefly in Wagner Park to draw individual flowers in bloom.  Maybe someday I will grow to like painting landscapes.

Wagner Park iris variant:

Multiple Flowers in Bloom this week:   

In the afternoon I go to Figure Drawing sessions which are held in South Cove, also in Battery Park City.

Short Poses (5-10 minutes):

Longer Poses (10-20 minutes): 

On the hottest days in NYC, there is always shade and a lovely breeze in the afternoon.   

Posted by Shirley at 11:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I like to draw sculpture when I am in art exhibits, and recently sketched several sculptures, and then painted around them in my sketchbook, leaving them as single line drawings.  Henry Moore made many Mother and Child sculptures and I love all of them.  This small one was in the Impressionist and Modern Auction at Christies, estimated selling price $70-90,000. 

Argentinian artist Adrian Villar Rojas created this year's Met Rooftop Garden this summer.  He spent months at the Met collecting nearly 100 pieces of art from various parts of the world and different centuries.  Each was then resized, recreated by 3D printing and other similar techniques, and combined with large human figures in many combinations.  Each piece was painted with multiple layers of car paint to protect them outdoors. As I understand it, he is representing art that is now no longer in context and deconstructing the Museum by the combinations created creating a labyrinth. 

http://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2017/adrian-villar-rojas 

I liked one of the black sculptures which included a recumbent Indian youth and multiple small female figures on and around him.  Here are three of the figures I really liked.   

Posted by Shirley at 10:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)