Paper and Threads

Danny Gregory taught me about comics in his opening week of Sketchbook School 6 - Polishing.  As a child I read about Archie, Veronica, Betty, and Jughead.  In college I read whole books of Peanut comics by Charles Shultz.  In my adult years I read random strips of Cathy and Dilbert.  Our first homework assignment was to draw a conversation as a comic.  I thought about this assignment for a week while all of my ideas were almost instantly rejected.  Then, as a second week began, I realized that the most important conversation was going on continually in my brain - between my Inner Critic and Me.

My Inner Critic is not a Monkey - like Danny's new book tells us (Shut Your Monkey).  Mine has always been an old lady - a very hypercritical old lady and many of the things she tells me definitely are based in comments from my Mother Marge and Mother-in-law Miriam.   My college roommate had a similar Mother named Mildred - so I usually call my Inner Critic Mildred, so my name for her is not so obviously from my own Family. 

I painted my Inner Critic Mildred for an Everyday Matters Challenge in 2009.  It is an old lady, and I called her a bag lady, with a bag full of scripts:  "Not Creative,"  "Not Perfect,"  "No Skills," and "Why Bother?"

Fast forward to 2014 and another painting of Mildred, who says:

"Why do you want to make that?  What are you going to do with it?

You will mess it up, and the whole thing will be ruined.

It will never be perfect, so why try?

You need to look for more information before starting.

Besides, it isn't even an original idea."  

So here is my recent conversation with Mildred in a comic format! 

Panels 1-4

Panels 5-8 

Conversation if it can't be read from my comic: 

Critic: You still haven't done Danny's Homework.

Me: I know.

Critic: What do you know about comics?

Me: Enough.

Critic: You don't have any ideas.  You are not original.

Me: I just need time to think.

Critic: You don't draw well from your imagination.

Me: Well enough to draw you!

Critic: Other Sketchbook Skool (SBS) students are drawing great comics.

Me: Mine will have meaning to me.

Critic:  Will they know who I am?

Me:  Inner Critic.  I call you Mildred for hypercritical Marge and Miriam.

Critic:  I think you are wasting your time.

Me:  I'm playing now.  Thanks for your concern. 

Our second homework assignment was to draw "a day in our life" as a comic. 

I love the Sketchbook School homework assignments and after fighting my Inner Critic when I'm out of my comfort zone, I do them.  All except the original poster assignment from Jean-Christophe Defline.  I'm still  battlling Mildred about that one. 

All of the illustrations in this blog post are now the beginning of a book I hadn't used.  It should be fun to record my inner conversations and get them drawn on paper as a comic.  

Posted by Shirley at 8:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

I went to the morning session of the weekend NYC Urban Sketchers for the second time, and in spite of early drizzle and rain, I really enjoyed sketching Cooper Union.  It is a major historical building in the City and I hope that I can draw their other building which is very modern sometime this summer. 

"The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, established in 1859, is among the nation's oldest and most distinguished institutions of higher education. The college, founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist, Peter Cooper, offers a world-class education in art, architecture and engineering as well as an outstanding faculty of humanities and social sciences. 

Peter Cooper wanted his school to play a role in the political and cultural life of his city and country. The means he chose was the establishment of the Great Hall in the basement of the Foundation Building. It seated 900, the largest secular meeting room in New York and soon after it was opened, and it made history when Abraham Lincoln, an unannounced candidate for president of the United States, and a virtual unknown in New York, was invited to speak there by the Young Men's Republican Union."

https://www.cooper.edu/about/history 

I sketched this across two sections in my most recent handmade accordion watercolor journal, and I love that the previous two are filled with outdoor paintings done with the weekday Urban Sketchers over the last two years.   

This is the current watercolor book.  I used Fabriano Artistico 140 lb watercolor paper for the 8 panel strip and paste paper from my last production for covering the binders board.  I can draw and paint on both sides of every panel.

This is an example of the first and second accordion sketchbooks I filled at Urban Sketchers Weekday sessions. 

Posted by Shirley at 7:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The NYC Urban Sketchers met at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and I saw, and sketched, in the Vigee LeBrun exhibit which closes on May 15th. 

"Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun (French, 1755–1842) is one of the finest 18th-century French painters and among the most important of all women artists. An autodidact with exceptional skills as a portraitist, she achieved success in France and Europe during one of the most eventful, turbulent periods in European history."  She is known as the painter to Marie Antoinette.

http://metmuseum.org/exhibitions/listings/2016/vigee-le-brun 

I sketched a sculpture of her by Augustine Pajou, viewers in front of one of her paintings, and a Self Portrait before the group met for lunch.  I was most struck by the fact that most of the women in her paintings had her face!  The Met has most of her portraits at the link listed above.

