Paper and Threads

Today my friend Teri and I went to "Figure al Fresco" for the first time.  This is a free art program held by the Battery Park Conservancy from May 1st through October 31st.  There is one model in clothes for 2 hours - and art supplies are provided free.  It is held in a lovely area of the Park, right along the Hudson River and the staff is very professional and attentive.

There were ten 1 minute poses (yikes!), five 2 minute poses, two 5 minute poses, and two 10 minute poses.  A light rain started right before the final pose - 20 minutes - so we gathered our sketchbooks and headed back to the subway. 

This is my favorite 2 minute pose - I always find sitting positions, facing forward, a challenge.  The model wore glasses, and was pulling on a sandal.

Here are the 5 minute poses.  I use a 9B graphite pencil and there is lots of smudging on the page, and even some sketches from the other side of the page are visible.

And the 10 minute poses:

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This exhibit has surpassed all prior exhibit records for the number of visitors, and I can't ever remember seeing lines so long in front of the Met and snaking through the galleries waiting to be admitted to the Galleries.  By mid-July they were reporting a half-million visitors entered the McQueen galleries.  And the last two evenings of the exhibit this week, the Met is staying open until Midnight!

Alexander McQueen (1969-2010) had amazing creativity, even though his clothes were more like costumes than clothes to wear, even for the "fashionistas."  The runway shows for every new collection were spectacles and it is fascinating to see videos of the shows, in the exhibit, along side the clothes and their accessories. 

The Metropolitan Museum of Art website for the exhibit is fabulous and you might enjoy seeing the fashions, the videos, and the quotes from McQueen himself.  I have been several times and even standing shoulder - to - shoulder managed to sketch a few of the garments.  I haven't painted some of the pages yet, but I haven't even decided if I will.

The second garment, the long black coat, is constantly blowing up around the mannequin - a very effective way to show the fullness and construction.

The coat from the garment on the left is made of duck feathers painted gold.  It was designed before McQueen's suicide and was only shown, after his death, to small groups of friends in a very small private venue.  I painted it with gold gouache, but the metallic sheen doesn't scan.  In the gallery there are 5 mannequins dressed in his final designs - and they appear in a large glass enclosed space that represents a huge gold casket.

The garment on the right is from his final runway show - Plato's Atlantis - and the designs were inspired by the fabrics he made.  This one is composed of images from snake skins. My painting really looks very little like the exquisite fabric.

The final two sketchbook pages were done last Friday - and just represent images that I liked.  The second dress from the left was white, with a tan belt around the top.  Then it was painted during the runway show - and you can see the amazing production here in this very short video. It is the 5th video on the page - No. 13 Spring-Summer 1999.

The shoe that I sketched on the upper right is actually a clay mould for ceramic shoes worn by models in the runway shows.  And they weren't even the most extreme shoes that the poor models had to wear!

Hope you enjoy this brief visit - and can appreciate the genius of Alexander McQueen. 

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The models this Thursday at the Society of illustrators sketch night were dressed for the beach - with a parasol, sunglasses, tropical drinks, wraps, and flip-flops.  These were fun accessories to draw and the models were just great.  Nineteen sketches were done, but I'm only uploading several - all of the same model.

These are 2 two minute sketches, a 5 minute sketch, and a ten minute sketch:

I switched to a watercolor pencil for drawing and large sheets of watercolor paper for the 20 minute minute poses and used the time to draw the models and shade and paint the sketches.  This seems like a good way to work with watercolor before I'm ready and able to "sketch" the figures with my brush.  These sketches were photographed because the paper is bigger than my scanner.

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Sketch Night on Thursday night at the Society of Illustrators is a great change because both models are in costume - partial or complete.  This past Thursday was Bastille Day and they both wore French-inspired dresses, very high heels, and wigs.  Props included a baguette, wine bottle and two glasses of wine.

Here are a few 2 min sketches, one 5 min sketch, and one of the 20 minute sketches which was drawn and colored with watercolor pencils.

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The Central Park Drawing and Art Meetup Group met at Grand Army Plaza in front of the Plaza Hotel last weekend and we sketched the Zodiac Heads sculpture by the Chinese artist and activist WeiWei.  There are 12 large heads - arranged in a semi-circle, on tall sculpted poles.  They are really impressive and can be seen until July 15th! 

I decided that I liked the "bull" best and did 3 sketches.

I did the first sketch as a "one-liner" because I love Picasso's bulls and toreadors that were all done with one line.  It was hard.  The second was done with ink and watercolor and the third was a side profile done with pencil.

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