Paper and Threads

I love the Christies and Sothebys Spring and Fall Impressionist and Modern Auction Previews. These are more of my drawings of sculptures, my current favorite things to draw.  I love Degas' dancers and remember the first time I saw them lined up in a case at the Metropolitan Museum of Art when I was in college.   

Degas Dancer:  Great position. 

Camille Claudel's sculpture with a horse by Marino Marini drawn behind her.

When I see a Chagall painting that is almost unrecognizeable, I draw it.  Nearby was art by Picasso which had these cute doodles at an edge.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone - enjoy your families and be thankful for the good things in life. 

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I have an unexplained need to draw sculptures recently.  Are they more of a challenge, or am I hoping I can take a sculpture class next semester?   Hard to know.  I saw this small Matisse sculpture at the Christies Auction Preview in NYC and sketched a frontal and 3/4 view.  As I was leaving that gallery I saw it from the side and stopped to draw it again. 

Here is the side view and 2 small Henry Moore sculptures.  I sketched them as they looked and then made up the colors!

The art that is on view for the upcoming auctions is hard to imagine.  There are multiple galleries full of wonderful paintings, drawings, sculpture, ceramics and most of these works are going from one private collection to another.  Next Blog Post:  drawings from the Sotheby's Impressionist and Modern Auction Preview.      

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Guess Who Planned a Meetup for Sketchbook Skool Students last Saturday, in Washington Square Park, New York City? 

When I partially retired from Medicine in 2005, I discovered Sketchbook Art and Danny Gregory's Everyday Matters Yahoo Group.  Several months later, I started this blog to interact with other group members, and I now am a student of Sketchbook Skool (SBS), a very professional, online art education program.  Danny and Koosje Koene are the co-developers of SBS and it was fun to finally meet Koosje who was visiting from Amsterdam.

Double Page Sketchbook Painting: It was a cold, but sunny afternoon, and I sketched the Washington Square Arch and then some of the musicians who are always playing in the Park.

Wonderful Concert at Juilliard: That evening my husband and I went to a concert at Alice Tully Hall.  The Historical Presentation Juilliard Students played two Telemann pieces and the Chorale was sung by Yale Sacred Music members.  I started by sketching the first Violin, and then wanted to add the Conductor.  Obviously I left out many musicians and singers.  But there is enough on the page for me to remember the evening and the Baroque horn (of which there were 3) which we had never seen before.

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A group of my friends and I went to Swann Gallery for the previews of their Drawings and Prints Auction last month.  They have important representatives of 19th and 20th century artists, and we all usually draw some of them for practice.  I sketched two of my favorite artists:  Picasso and Matisse. 

Picasso Print Bacchanale:  This was one of several figures on this print, and I loved this guy!

Matissee: Odalisque print which was made based on a an earlier painting of his.  I'm never sure how much I am learning from drawing these pieces, but it is so satisfying.  It was big enough to require more than one page in my sketchbook.

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There is an interesting exhibit at the Folk Art Museum, Lincoln Square, in New York City.  The art is by self-taught artists and all of the items are from the collection of Audrey B. Heckler.  I sketched some of the simple images I liked from the paintings of Carlo Zinelli, Hans Kruski, and my all-time favorite - Bill Traylor (1853 - 1949).  Traylor was a slave, sharecropper, and late in life an untrained artist who painted the world around him in Montgomery Alabama.  The black drawing below is one of his.

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