Paper and Threads

My blog post today recounts two museum experiences this week.  The Neue Galerie is exhibiting Egon Schiele drawings and paintings, and I love to draw his figures, even the tortured looking ones.  This figure was drawn over a prepainted page.  When I'm away from home, I use up the extra liquid watercolor paint so I can close the palette by brushing it on sketchbook pages, starting on the last page of my watercolor sketchbook.

At the very beginning of the exhibit I was really attracted to the very clean lines of this portrait of Karl Otten, and went back to try to capture it for myself.   Someday soon I may return to the exhibit just to draw several pages of Schiele hands!

MoMA has a Toulouse-Lautrec Print exhibit that doesn't end until March.  This month they announced twice monthly figure drawing sessions associated with the exhibit and the first model and the props really captured the Café Society that Toulouse-Lautrec loved.  While I was waiting for the session to begin, I made a quick sketch from the artist book on my table on another prepainted page.

I'm posting the first few and last few figure drawings that I did.  The one on the right was a one minute warm-up and the only one I sketched with her form-fitting, one-shoulder black knit dress with very long fringe and black bootie.

In the one on the left you can see her long black gloves and the tulle fascinator she wore on her head.

There were café props - cocktails, champagne, hats, cane, boa to name a few.  These were the last few drawings I did - each not more than 5 minutes.  The Art Educator really structured the experience - and the 90 minutes moved along very quickly.  The museum will continue these sessions twice monthly through March.

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Danny Gregory was the last artist in the 6 week Sketchbook Skool Semester 3 "Storytelling" online course.  He moved from LA to NYC immediately before, driving the entire way.  So his sketchbook tours and demonstrations were all from his cross-country journey.  His parting gift to us was a full PDF copy of his travel journal! 

Our homework was to take a trip, even around our home or neighborhood, and to document it in pictures and words.  My journey was one day in my life - and I have 3 Sketchbook pages for the "trip."

I left my apartment at 8AM, and took a bus and subway to my ballet class.  After ballet, I did a few errands and then took the Subway to the NYC Garment District to meet my daughter who needed advice on supplies to make for her childrens' teachers' holiday presents.  We had lunch on the Upper Eastside and then I returned home - leaving several hours later to go to the Theater District in midtown for a play reading.  Here are the pages - the writing is probably unintelligible!

 The part of Cora Flood was played by Annie Parisi who I really love!

I took Sketchbook Skool Semesters 2 and now 3.  Even though I belong to Everyday Matters, and am familiar with many of the teachers, I find the format of the course incredibly interesting.  This semester I still need to work on homework from my imagination by Mattias Adolphson, A poster or book cover from Jean-Christophe Defline, and drawing bodies in motion like Veronica Lawlor.  These are wonderful challenges for me and should keep me busy until Semester 4.  Can't wait for the announcement of the next theme and lineup of teachers.

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I've been back to MoMA and the Matisse Programs two more times - attending two free workshops set up in the Education Building Studio area.  Elaine Reichek, a New York artist took us through the exhibit briefly, highlighting Matisse's designs for scarves and a tapestry, and then provided us with materials and inspiration to make fabric collages of our own.  I embroidered a felt collage shape that I sketched from Matisse's 1001 Nights (in the exhibit) and then layered the felt collage onto cotton and linen with machine stitching when I got home.  I even fringed the linen and stitched a few pomegranates as Matisse might have done. 

This week I attended a handmade paper workshop sponsored by the Matisse Education staff and presented by Dieu Donne, a NYC-based Studio.  We each made 1-2 pieces of cotton paper and added designs with stencils and pigment, or paper/fabric collage, during the paper making process.  I made one piece and used colored fabrics and pieces of a dictionary page for my collage. 

The ripples around the edge are expected when there are materials that have different rates of drying.  The grayish color is due to the scanning process - they are actually a lovely edge feature.

I was working in the Matisse "Beyond the Cut-Outs" Open Studio after the workshop, just as several MoMA studio staff where adding more fabric pieces to one of the supply bins for us to use.  I was mesmerized by 2 pieces of taffeta and immediately used them as the background for a paper/fabric collage I was making.  The sketches were done previously by me and I just resized them to use for the collage on the copier that is available in the Open Studio.  I machine stitched the layers together at home to finish them. 

Two years ago MoMA had an Open Studio in conjunction with two large Print Exhibits and I was there 8 times over 2 months.  I find that it is pure play  - the materials are not mine, there are many supplies that are inspiring, and color copies of our projects are added to several large boards, in rotation.  I am also working on a series of dancer collages that I posted in Matisse- part 1.  This week I cut up copies of each of them and used them to make another iteration.  What next?  Who knows what will inspire me next week.

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Matisse Cut-outs opened at MoMA in mid-October and it is quite wonderful.  There are several that I've never seen, and many that I'm thrilled to see again.  It is extremely crowded and it is recommended that visitors get timed-tickets online for the day of their visit.  When I was there last Thursday, the line for general admission/timed tickets for 10:30 was already very long by 9:30! 

MoMA has an activity project to accompany the exhibit, much like Print Studio in 2012 when they had two huge Print Exhibits in the galleries.  I loved Print Studio which was open in the education building 6 days each week.  Last week I went to the exhibit in the morning and to the opening afternoon of Beyond the Cut-Out with friends. Here is a description of the activity program.

Opening Day at Beyond the Cutouts:

There were scissors, glue, and many different plain and printed papers to play with and I chose the project inspired by artist Arturo Herrera.  For this I made cut-outs that will be made into a book.  I love Matisse's figure cut-outs, so that was my focus for the afternoon.  Here is a series of 4 I made as a start.  

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 These drawings were done with Tombow Markers and then watercolor.  The first is the Wall Street Bull sculpture, which sits on Broadway in the Financial District.   The sketch was done early one morning, and I was amazed how tourists paid so little attention to me that they literally stepped 12 inches in front of me to take photos of all of their fellow travelers!  In NYC people rarely pause to look at you drawing, but this was a real lack of understanding of personal space!

The second drawing was done at Steps - the place where I take ballet class - from a group photo.  I outlined his pants and suspenders with black Tombow and then tried to tie it all together.  This was clearly play - with mixed results! 

I walk a great deal in Manhattan and I find it difficult to always have my sketchbook with me.  My new idea is to always have plain index cards and a ballpoint pen in the front pocket of my bag.  For those of you familiar with Andrea Joseph's drawings, you can tell I was inspired by her Sketchbook Skool class.  These are ballpoint pen drawings done on the subway, and then cut out and collaged onto a sketchbook page. 

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