I went with my artist friends to see the Andy Warhol exhibit at the Morgan Museum and Library, which also closes on May 15th.  I don't care if I ever see any more of his silk screen art, but I love his work as an illustrator - especially his blotted line drawings which I wrote about during his exhibit last summer at MoMA. 

"Andy Warhol’s fascination with publishing and the art of the book was lifelong—rooted in his artistic training as a college student and early career in advertising, fashion, and commercial illustration. For close to forty years, books were a touchstone for Warhol—a medium to which he returned again and again as a platform for his unparalleled creativity. He contributed to more than eighty projects for books and left traces behind of dozens of others that were never realized."  

http://www.themorgan.org/exhibitions/warhol 

I sketched one of his illustrations, but I'm also posting my illegal photo of my very, very favorite painting.  It was an illustration from a Katherine Ann Porter book called Old Mortality.  Many of his drawings/illustrations are best seen on a Pinterest Board.

https://www.pinterest.com/cihastings/art-andy-warhol/ 

This ink and watercolor painting is called Figures Roller Skating (1946-47).  The lines are so amazing and the colors so rich.  I haven't found an image of it yet online. 

Posted by Shirley at 9:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Pat and I met at MoMA for an informative lecture on Degas' current exhibit in the morning and then went downtown for our first visit to the Center for Italian Modern Art (CIMA).  The current exhibit is on Italian artist Giorgio Morandi (born Bologna1890-1964), which opened last Fall and will end on June 25th.  In my college modern art course textbook (John Canady Mainstreams of Modern Art) he is described as "painting a few ordinary bottles and bowls, combined and recombined in picture after picture, yet without monotony...."

Morandi Self-Portrait:  1930 

I first saw Morandi's paintings at the Met in 2008.  I knew nothing about him as an artist, and wasn't really sure how I felt about his obsession with painting rows of bottles and other similar vessels.  Last Fall, we visited David Zwirner's Gallery in Chelsea and I had a new appreciation of his paintings.  Following that visit, our friend Judy told us about the Center for Italian Modern Art, and it took Pat and I until now to visit there. 

CIMA is located on the 4th floor at 421 Broome Street and you need to make reservations for guided tours on Friday and Saturday afternoons.  Our tour guide was an Italian research fellow at CIMA and she was amazing!  Behind her are photos taken by Joel Meyerowitz in Morandi's Studio in Italy.

We were shown into the kitchen and served espresso or coffee - in Pantone color cups which I loved. 

As we walked around the lovely galleries, I sketched one bottle each  from some of the paintings and painted them when I got home. 

This view of his Studio/Bedroom raises many questions in my mind about him as a person.  We know that he lived with his 3 sisters in Bologna until his death.

One last photo - taken from the window in the CIMA Library - of a neighboring rooftop.  I'd love to draw and paint this for a glimpse into our big city life.

Posted by Shirley at 10:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Neue Galerie currently has an exhibit of Edvard Munch and his influence on German and Austrian Expressionists, including Beckmann, Heckel, Kirchner, Nolde, Kokoschka, and Shiele, among others.  It is a wonderful exhibit and we followed it with a visit to Galerie St. Etienne which is exhibiting Ernst Ludwig Kirchner drawings and watercolors.  Pat, Eunice, and I were enthralled with the art seen and each selected a few things we wanted to remember.

http://www.neuegalerie.org/content/munch-and-expressionism-0 

This painting by Munch is entitled Two Human Beings: The Lonely Ones.  I was struck with the simple separation of figures which demonstrated the emotion of loneliness.  I was inspired to draw a simple version of this painting, and long thin figures from a woodcut by Otto Mueller.   

I spend lots of time doing figure drawings, and I'm very interested in how the Expressionists distort figures.  I've drawn Schiele and at this exhibit I wanted to remember Mueller's figures from a complicated woodcut - so I only sketched the figures, not the complicated black ink background in The Boy with Two Standing and One Seated Figure.

At Galerie St. Etienne, Kirchner's drawings were VERY loose, so I decided to sketch two of his more defined images - one a litho and the other almost a single line drawing.   

http://www.gseart.com/gse-pages/Current_Exhibition.php

I recommend both of these exhibits for anyone interested in Expressionism.  Norwegian Artist Edvard Munch is definitely more than just the painting and woodcuts of The Scream. 

Posted by Shirley at 3:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)